Monday, July 16, 2018

Not all is perfection. . . . . . . . .



 . . . . . . . in the summertime garden!


Still have some sunflowers blooming, mostly the smaller ones - this spray
 of flowers is actually on one main stem and is beautiful. . . . . . and still
intact today!


Deer enjoyed a late night dinner out on Saturday!  
Sunday morning brought a few choice words from me when I found they had
 attacked the sunflowers and left a trail of petals, seeds and broken heads 
around the front garden! You can see how thick and tough those large stems are,
  however something chewed right through them to get the flower heads to fall to
 the ground, where 'it' (or perhaps 'they') had a real feast.




I stuck the larger heads into the bench seat. . . . . . . . . . . 


. . . . . . . and noticed this young male cardinal enjoying breakfast today!

Note: only one of the two heads remaining - wonder if the deer returned in the 
night and dragged the other one away.


On another subject, the squirrels are busy and hungry in the heat and I saw this little
one yesterday scuffling around for seeds under the bird feeder. Couldn't get a good photo, 
but noticed it has a deformed left front paw - it's there but turned backward. The little one
 still manages to dig, eat, and jumped up on the birdbath for water, thankfully.

FYI:  The green leaves are also sunflowers - growing naturally from the seeds
 dropped by birds!


Another member of the family who enjoy our garden looks really healthy
and loves the suet feeder.  We try to use mostly non-melt suet cakes at this 
time of year - the regular ones are so messy to deal with in this intense heat.

As for this year's fig crop, not sure what's happening. Hundreds of little 
green fruits fell to the ground while we were up north, perhaps from lack
of water. Now they seem to be hanging on and perhaps there will be
some to pick later. . . . . . . but none are ripe yet.



As for chores such as weeding, sometimes a weed comes up in just the perfect place. 
Another thing to ponder upon for lack of anything more pressing in the heat of the
midday sun! 


8 comments:

  1. Oh how sad for you to lose those beautiful sunflowers. Those naughty deer!!! I would cry! Glad that little squirrel still can get around OK. And a red cardinal!! I love him, my favorite. How I wish we had them in the Pacific Northwest. Stay cool! It has been very hot here this week.

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  2. I didn't realise that deer ate sunflowers. But then again, why not? I'm sure they're very tasty treats for them.

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  3. I am sorry about your sunflowers. I just did a garden disaster post too!

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  4. Sorry about your sunflowers. Been there too. If the deer didn't get ours it was the squirrels. I wouldn't have minded so much if it were the birds.

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  5. Well, at least your sunflowers made someone (deer or not) happy, isn't that something :-)

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  6. Aw, I have a little angel head like that in my garden! Sunflowers are such a glorious yellow, and I'm sorry to see what the deer did to them. What fun to have a cardinal and a squirrel in the garden though - I'd love both of them here. Fingers crossed for some nice figs.

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  7. Your photos are beautiful. As always. I love sunflowers and the cardinal enjoying the seeds on the seat is just beautiful.

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  8. I love seeing the little critters, and birds in your garden. Sorry the deer at your sunflowers.

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