hollows for swallows

The daily rain stopped and the sun finally came out.

The heat has been pretty unrelenting and has sapped my energy, but I have to keep moving.  Big changes here!  The back of our house (dining room and two covered porches) has been completely torn off. 

Everything that was in the dining room is now cluttering the kitchen and living room, and I'm forever wiping drywall dust from countertops and floors.  It's a cacophony of hammering, drilling, and banging doors all day long.  And it's not limited to the house...Todd and I spent hours pulling the tack room down in the barn this week.

We probably have another month of construction between the two spaces...phew!  At least we had some company in the barn.  A pair of nesting barn swallows watched us work.  Since the entire barn will be cleaned, insulated, and enclosed, I am sincerely hoping those babies have already hatched.  The nest would be nearly impossible to relocate. 

A black snake, too, has taken up residence.  They're great at keeping down the rodent population, but poor Todd!

Watching the birds at the feeders is a nice pleasure...

...and I still get a good scolding if I venture down to the pond.

It's worth it, though, to see what's going on there!

I'm very slowly getting my office put together.  At least my desk is up.  I get about 1/3 of the space...the cats seem to get the rest.

I keep a pair of binoculars next to my computer so I can see into the barnyard.  Just in the past week I've seen deer, wild rabbits, a woodchuck, and even a pair of turkeys!

The rain has been great for tracking wildlife in mud outside, too.

Mostly, though, I try to follow the cats' example and rest when I can.

Have a great week!

Shrew-d Moves

The dust has been flying around here lately!  While Todd is working on installing a subfloor upstairs...

...I have been discovering my unexpected love of wallpaper installation.  Pre-pasted, paste the paper, paste the wall...I have all of the types, and I am greatly enjoying them all.  Upstairs, I have a nature-themed paper...

If you look closer, you can see the blackberries, foxgloves, rabbits, and hedgehogs.  LOVE.

Because of the odd angles of the slanted walls and tiny doorways, I'm doing a lot of cutting and pasting to keep the patterns straight.  It's just like working a puzzle and therefore, right up my alley!

Downstairs, we've got rabbits in the bathroom...

...and the kitchen is nearly done.  It was tiled last week...

...and I spent at least 2 full days with the wallpaper.  There were so many little nooks and crannies around the sink that had to be custom cut.  But I absolutely adore the wallpaper, even though it's not quite an exact match to the trim.  Close enough.  It's hard to get a good picture in this early morning light, but you get the idea!  It's a William Morris pattern from 1876. 

We installed a new snail door knocker, whose long antennae will poke out an eye if you aren't careful.  We're going to cut those down a little bit and possibly replace the entire door.  A name plaque has been ordered to cover the hole left by the previous (personalized) door knocker. 

I've sanded down all of our cheapo '70s hollow core interior doors...

...and am in the process of installing beadboard and painting.

It's going to be a busy couple of weeks, because we will be moving in the rest of our things from storage after the floor is laid down upstairs.  I'll be so glad to have my craft supplies back, though.  And framed wall pictures, and summer bedding, and the list goes on. 

I've squeezed in some outside work, completely filling the newly-created front bed with perennials from an amazing sale I found last week.

The plants are severely pruned here, but hopefully they'll give a good show in late summer and certainly next year.

I had some nice company in the garden while I worked.  At first I thought I was seeing moles...

...but they were so much quicker than moles, and they were eating fallen seeds from the feeders.  Moles are insectivores and don't eat seeds.  I did a little research and discovered that we have a few SHREWS!  My photo at bottom, versus the confirmed shrew picture at the top.  

Shrews are SO interesting.  Their hearts can beat up to a thousand times per minute, and they are understandably voracious eaters.  If they miss a meal, they can die (I've experienced this problem myself, as Todd can attest)!  Shrews are also venomous and a single shrew has enough venom to kill 200 mice!  Humans are too large, though, to experience anything more than pain from a shrew bite.  There are endless YouTube videos about shrews fighting (and defeating) snakes, scorpions, frogs, chipmunks, and many other creatures.  Theodore Roosevelt kept a pet shrew and noted, "Certainly a more bloodthirsty animal of its size I've never seen!" They have pointy, red-tipped teeth (red because of iron deposits)...talk about an appropriate look! 

(photo credit John Rochester, Flickr)

Yes, they tunnel, but they also eat a great deal of garden pests.  For the moment, I'm glad to have shews around!

I spent hours and hours weed-eating around the perimeter of the barnyard last week.  It was nice to see the white barn again...it had been half-covered with weeds...but we've just been too busy to get back there and get the work done. 

Now we can see some of the fencing that has to be replaced next year!  This is one of the worst areas, but at least we aren't needing to keep anything fenced in right now.

While plowing through 6 ft tall weeds, I nearly destroyed this tiny nest, even though I'd tried to be intentional about going slow and giving lots of "notice" for wildlife (mainly snakes) to move along.

Thankfully I stopped in time, but I was worried that I'd removed its protective cover.  The nest was still about 2 feet off the ground, but was completely exposed.  I've been checking it, though.  On weeding day, there were 2 eggs.  A week later, there are four!  I'm excited to watch this spot for new babies!

Borga is enjoying our brief moments of sunshine during this rainy spell...

...and the cats are passing through our noisy construction time by staying close and taking lots of naps.

They'd better get used to it, though.  Many months of construction ahead.

Have a great week! 

Fluffle Kerfuffle

The red-wing blackbird babies are gaining independence and feeling adventurous...

...sometimes.  They come to our front feeder at least three times a day and bawl piteously to be fed, wings flailing and mouths agape.  They are loud! 

 We've also enjoyed discovering a fluffle (I'm happy to learn that delightfully apt word for a group of rabbits) out by the back barns!  I've seen up to six rabbits hopping around back there...

...or making their leave, especially if I've come too close and spooked them.

We've been back in the barn area a lot, working.  The gravel is down...

...and Todd and I worked together for hours, clearing chin-high weeds away from the chicken coop with a scythe I helpfully named Slythe (of Thundercats fame).   

Ugh, it's awful!  The coop predates the house by at least 50 years.  We burned an old doghouse, brush, and tree limbs, and that coop is next on the list.  What an eyesore! 

At least we had company (a red-bellied woodpecker!) while we worked.

I'm also happy to note that a nesting pair of indigo buntings are occupying our back space.  They have the most beautiful song! 

Another happy discovery:  wild honeysuckle.  Yes, it's invasive.  But since it's well out of reach in the middle of a huge briar patch, I figured I'd just clip the edges and enjoy.

Honeysuckle vine lasts for several days in a vase, and once it starts to droop, it's easy to replace with more tendrils from the yard!

Our front field is full of ox-eye daisies.  I decided to dig up about 30 of them to transplant in the front flower bed.

They're perennial so I hope they take off.  Meanwhile, other things have been blooming.

There are lots of 'rules' about flowerbeds, like height and texture considerations, and color...never plant pink and orange together, for example.

I'm not much of a planner, though, when it comes to flowers.  I plant things where they fit, and if I don't like them, I dig them up and put them somewhere else.  Easy!  

Inside the house, Todd is still working away on the floor upstairs, and the cats are still supervising...at least during their waking hours.

Have a great week!