Why I Oughta...

My middle child is my gardening partner.  She has created a little garden of her own in the backyard and each time I take her to the nursery, she's picking up a plant or two to add to her little patch.  She's 'getting to know' some of these plants.  Some work, some won't.  The last time we went to Northwind Perennial Farm up in Wisconsin, she came home with this cool Lamb's ear .  This trip, she bought a few different things including this Spike Speedwell below.  The sign - you can see it in the photo below- calls this Veronica 'White Wanda' Spike Speedwell.  But....I can't find anything called White Wanda out there on the Web.  Plenty of 'White Wands' like this one at Walter's Garden .  But...maybe this is a Northwind creation - they named themselves?  ( Being a Marvel family, I'm not going to lie:  the name White Wanda kinda was a draw here... ) The sign above talks about this being a 'perfect height' for behind low-growing

Back in January, I mentioned that we had a big, beautiful Northern Flicker visit our feeders but I was unable to get a useable photo of the bird for the blog.  I posted about it anyway .  Welp, fast-forward a month and guess who's back?!  The Northern Flicker.  And why do I know?  The yellow flight feathers are a tell-tale sign.   Also, the size.  Check out this guy in the photo above and how his body is dominating the suet cage in terms of size.  He's much larger than the other woodpeckers who visit our cages and feeders.  Mark it down, dude.  Northern Flicker.  See the yellow in the photo of him taking off below to confirm:

We have had a few new visitors to our feeders recently and they're all colored gold.  Or yellow.  They're American Goldfinches and you can see one of them in the photo above.  We have both - what I think are - males and females.  Males with a much more striking gold and the females with their winter plumage.  I snapped the photo above out of kitchen windows one morning recently.  And we knew what it was immediately.  But we went to the Field Guide anyway.  Here's the listing for the American Goldfinch below: The one you see above is at our squirrel-proof feeder that I've filled with thistle seed.  Let's call this one the fifth species that we've documented as part of our [ backyard bird visitor's log ] here on the blog. The other four from this Winter/Spring: Red-bellied woodpecker House Sparrow Male and Female Cardinals White-breasted Nuthatch

I'm giving the whole bell-shaped bird seed thing a go.  Back in early January, I posted about a "Christmas Bell" that the kids gave me for Christmas that featured fruit and nuts and billed itself as 'no melt', so there was some suet involved, I'd think.  As quickly as I put that seed bell up on on post, it was gone.  Taken by some critter.  Maybe a squirrel, but more likely...a racoon.   At least, that's where my brain is right now having seen a couple of big fatty raccoons in our yard on a couple of occasions lately.  Having come across a seed bell from Kaytee (that you can see below) on sale at Menards, coupled with the fact that I had previously bought the 'seed bell hanger', so I was willing to get right back on the saddle with another one of these. This time, however, I am prepared.  The old one was put up on a pole that had a baffle on 'top' of the bell.  Meaning...I was attempting to keep critters from kind of 'jumping

The kids and I recently upgraded our bird watching area with the introduction of our heated birdbath.  It is more like a re-introduction as we had this heated bath at our old house, but up until a week or so ago, it was just sitting in the basement.  We put it right next to a few of our feeders that you can see in the top part of this photo.  If you look closely, you can also see a very pretty cardinal right behind the pole on the right and a little bird - a finch of some sort, maybe? - on the feeder on the left.  We get a lot of yellow and black and brown little birds.  Finches, nuthatches, chickadees and pine siskins/  We also run a suet feeder right in this area, too so we're getting visits from woodpeckers despite us not having a tailprop version.   We're getting a lot of late fall/early winter action on these feeders and have, so far, stopped squirrels from owning all of them completely.  I still find a squirrel trying his best to get to these, but usually, the cage

If you look closely at the photo above, you can see a woodpecker on our new suet feeder in the yard.  It is the wood thing hanging from the post on the right.  If you can't see it, and I don't blame you, here's a cropped version with a helpful pointer of where the woodpecker is below: The girls and I bought this suet feeder - which features something called a 'tail prop' at Menards recently and it is hanging there right next to our finch/thistle seed sock.  The thistle seed sock is our second or third of the summer and brings in a lot of pretty yellow finches to the yard.  But, as the weather is turning cooler, we wanted to try our hand at a suet feeder.  I've tried them before - the metal grid-like ones - with no luck.  Either the suet melted away or no birds ever came or the squirrels got to it.   And after poking around on the web, I think I figured out it was because we didn't have a 'tail prop' suet feeder.  Turns out, woodpeckers -

That right there in the photo is the *only* child of mine who was brave enough to go up and touch/pet this Peregrine Falcon that was on patrol at the Beach Club down at Sea Island .  The Bird - as we call her - wasn't afraid to touch this bird that is part of the falconry program at Sea Island .   Her older sister?  Not interested. As Nat will tell you, I have a fascination with all-things birds of prey.  When we're driving, I will always point them out when they're soaring above the highway or sitting on fence posts. Sea Island keeps their falconry program for two reasons.  The first is for hunting.  That part is something that I'm totally unfamiliar with, but it seems that you can 'hunt' for squirrels and such with these hawks . The other way these Peregrine Falcons are used is what you see above.   They have a guy who is in their Falconry program standing watch in the pool area of the Beach Club.  After talking to him, he said that the mere presence of

The girls are really into 'blind bags'.  You know...those toys that come in little packages and are part of a series but you don't know which one you'll get until you open it.  Between Shopkins ( which I've talked about here ) and My Little Pony, they like to open the little bags and get surprised.  Kind of like toddler gambling or toddler toy roulette. Recently, we were at the Toy Store in Elmhurst and they spotted these Simpson mini figure Lego blindbags .  The Bird got Hans Moleman.  The Babe got Groundskeeper Willie. They've quickly fallen out of grace in favor of ponies and unicorns with both girls.  Too bad for them.  Good for me I guess, as they're now adorning my desk. I was saying "Boo-urns....".

 When the shoveling is done (or mostly done...), the girls wanted to play.  Don't mind if we do.

We now have 2 'change jars' that sit on my desk at home every day.  One for the Babe.  One for the Bird.  This is made up of what I pull out of my pockets most every day.  Sometimes it is change.  Sometimes it is cash.  Some of it in the form of $2 bills from holidays like Easter.  $52.12 for the Babe.  $46.92 for the Bird.  Interesting how it worked out.  I tried to put even amounts of coins in each jar each day.  Guess I was off a bit.  The Bird is younger, so she has time on her side for the interest to catch up! Here's the history: 2012 Total:  $74.02 2011 Total:  $181.15 2010 Total:  $19.60 2009 Total: $53.51 Across those five years, the new average is $85.46.  This year, we were above the average.  Last year, we were below. 

After resisting the purchase of seasonal inflatbles for our yard, I finally caved.  You can see the big guy is now taking up residence in my garden - right outside of our dining room window.  After a nap this weekend, the Bird came down and couldn't have been happier to see him. Am I embarrassed by finally caving to these ridiculous things?  Kind of.  But, that smile on her face more than makes up for it.  In fact, I went out and doubled-down.  More on that later this week!

At this year's annual Google I/O Conference, the team at +Google   announced a bunch of things, but the first one that I *experienced* first-hand was the "extra Awesome Somethings"  in Google+ photos. Using some programatic intelligence, the team at Google has started to 'drop' little surprises into your photo collection on Google+ when you take bunches of photos at once. As an example, Google+ 'gifted' me these two neat things.  First, an animated GIF (JIF?!?!)  of the Babe and then this composite of the Bird. Pretty neat stuff.  Thanks  +Google+  !

All it took was an electric light parade to keep both of these ladies up way past their bedtime.

Just 36 hours after her arrival, we got the thumbs up to pack up The Bird and head home.  No time like the present to get going and start being a family of four plus a dog back in Elmhurst.  Love her already!