The Oddest Thing

Summer left us pretty quickly this year and the oddest thing has happened. All summer long my bird feeder had been going crazy and I think I went through a whole 40 lb bag of bird seed very quickly, however, in the last week or two, my bird feeder has been sitting completely full! The water feeder is completely devoid of bird poop so therefore, it is not green with algae like normal! Where are all the birds?!

More Time

Summer is winding to an end. The nights are cooler now and by Saturday we will have dipped below 50F. As much as I love fall, I hate for my growing season to end already!

I never did get any squash to grow, summer or winter! They just did not set fruit! Those that survived anyhow...but my sweet potato vines are doing GREAT! I'm thinking I need to fertilize more as I do not have the abundant tomato harvest as I should. Of course, this was only my second summer growing in this location and the soil is not amended very well.

The only things that did well this year was my collard greens that came back from last year, the kale after my rabbit was killed, the jalapenos and ground cherry! Even the sweet peppers aren't ripe yet. The pear tree looks like it is now just setting pears on it! It is LATE!

A really weird thing has happened...in the last week, my bird feeder has been devoid of any birds. Not one single one has been by! Before I was refilling it like crazy! I wonder if something tried to eat the birds and scared them away? Or is it the temps?

I need to rotate the crops next year...I'm thinking garlic in the area where the sweet potatoes are, sweet potatoes will go into where the tomatoes are and the tomatoes will go to where the garlic was this year. Squash will go further down near the gate where there is more room for them to spread.

Blasted!

Ugh, you won't believe it....my pendulous Cymbidum's spike has mostly blasted. Probably all thanks to the in and out activity over the holidays. The new spike was stuck and I went to help it out only to snap the damn thing! I'll be lucky if I get to see a handful of flowers....it should've been about 15 on one and 10 on the other. :(

On another note...I don't know if it's b/c it has been cold or what, but the squirrels haven't figured out my zip tied suet basket yet. YAY! They did eat all the seed out of the lower level of my bird feeder, but the top is full and they can't get to that easily so I will just leave it as is! Been tough keeping the water from freezing out there. Just snowed again last night and ran out of salt. I have re-stocked with two 50 lb. bags!