AstroGypsies

I’m sure there will be more than three parts but I’m easing into Fall!

Those mornings, flat calm windless mornings, where the reflections look real and real looks like a reflection. These are the glorious days of Fall. The colours are just starting, a bit of red sumac here, an orange coloured maple branch over there…what vibrant shades!

So far we can’t complain, no frost, no flurries and here we sit approaching the end of September. We have been fortunate. I’ve seen flurries and frost the first week of September, getting ready for the Perth Fair Horse Show, shivering, not this year! No Fair, and no frost…yet…I’m probably jinxing us as I speak! Ha!

We seem to have to late babies this year. The American Goldfinches are still busy feeding a very vocal pair that beg constantly:) “Mooooommmmm! I’m HUNGRY!” both parents take turns with these two little beggars:) They will eventually figure out the bird feeder themselves. They try, but so handy to have attentive parents.

The Grackles have stopped pandering to the young ones. They come to the feeder while an adult hangs out nearby…puffing, I call it. They sit on the branch…look around, “There must be a audience somewhere!” you can hear them thinking, they are performers you know! So, they sit…look around…squawk loudly…puff (look at my wingspan!)…and repeat as often as they feel the need to:)

Isn’t nature grand:) We have had an interesting guest for the last few weeks. At first I thought it was a very brown Hairy Woodpecker when it fact it is a juvenile Yellow Bellied Sapsucker. Now, I’m not sure where the term yellow bellied comes from for being a coward. “This idiom originated in England as a nickname for people from the Lincolnshire Fens. This area of England is marshy, and contains eels. People say that both the eels and the people have yellow bellies. It is not clear what literal connection, if any, there is between yellow bellies and cowards. The color yellow has long been associated with cowardice, and perhaps yellow bellow refers to the way some animals roll over and play dead when they give up.” who knew…This young Sapsucker, although a yellow bellied variety, is quite brave and shows up daily for some sunflower seed!

I used to think The Blue Jays ran the show but we must be seeing the youngsters, the Hairy Woodpecker and the Sapsucker chase them from the feeder. Maybe it takes them awhile to learn that “bad ass” approach to life;) The unique sunflower I had is done flowering but the both the Chickadees and Goldfinches have slowly been removing the seed. They are very photogenic up there! The Goldfinches are losing their bright yellow colour to be replaced with the somewhat more olive drab coat they wear all Winter;)

Now we wait for the Winter residents! I saw a pair of Juncos this morning:) Hopefully the Red Bellied and Pileated Woodpeckers will be back. The Pileated are currently deeper in the woods-I have heard and seen them along the road out so they are here…just busy looking for those last few ants before taking up suet as a main course!

I have harvested the last of the tomatoes and cucumbers-a few tomatillos bushes, although sad, have fruit on them so I am hopeful I will get a few more and absolutely no one wants to eat them! Isn’t that grand! I have been covering the remains of my chard, lettuce and peppers (Yes, someone was munching on the habanero plant, not the fruit!) with a white tarp each evening to keep the snacking deer from mowing them down….all going according to plan, until the little buck figured he would come in for a early bird feast!

I was walking back up the driveway from a mushroom hunt walk ( the recent rain has them going wild!) when lo and behold my little horned friend was standing in the middle of my sad lettuce and rainbow chard chowing down…he grabbed a few apple leaves as he spotted me and hopped down out of the garden and stared at me as if to say “Who me?”…”Are you Alfred E Neuman? ” I asked, now scat! He wandered off slowly, not in the least bit perturbed. I think Mom was out front enjoying the echinacea’s and the view when I got in the house.

At one point the little buck was looking right into the window-Groot was ready to protect us all he said! “Honk the truck horn! That should scare him away!” The lady enjoying the view and her organic repast in front sauntered away when I opened the door…”We’re surrounded!” I told Groot! Resistance is futile;)

I don’t mind donating a few plants for the well being of these beautiful creatures, but there is a limit…some fencing maybe in order next Spring…I have a cunning plan…OK enough Star Trek, Mad magazine and Black Adder puns! One must share:) Life is too short not to:) We’re off to the dock for some leisure time;) Stay tuned and saludos amigos!