August Happenings in the Heat

I haven't been posting much but the summer continues on its way regardless. I thought I'd better put up some pics before it passes me by completely.

The weather has been so hot again, in the 100's and up for another couple of weeks. I feel like I'm melting. But our garden is trying its best to come through for us if we can just tolerate the weather enough to get out and notice. Mornings are best of course.

The echinacea are blooming now.

August is also a good time for morning glories.

I'm glad I planted phlox. What a great sight this time of year. Besides these two we have 'David' blooming.

And plenty of sunflowers. All volunteers but I love their cheerful look and the birds love the seeds.

There have also been kittens among the flowers. Here's Frankie looking handsome in a container on the back porch.

And here he is with his "Little Sis." We still have six kittens in the house. Four are still in the process of being tamed. Good news; we caught all three of the feral adults and they've been spayed/neutered! All seven kittens will have their turn next month. Then it's adoption time.

Kim has been busy with his vegetable garden. I just enjoy the harvest. He has some pumpkins going.

And we've been enjoying plenty of great tomatoes along with onions, cucumbers, broccoli, lettuce, peppers and garlic.

The three younger hens are doing well. Here are Peanut, Brazil and Hazel in our sumac. If you look closely you can see they all have their beaks open. No, they're not talking, they're trying to cool off in this heat. I've been fortunate to be able to bring home lots of fresh organic lettuce culls from work for them along with the occasional aging melon. Those treats are really appreciated by them in this heat.
The young hens are finally integrating well with the older girls, much to my relief. More on that in another post.

We've been busy watching some of the Olympics, taming, cleaning and feeding the kittens, working in our garden, and generally trying to enjoy summer while it's here, regardless of the heat. It's been a challenge though and I haven't been around to read up on my blogging friends. For that I apologize.

I hope everyone is having a great summer. Soak it up while you can, winter is on its way! In the meantime we'll be enjoying some more dinners outside and tempting all these kittens to trust us.

A rarity; all six kittens in one picture.

July!

Hard to believe it's July already. Seems like everyone was talking about "June this" and "June that" and now it's turning into "July this and that".

The garden is moving along fast now.

The impatiens are doing well this year in the containers on the back porch. This one looks as if it is a hosta bloom.

But of course it isn't.

Who says red and orange don't go together? Mother Nature says they do.

Calendula and red linums.

Spiderwort.

Loving these Purple Mountain Sun Daisies - 'Osteospermum barberiae var Compactum'. The color thrills me.

And since it's July, lilies are coming into bloom. This one is Lilium 'Royal Sunset'.

I can't remember the name of this one and the tag is gone.

But it's a tiny thing on a stalk of them. Some type of martagon I think.

The craziness of the garden in July doesn't bother me.
Here we have perennial pink sweet peas, lychnis - upper right, Tuscawilla Tigress daylily just starting to bloom in the far upper right, sedum in the center, rudbeckias on the left and coreopsis at the bottom.
Late August I'll be singing another tune and ripping stuff down.

These annual snapdragons are reblooming after I deadheaded them.

And the heleniums are blooming. This is "Mardi Gras".

Three spoiled hens. They're growing fast. But not fast enough. Still having trouble integrating them with the older hens.

And still working on adopting out these kittens. This is how we often find our computer chair, covered with furry little things.
(We might actually be keeping the gray one.)

Just yesterday Kim saw another mother cat with four kittens in the garden. This group will have to be captured and taken to the pound I'm afraid. We can't rescue them all. If this isn't an advertisement for neutering, I don't know what is.

Happy July!

Update: I called the pound and was informed that if we bring in feral cats they won't be adopted, they'll all be euthanized. So we've decided to try to capture them all, have the Mom spayed and bring her home, and tame the kittens for adopting out. I'll let you know how that plan plays out.

Gardening and Pets

Like everyone else we've been busy. We hosted a garden party recently at our house which kept us hopping for a few days; preparing the food and spiffing up the garden. We got lucky, the weather was perfect.

 I'm happy with the look of both the Comtesse de Bouchard and Perle d'Azur clematis in the Moongarden.




Florida Sieboldii is blooming nicely on the arbor.




Speaking of the arbor, Kim recently refinished our glider.
It was formerly purple.  (My idea.)  Kim chose the new colors which I think look great.




I'm enjoying this Lysimachia punctata, but it is supposed to be 'Alexander' - "White edged leaves........"
Which is why I bought it, for the nice foliage.  You can see it's all green now.
Oh well, the flower structure is nice too.



The back porch has shaped up nicely.  We've added the banana on the right and quite a few new container plants.
Felix is enjoying his nap time.



Our service berry tree has always been popular with the robins, and we've seen some cedar waxwings lately also.  But the funniest thing is to see the big hens jump up to snatch a berry for themselves.



Speaking of hens, we've had the little girls out in the garden lately.  Here they're charging through the back porch.



Felix shares the "watering hole" with them.



Felix attempts to play.  They're just his size after all.



More attempts at playing.
The chicks don't get it.

We have had some difficulty getting them together with the big girls.  They spent two days in the coop together before we had an injury.  So we've separated them again.  Both sets seem OK when they're together in the back yard so we'll continue to work on the integration.




And we're trying to tame down these three new ones in preparation for adoption.  A neighbor moved out a few months ago - without three of their five cats - and one of the ones they left was pregnant, of course.
We've been taming the mother down and she allows us to pet her, (but don't try picking her up), and we recently gathered up her three kittens.  They aren't happy but they're eating and using the litter box.
(We'll be having the mom kitty spayed soon.)



Hope your summer is shaping up nicely.  Happy Summer Solstice!

Adventures With Chicks

Due to our abnormally hot weather lately I was able to take the new chicks outside for the first time this week.

You can see the "fence" I put up. Obviously it was only there to make me feel better. The chicks completely ignored it.

They act frightened of me when they're in their indoor cage but that changed when they encountered the great, scary outdoors.

They were perfectly happy to "perch" on my arm and watch the world from that point of relative safety.

The temp was around 90 degrees so they were nice and warm.

We were having a great time until someone showed up wanting some attention of his own.

He ignored the chicks but I put them back in their carrying box and gave Felix the loving he deserved for not eating my new babies.

Here's a short two minute video of the chicks.

They're Here.

Remember these three?




Oh wait, that just shows three tails.

I meant these three....



...Tootsie, Jelly Bean and Ginger.

Well, they're doing fine. And laying eggs as they should.

Today we added to our flock.

Meet Brazil, Peanut and Hazel.



A Black Australorp, Golden Sex Link and an Araucana.

We're hoping we actually get the blue/green eggs from this Araucana. We've only had light brown ones from Ginger. The Black Australorp was not sexed, so we have our fingers crossed that "she" is actually a "she".

I'm excited to have new chicks. It will be quite some time before they're introduced to the older "girls". In the meantime; new babies!