Tree of Life

Tree of death: vultures

hummingbird on service berry in blossom

Service berry in early May


Close-up of berries

 

front service berry early morning: view from my porch

 

 

Again Blogger is acting up. If I load photos directly from my phone, sometimes it won't let me edit the size. Also it keeps warning me not to use Internet Explorer as it prefers I use Chrome. I had to remove Chrome as it was riddled with viruses. And all I could find were fake Chromes containing more viruses.

 

If one googles best trees for birds, service berries are on the top of most lists. We have two: one next to our patio where we can view it from our bedroom, living room and kitchen and one in front next to our porch. The one in back gets more light and thus has much more berries. Even without the berries, a few hummingbirds call it home along with the nest of wrens that live in the hand painted gourd. There are at least 3 male hummingbirds trying to eliminate the others as I have 2 feeders next to it. I do have a feeder in front that a female and male use. Not sure if they are different birds. Now that there are berries, a flock of cedar wax wings visit,  many robins, some catbirds, and the finches are on it eating the berries.

 

Well 7 of my 8 chard plants are gone courtesy of the rabbit. I do have some mesh fences guarding some bushes from the deer, which I never saw in the yard. I will place it over the remaining plants as I assume the rabbit will taste the kale next. Yep I prefer chard to kale.

 

School is out though Maya will attend some summer school and Safety town. In the meantime, she is going to vacation Bible school with Shanna's kids. She now is officially enrolled in the Young Fives. Yesterday, they demanded proof of residency (bills weren't good enough for them) so I had to drive over to the school with a lease as we 'rent' the condo to Naomi. As Maya has been in the school system for the past 2 years, one would think all this info is in the system but no, they want new papers for everything. Maya wasn't happy being left with strange adults even though she had her cousins but she eventually adapted. She likes being with the cousins.

 

I picked her up to bring her to my house driving by a bunch of roadkill that attracted about thirty vultures. They retreated to the nearby trees and power tower when I stopped. Too bad I didn't have the good camera.

 

Again it rained most of the day. And as it was in the eighties, it felt like a sauna.