Saturday Morning........

American Robin (thrush family)

The robin's and blue jays have enjoyed my pan of water that I have out for them on the patio table. They of course drink from it often but also they take their baths in it too.  The robin gets all fluffed up like this after a bath and the shakes itself off.  The water really flies out of the water bowl as they flap their wings in the water. I am thinking to move the pan to another piece of furniture in the near future as they do make a mess on the patio table.  I have a shorter patio metal table that it can fit on and serve the birds for their needs.

As posted on my Larry's Photo a Day blog that I also have a robin's nest.  I forgot to mention that our robin in the US of A is actually a thrush and not one of those cut little orange birds that are also called  a robin in Europe.

The nest is huge and I am anxious to see how things go at this location.  We have a neighbor feud going on right now about the running of the cats so they are all now inside. It isn't me or my wife who is complaining, as you know we feed them. Maybe the robins can get this brood hatched before any cats return.

I found this for the first time this morning while out taking shots.  It may have been up a couple of days ago but it is nice to see tulip buds. It makes us look like we are already in full spring but we are not. I do want you to know that our springs can be very cold and even icey so we are not totally warm day in and day out.  In fact, the furnace is running while I write this and the wind chills were really bad this morning. I wanted to transplant a few tomatoes this morning but that isn't going to happen until we raise at least 15 degrees warmer. Yet, last night we had the window open all night in our bedroom as the upstairs had heated up from Friday's sunshine.  I have closed the window now.

This sedum is cozy in the leaves right now and I chose not to go ahead and uncover it.  It is nice to see it return again this year.  I am now concerned though about four of my five roses. I think I have lost them from our severe freezing this winter.  My wife and I use to visit Grand Marias, Minnesota each summer. We stopped going back in 2001. Outside a set of shops on the main highway was a large bed of planted roses.  We always enjoyed seeing them.  They had one very bad winter years back where even the mulch didn't save them and they had to replace the entire bed of probably 20 roses. I hope that I don't have to do that too.

We are having a restful Saturday today.  We both need down time and quiet time. I don't think we have any more errands to run as we did that after school yesterday.  I hope everyone has a good weekend. Thanks for stopping in today.