For the Bird$

I bought some birdfeed.  Just some peanuts and a packet of suet.  This cost me $12.50.  A lot of money considering my current budget.

But while gardening yesterday I noticed a male cardinal hopping around my empty feeders.  And then it perched on the edge of the roof for several minutes, tilting it’s head around as if to say, “Seriously?  There’s nothing?  C’mon, seriously?”   It had been weeks since I had any feed to put out.  There’s been news about people not being able to afford to feed their pets since the economic downturn, but nothing about whether people can afford to fill their birdfeeders.

At least the hummingbirds won’t go hungry.  Nector can be made cheaply.  I saw my first one this evening.

My Urban Garden Journal: Let me get dirty.

I spent most of the day weeding and pruning the front garden.  Pulling weeds after a heavy rain is therapuetic.  The roots tend to just slide out whole.  Sure, I came across an ant colony that didn’t take too kindly to my extracting/intruding and swarmed all over my arms and legs.   But, overall, it was rewarding.  Hard work doesn’t seem so hard when I can get dirty and messy while doing it.  For some reason digging around in the dirt is what’s gotten me in the gardening spirit this year, more so than the flowers.  Not only do I appreciate getting dirt underneath my fingernails but all over my shirt and pants too.

I fit the segments of brick edging that I salvaged from the demolition site together into a weird jigsaw of a border along my driveway.   I need about eight more feet.  The pieces are there at the site, but in lengths too long and heavy to lift into my car trunk.  I’ve been waiting these last couple of weeks for one of the bulldozers to plow into the remaining edging and break it into smaller, lighter chunks.

I have so many perrenial herbs in my front garden that I’m not using.  There’s chives, thyme, sage, oregano, mint and dill.  Dill is listed as an annual, but it’s proven to be a perennial–a very invasive perrenial.  It even grows out of the cracks in my driveway.  I wish I could establish a bartering system with a local restaurant.  I supply them with herbs, and I get a free meal once a week.  I’d be happy with a large bowl of soup.