Camera Critter Saturday

Our Orioles are back!  They do love their grape jelly.

Star of Bethlehem & Orioles

The Orioles are back and eating grape jelly like true sugar freaks. We are filling it twice a day. My Star of Bethlehems are in full bloom.

TGIF!!!!!!!!!!!!

We have gotten almost 4 inches of rain in the past 3 days, so the weeds should pull easy this weekend. I know one plant that I will pull out by the bucket fulls is Grandpa Ott's Morning Glory, I received these seeds years ago in a seed exchange, while it is a pretty morning glory, they are prolific to say the least. If Grandpa Ott was that prolific he has descendants in every corner of the state :). I do let a few of the vines grow, mostly around the compost pile, it is covered in dark purple morning glories by the end of summer.

We planted two new Hydrangeas this past week so all the rain will make those two happy. We planted Black Lace Elderberry Sambucus nigra 'Eva' last week, this shrub is supposed to resemble a Japanese Maple which will not survive in zone 4, I hope it lives up to this claim. I had ordered the Hydrangeas and the Elderberry last February and forgot all about the order until it arrived this past week, it was a nice surprise, but his is the second order that I had forgotten about, either I am ordering too much or I am having senior moments.

I took the picture of the baby robin last weekend. The Baltimore Orioles are now regular visitors to the grape jelly and the peony is one of my last peony bushes to bloom this season.

Sunday In Iowa

Another nice weekend in the state of Iowa, is that anything like being in the state of grace?????? Is this heaven, no this is Iowa.

The Baltimore Orioles have been at my grape jelly all weekend, almost standing in line, it has been fun listening to their various songs. There have been several males at the jelly at the same time, I have seen a female at the jelly occasionally. The hummingbirds have been at their feeder as well.

We do need rain! I gave everything a good drink today. I purchased a few more herbs, lemon verbena, lamb's ears, and cinnamon basil. I made some new garden stones but they did not turn out, I had the wrong kind of concrete, it had too many stones in it. We went to Menards to get the kind of concrete that is used for patching, it is much finer. So next weekend, I will be making stones. I also bought some charcoal color concrete dye, I have always used the terra cotta tint.

Baltimore Oriole

I put out grape jelly and an orange half to attract Baltimore Orioles, it took less than a day for the birds to find it, thankfully they seem to prefer the grape jelly over the oranges, grape jelly is much cheaper than oranges! These pictures are not very good, I hope to get some better shots in the coming days. There is a large basswood tree by the jelly, they congregate there first and then come down for the jelly. I counted four or five in the tree waiting their turn to eat. The orange on a couple of the birds is not nearly as dark as the others, I wonder if they are immature males? I have not seen any females.