Home Again

I brought Mo home yesterday, and he had to inspect every room and learn his way around by touch and smell.

There's a beautiful cardinal on the windowsill. Must be a young bird, because its back and tail are very dark instead of bright red. One of these days, I'm going to make a cardinal quilt.

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Beautiful weather today. I've walked all around and around outside, accompanied by the stray black cat. I was afraid the hydrangeas would die, after we removed the enormous hedge at the side of the house. But I guess the house itself shades them until noon, and the trees at the west side of the yard shade them in the late afternoon. The plants look healthy, and the blooms that have come out range from dark pink to dark purple.

 

This is the "bird-feeding station" from the outside:

Right now it's the squirrel-feeding station. I can't see a nest in that big bush, but towhees don't make very neat nests, so it may be well camouflaged. If it's there.

 

The pink oxalis grows in the lawn between mowings. I'm thinking about trying to make a big patch of it on the sunny side of the house.

This is another kind of oxalis. It grows wild all over the yard. Oxalis is also known as sorrel. I remember chewing the leaves of the yellow-blooming kind when I was a kid, and it has a very sour, but very delicious, taste. I called it "sour grass."

 

I suspect Mr. Reed's crew of dumping dry leaves under the trees on the west side of the house. When you try to walk over there, you feel like you're falling for a few seconds, the leaves are so deep. The lower end of this patch is covered with wild violets, which of course have already bloomed.