Peach Drops

This past week has zipped by so quickly that I've had little time to post on my blog, except to play with the layout a bit. Google teased us blogspot bloggers with some new templates, and I messed around with that until I found something I liked. A little refresher as we head into summer.

We've had a few comings and goings in our yard since I last wrote. The phoebe returned to the same nest under the deck and is raising a second brood. The four young robins all successfully fledged from their nest in the crabapple last Monday. This is the nest that was almost lost to a chipmunk. The mother robin and we, including our dog Kodi, must have sufficiently scared it off such that it never returned to the nest. The veery nest in the tansy is another story. Last I checked more than a week ago the veery was still sitting on four eggs -- two of her own and two cowbird eggs. Today when I parted the tansy, the nest was listing and disheveled and the eggs were gone. I think a chipmunk got that one.

More distressing to us is that the peaches keep dropping. We've had several hard rains and after each one the grass beneath the peach trees is littered with little peaches. I thought this might be a good year after the trees seemed to weather the late frost. But every time I wander around the two peach trees I see fewer and fewer fruits still hanging on. Bummer.

The garden loves the rain. The sugar snap peas are just starting to flower. Some things though, like the peppers and squash, need a bit more warm sun. Their growth has stalled. Only the lawn (and the weeds) seems to grow regardless of the weather.