If At First You Don't Succeed.......

try, try again. All last week, I kept looking up at the kingbird nest on the patio rafter, thinking "I really need to take that down and dispose of it," but I never got around to doing it. I hadn't seen the kingbird pair anywhere, I figured they'd started over elsewhere. While I was working outdoors on Sunday I saw mama kingbird a couple of times, perched on the fence. Last night, when I was sitting out on the patio, mama buzzed my head on her way in to the nest. And she sat on it overnight. She's trying again, in the same spot. Fortunately, it's not hot enough to be a problem for her or the eggs, and the 7-day forecast doesn't include any high temps that would threaten the new family-to-be, so I've got a little time to work out a way to shade the roof panel above the nest and work out placement of a fan to circulate cooler air upward to dissipate the hot air that collects under the porch roof when the sun's shining on it. I wonder if just a large sheet of aluminum foil, shiny side up, over the nest area would help keep it cooler there to begin with. I could probably just put little rocks around the edges to hold it down in case it gets windy. I think I'll try that first, then develop a "Plan B" if it doesn't work. I've got one small oscillating fan, a very old one which can be adjusted to aim from straight up to about 135-degrees downward, that I'll try first to provide air circulation. It could be problematic simply because the Big Sister is a little OCD about things that flash - as the blades of fans do as they rotate. I know she's OK with box fans, though, so if the little oscillating fan sets her off I can always use one of the box fans instead.

I've been a little "off my game" the last week or so. I'm not sick, no major problems, just a lot of little stuff combined that's had me operating at less than full productivity. I haven't gotten as much done as I wanted to, but at least I've gotten some things accomplished. I stopped at the lumber yard on Friday and picked up two 60-pound bags of Quikrete; that's enough for about 22-24 stepping stones. (Last night, I finally wrangled one of those two bags out of my car. 60 pounds in such a small, compact package is hard to lift!) A new 3-stone batch of plain stones is on today's schedule. I also picked up a ten-foot 1 X 10 board and some shelf brackets. Sunday, I got the board cut to the right length, covered it in light-tack Contact shelving paper, and hung up on the chain-link fence at the yard end of the patio. It's crooked; it is, at least, level from side to side, but it slants downward from back to front. I don't care. It's not so bad a slant that flower pots will slide off, and the flowers should eventually hide the slant. I sat on the patio and finished potting the last of the two flats of impatiens I got a couple of weeks ago and got those up on the shelf:




I also hung up the plastic-bag hanging planter that I transplanted impatiens into late last week. Once that really starts to fill out it's going to be gorgeous:





The hanging basket of impatiens I hung up under the patio a couple of weeks ago is really starting to take off, and I've got enough baby lettuces that I can have a small, fresh salad every day:





I went to visit with my mom yesterday, and once again I stopped at the little rural garden center on my way home. I wanted a couple of geraniums. I was thinking I'd get red ones, or orangey-red, or maybe even white, but then I saw these:



(I seem to be on a pink kick lately. Hot pink flowers, hot pink pitcher and glasses, hot pink plastic ashtray for out on the patio. Plus a pink depression-glass sugar and creamer, an addition to my sugar/creamer collection and my very-small-but-destined-to-grow collection of depression glass.) Now I just have to go out to the pole barn and find a couple of planters for the geraniums and get them transplanted. Also on my schedule for today.

Sunday afternoon I got the raised bed re-cultivated and got my herb seeds planted. Tarragon in the middle, Rosemary on each side of it and in front of it. Moving outward from the sides is a row of lavender, and then a row of Blue Hyssop closest to the side rails. In front of the tarragon and rosemary is two rows of German Chamomile; in back of the tarragon (no rosemary behind the tarragon) is a row of Dill, and behind that a row of parsley. In a week to 10 days I should have a lot of little green growing things in that bed.

I've just about got all the sod clods out of the vegetable garden. By the time I get that finished, and get my seedlings transplanted and my direct-sow seeds in, I'm going to be about 10 days behind schedule. Getting this patch prepared has been a lot more work than I anticipated. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this area is going to work out for the vegetable garden and I'll be able to plant there again next year. Parts of it get a little more shade than I'd calculated on; if I plant carefully it should still be OK, not everything requires 8 hours of full sun and that can be planted in the areas that get shade for a couple of hours mid-day or in the early evening. The center gets full sun from morning until early evening, so the tomatoes and peppers should do well there. If I get a lower-than-expected yield this year, I'll probably prepare a different area next year - now that I know for sure what the sun/shade pattern of my yard is - and plant flowers in this year's vegetable garden instead. It would actually be a pretty good spot to have my perennial garden.......

The grass is getting very long again. I'm having difficulty getting motivated to get out there with the little electric mower and cut it; pushing that little, dull-bladed mower around is a lot of work. I'm actually considering buying a brand-new push mower, and using that instead. They're pretty light weight these days, and take less effort to push than my electric mower. I was reading an article on organic lawn care, and it suggested the way to a lush lawn is not to mow any shorter than about 3". That cuts off the tops of the weeds (which is where they get their nourishment) but protects the roots of the grass (which is where it gets its nourishment), strengthening the grass so it can choke off the weeds itself. Keeping the grass a little longer also keeps it from drying out later in the year when there's less rain, and should reduce and maybe even eliminate the need to water it. I'm thinking that just trimming off the tops of the grass with a push mower might actually require less physical effort than using the electric mower. Before I get a push-mower, though, I'm going to adjust the height on the electric mower to the highest setting and see if that takes some of the work out of pushing it around. Not today (it's supposed to rain in a little bit) and not tomorrow (supposed to rain most of the day), but I'll pencil it in on Thursday's schedule.

I've got to find my storage box of soap-making supplies/tools; I need to make a batch of lavender/lemon-grass shampoo-soap for Weim Rescue. The Weim National Specialty is being held in MI in a couple of weeks, and Weim Rescue will be making up small decorative bags containing essential oil room spray, essential oil mosquito repellant spray, and a bar of the essential oil shampoo-soap for sale. Weim Rescue supplied the oils, I'm supplying the other ingredients. (I'm donating my labor, and trading the essential oils I'll use in the soap in exchange for a microchip for the Youngster.) I need to get that delivered within the next week, and it needs to cure a few days before I pack it up. I originally wanted to do a color-swirled-into-white soap but I'm going to be molding this soap in cardboard quart half-and-half containers because I'm not going to be making the 10-pound batch my box mold holds. The half-and-half containers mold a soap shape I like, a rounded-side square that fits nicely in the palm and is easy to hold onto. It would be really tough to swirl colors in a tall, narrow mold so I'm going to dig out some old, colored practice soaps and cut them into "confetti" pieces and add to plain white soap before pouring it.