Wow, The End of May Already!

I can't believe it's the end of May already. I'm so far behind on my outdoor work. *sigh* But now that the babies are here and Irenie has settled into being an excellent mother, I can take advantage of the next kitten-care free 10-12 days to get everything squared around. I did manage to get some of my hanging baskets and the hanging tomatoes planted, but I've barely gotten 1/4 of the garden proper cultivated so I can get seedlings into the ground. I need to get that finished as soon as possible, but it's been very hot and very humid and airless here, making it almost impossible to work outside for more than a few minutes at a time. I'm going to try to get at least the front half of it - the area with the longest period of full sun - finished late this evening when it's shaded again and the wind is expected to rise a little ahead of an approaching low-pressure system. If I can do that, and get the 4 remaining tomato plants and maybe the 4 sugar-baby watermelons into the ground, the beans and extra pepper plants can wait until Monday when the temperature is supposed to be 15 degrees cooler and dry. But the tomato plants need to go in the ground today, come hell or high water, and I'd like to get the watermelons in too, so both will get the benefit of the off-and-on rain that's predicted for tomorrow afternoon through Sunday.

I was out on my patio just before lunchtime, switching out a couple of dogs in the yard, and I looked up to see all 4 kingbird babies sitting on the edge of the nest. As I puttered around with some potting stuff out there, they took to the air and zoomed off. So, another successful reproductive cycle for the kingbird pair this year. I'm glad. I hope they all keep coming back to raise their clutches near here, they do a good job of reducing the flying insect population. I wish mom and dad would pick a spot with a little more shade than they do, I thought this clutch got baked to death like the first clutch did last year. At least this clutch had the benefit of shade directly over the nest from that plastic foot-square table top I put on top of my patio roof last year for that purpose. Maybe that helped.

I'm sure one of the reasons they pick that beam under the patio roof is that, in addition to being sheltered, it's warmer than the open air when the weather is still cool. The translucent green corrugated fiberglas roof over the patio allows heat to build up under there and it's almost always 10 degrees warmer on the patio than it is in the open. That's an advantage when the weather is cool because they can leave the nest untended for longer periods of time to search for food. Both mama and daddy can forage at the same time instead of alternating, so their babies get fed very well.

My mom called this morning. My brother and his girlfriend are going up to where my sis and BIL are building their current vacation, and future retirement, home for a few days. (My sis and BIL are on vacation this week.) My brother's girlfriend called mom this morning and asked if she and I would like to come up there for dinner tomorrow, she wants to surprise my brother for his birthday. Maaaaan...... I really don't want to leave for that long. It's a 45-minute drive to mom's, a 2-hour drive from there to my sis's. So I'd be on the road for 6 hours. And probably gone from the house for 9-10 hours. And that doesn't thrill me at all. So my immediate response was "I don't want to be away from home that long." But mom won't go if I don't go along and do the driving and I know she'd really enjoy it. And it's his 50th birthday, so it's a special one. Guilt won out; I called her back and told her I'd go. *sigh*

I'm taking Dudley with me. He doesn't like riding in the car but he loves Daisy and she'll be going along, he loves my mom and he adores my sis, and this will be a good opportunity to continue his socialization. They'll all be willing to do what I ask them to do as far as interacting with him goes, this should be a very successful experience for him. If I can't be doing things here tomorrow, at least I can still get something accomplished.