Spotting two new birds I've never seen in person... a great way to end 2012, in my opinion

When December rolls around, I begin to fill the bird feeders. I don't have to until then. The birds are busy feeding on bugs and seeds from the rest of the garden. But about December is when the bugs go into hiding and the seeds from the plants get sparse. So the sunflower seeds go into seed feeders and suet goes into the suet feeders.

It is about this time of year that I often see birds I'm not used to seeing here. Because our winters are milder than only just a few hundred miles north, we get visitors that we don't see the rest of the year.

Today, I got the treat of getting to see and photograph two new types of birds that I haven't seen in person before. It was a real treat to see these rare visitors.

Yesterday, when I was sitting on the deck getting sun and giving the garden kitty lots of affection and attention, I spotted a bird and couldn't figure out what it was. I didn't have my camera with me so I had to go off of memory when hunting through my Birds of Northern California book. I couldn't find anything that looked like what I had seen. I felt like one of those people that claims to have seen Bigfoot but didn't have their camera with them. It was maddening.

Today I went out to get my bit of sun for the day (and give attention to the garden kitty) and remembered that I should have my camera with me. So I went back inside, mounted the telephoto lens on my camera body, and headed back out. It wasn't any time at all before I was rewarded with a sighting of a white-breasted nuthatch climbing around on things in a gravity-defying way. I was so excited! On the packaging of the suet I buy, there's a picture of a nuthatch. But I've never seen a nuthatch in my garden... until today!

Then as if on cue, the same kind of mystery bird I saw yesterday flew down and landed not far from the nuthatch on the fence. They were both negotiating who would be eating next from the cylindrical suet feeder with the "peanut butter and jelly" flavored suet (the exact suet with the nuthatch on the packaging). I was so excited! I would finally have photographic evidence of this mystery bird. Hallelujah! I wasn't in the "Bigfoot camp" anymore!

After I uploaded the shots to my computer, I started hunting through my Birds of Northern California book again. It was maddening. Again, I couldn't find one like it. It's often hard to identify birds from my book because the pictures are artist renderings and not photos. Then I spotted one that might be a possibility. I googled the name "yellow-rumped warbler". Hazah! That was it! The photos on the internet look very different than the one artist rendering in the book. I'm surprised I figured it out. 

I read about the yellow-rumped warbler and my book says, "Although [they] do not breed in northern California, they are commonly seen along the Pacific coast in the migration and during winter." Okay! That explains my sighting perfectly.

What a great way to finish out the year, I say.

Sometimes when you just leave things alone, beauty happens

I think one of the hardest lessons for me to learn has been... sometimes when you just leave things alone, beauty happens. Thankfully, my garden reinforces this concept to me often enough that my thick-headedness never gets too out of control before I see it evidenced again and remember, "Oh yeah! Just calm down. You don't have to control everything. Leave things alone and beauty happens."

During the winter, I put out seeds for the birds that are wintering over here because the bugs aren't as numerous as in warmer months. After much trial and error, I've finally concluded that the only seeds I need to put out are simple black sunflower seeds. Even the smallest birds prefer them to other seed. I will also put out some suet cakes for the chickadees and woodpeckers that like to forage differently than the others. 

Everyone gets fed, and I get an added bonus... 

I get sunflowers!

Birds are messy eaters and inevitably stray sunflower seeds end up on the ground under and around the feeders. I don't have any lawn to mow in our garden so the seeds can stay where they fall. The winter and spring rain waters them, and I end up with at least half a dozen or more volunteers that sprout and bloom.

When this sunflower's petals of sunshine are spent, I'll leave the stalk standing and let the seeds ripen in the hot summer sun. The birds will come along and feed from it like a natural bird-feeder. And some seeds will fall to the ground and become volunteers for possibly some autumnal sunflowers (having them bloom in October is the best treat). Some may even winter over and produce blooms for next spring once the winter rain hits them.

Such a beautiful natural cycle repeats over and over... if I simply leave things alone.

We have poppy seeds!

Do you remember the wonderful Hungarian Bread Seed Poppy that bloomed on the first day of spring? I've been anxiously anticipating the time when that seed pod would be dried up enough to harvest. And today was the day!



I carefully brought it inside and slit the side open with a kitchen knife to spill out the seeds. Look at how many were in just one pod!

I then took the seeds and carefully poured them into a small seasoning shaker that I'd labeled appropriately. Hubby is a big poppy seed fan so these seeds are for him. When he saw them his first comment was, "Anyone have a bagel?"



The first poppy bloom was the earliest of many flowers that followed weeks later and have been delighting us for the past month. Now I'm on "pod watch" as I wait for the rest of the pods to dry. At least one of the pods will be emptied into a seed envelope for planting next year. But the rest will end up seasoning breads and salads.

Seed Packets, Brugmansia and Friendship

Yesterday at church as I was sitting down for Sunday School, my friend Kathy casually mentioned that I should come over some time this week because she just got a big shipment of seed packets. As a horticultural instructor at our local college, distributors often send Kathy the seeds and bulbs that get pulled from shelves at the end of the season. The bulk of the seeds will be used for her classes, but she wanted me to look through the boxes to see if I wanted any since there were so many.

Over our 8 year friendship, Kathy's generosity has beautified not only our garden, but the garden across the street as well as all the others at church that are recipients of her plants, seeds, and bulbs. Kathy is literally helping to make the world a more beautiful place.

This morning, I headed over to Kathy's. We stood in her garage as I sorted through large boxes of seed packets--some sorted and some not. I had to keep telling myself to be highly selective. You know the old adage "Your eyes are bigger than your stomach."? Well, my eyes are often bigger than my garden.

We talked while I flipped through packets--garden talk... what else? It's always a pleasure to talk with Kathy because not only is she incredibly knowledgeable about our micro-climate (one to which I am relatively new having only been here 8 years), but she is a kindred spirit. Kindred spirits in conversation or in silence are contented and happy indeed.

After I selected all the seeds I wanted (I still managed to take enough to cover my kitchen table), Kathy wanted to show me her current tomato crop and how well it's doing this year. We walked around to the vegetable beds and talked some more until it was time that I headed out, leaving Kathy to get on with her busy day.

Somewhere on the way back out to my truck parked in the driveway, Kathy casually mentioned something like, "You wouldn't happen to want a brugmansia?"

My heart leapt!

Sometime last year I was bewitched by all the photos of brugmansia that I had seen on other garden blogs. I really wanted one. I even wrote "Angel's Trumpets--Brugmansia" on a sticky note and put it on my "idea board" behind my computer. It was officially the only plant on my "fantasy wish list"--the list reserved for things that I really want but shouldn't get unless I really have the budget for it. Besides needing to funnel budget toward other purchases such as the citrus trees that I'll be putting in over the next couple of months, I hadn't really seen any brugmansia at the nurseries--at least any I liked the looks of enough to justify spending the money. So the brugmansia stayed on my "fantasy wish list" of one plant.

I don't know what the look on my face must have been when Kathy asked if I happened to want a brugmansia, but I'm certain my giddiness was evident. As we walked back the way we'd came, she asked if I'd like one that's a 2-tone whose blossoms fade from a pale white-yellow to a pale peach. Sure!

We reached the area where she had the 5-gallon potted brugmansia plants that she's grown from seedlings for the past two years. She picked one up that was over my head. That was the one?!?! And, she informed me, that since it was already 2 years old I wouldn't have to wait for it to bloom. In fact, it already had buds on it ready to open!

I'm fairly certain I was dizzy with giddiness as we loaded it into the truck, and Kathy secured it with my bungee cords. I drove the short distance home so carefully. I didn't want anything to blow those buds off. I got it home intact and happy.

I knew where it was going to go. In this climate, Kathy told me that brugmansia need afternoon shade. It would go in my afternoon-shade area across the path from the olive tree. That would be the perfect spot!

Right away, I dug half a hole and then built up a planter with chunks of recycled concrete left over from the demolished shed pad. Then, in went the brugmansia and some bagged top soil. I watered it in, and it already looks so happy there.

This plant, like all the wonderful growing gifts residing in my garden, will be a constant tangible reminder of true friendship. For me, it is inspiring to know that in this calloused world, there are still precious experiences and relationships made up of things such as seed packets and brugmansia.

Left: The brugmansia this afternoon before it was planted.
Right: The brugmansia planted in its new raised planter.

Kathy's other generous growing gifts to Rosehaven Cottage:

• Grandpa Ott Morning Glory and cardinal vine 2007
• Spanish flag 2007
  
• Grandpa Ott Morning Glory 2008 (grown from 2007 seeds)
• Bells of Ireland
• Red sunflowers, fancy sunflowers, September sunflowers, October sunflowers 2007
  
• Sunflowers 2008 (grown from 2007 seeds)
• Purple tulips, more purple tulips and narcissus
• Daffodils
• Crocus and jonquils
  
• Rudbeckia (it never stopped blooming all winter)

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Sunflower Sunday

Today, just outside the little red door of Rosehaven Cottage blooms the first sunflower of this summer. The pale lemon-yellow sunflower is a "volunteer" from last year's sunflowers.

We keep our sunflowers up on their dried stalks long after they've wilted so the birds can use them as natural birdfeeders and pick every last seed out of them. But no matter how ravenous those birds are, there's always a few seeds that fall to the ground and reseed for the next year.

This is the first of those to bloom in the Rosehaven Cottage gardens this year--yet another happy delight of summer.

The Poppy Seed Experiment

Recently, my mom was going through her boxes in storage and came across some seed packets that she had forgotten about.

The seed packets were originally purchased by my Grammy. Grammy passed away from ovarian cancer at the young age of 64 in the spring of 1977. The illness took her quicker than anticipated. I was very close to her and felt a deep kinship with her. Her very quick exit from this life left a void in my life and in my heart that still causes me to mourn.

When Grammy's three daughters went through her things after her death, my mom brought Grammy's seed packets home with her. The seeds were never planted--probably unconsciously left in storage as a way to somehow hold on to the garden and flowers that were an extension of who she was.

Aside from looking a lot like her and having similar personality traits, my connections with Grammy were many (which is why I miss her so deeply), but none seem so strong as the gardening connections I have with her. Grammy's garden was where I came to love my favorite flower--the lilac. It was also where I photographed my first hollyhock. And it was where I tasted chives for the first time. I learned to love the smell of hay at Grammy's house. And I developed my affinity for the look and smell of bearded iris there. Because of my special connection to Grammy and her garden, when my mom came across the seeds a month or two ago she passed them on to me.

The newly discovered seed packets alone are a treasure for me. The graphics and typefaces take me back to my childhood. When I flipped over this packet of Shirley Poppy seeds it said that it was packaged for the growing season of 1970! But I also noted on the front that the packet touts that the seeds are "foil packed".

Yesterday, I finally got up the nerve to plant the 38 year old seeds. Poppies do well in our soil and are best if the seeds are sown right about now. So after I completed the planting of the new roses, I snipped open the foil packet within this seed packet to sow them. The seeds had obviously stayed dry because there wasn't any clumping. I sprinkled them around with my new seed sowing trowel that vibrates the seeds through a tiny hole for even dispersing.

Now I'm going to just sit back and wait to see if seeds this old can germinate. If I'm successful with these, I'm going to try out the other various seeds I also acquired from my mom.

Somehow, I'm hoping that my sweet Grammy will angelically kiss the seeds to make them grow. If they do then the Shirley poppies will be dubbed "Elsie poppies". I will definitely be keeping everyone apprised of the "Poppy Seed Experiment".