Thursday, August 13, 2009

My Birdie Friends Are Back!

I love sunflowers. Have I mentioned that before? I don't think I'll ever not grow them. I mean, they grow anywhere. I see random ones all over the place here. You know a bird had to have dropped a seed if it's in the middle of chest-high weeds. Bumble bees love them. Their fat little hind legs get completely covered in bright yellow pollen and it's the cutest thing ever. I'd take a picture but my camera just isn't equipped for that. I love my point and shoot but one day...I'll have a "real" camera. Back to the flowers. Hummingbirds love them too. It's so sweet to watch them and little finches that eat the seeds. The one pictured is a girl so she's not as pretty but she ate seeds for a really long time. I'm a dork but I love watching them. And they don't bother my tomatoes. Speaking of tomatoes, again, I thought that this little guy might be responsible for my messed up tomatoes. I've known that they were there eating my parsley which didn't bother me because they turn into really pretty butterflies and I don't really use the parsley for anything. But I did see one of them on my tomato plant which intermingles with the parsley plant. The info I read didn't say they would eat tomatoes though so I'm not sure. It's just that the info I've found on tomato plant diseases looks particularly vile in the pictures and my plants don't look like that. But I don't want to bore you with any more plant stuff. I'm not starting a gardening blog or anything. It is one of the big bright spots in my summer though. Seeing as how we have 5 months of brown grass and trees with no leaves to look forward to in the next few months. Autumn I'm totally looking forward to, winter not so much.

I'm also looking forward to making some house progress this weekend. Travis and I were both sick with some not-so-fun virus but we're both feeling a lot better today. That should get us through the weekend. I have some projects in mind but I'm really not sure what I'm going to tackle. Our project(s) will be mostly limited to the supplies we have on hand since our remodeling budget is really slim. Which brings out the creativity, right? Right. I'm sure it will be fun.

6 comments:

Mary said...

Kris is sick right now too. I hope it passes quickly.

I love those swallow tail butterflies. I've always thought they were especially pretty. I hope they aren't at fault in the case of your tomatoes.

I almost bought some cut sunflowers the other day. But I couldn't think of a good vase to put them in once I got them home. They are beautiful. The kind we grew growing up were the huge ones. I remember a field of them on a farm near us. I thought it was amazing then...those giant flowers all looking the same direction like a happy little army.

Christy said...

Wonderful backyard wildlife! You're totally not a dork for loving it :) Well, either that or I'm as big a dork as you are...

Angie said...

I would still love to start a corner full of sunflowers in the backyard & Landon would especially love it! When is the best time or does it matter?

Amy Button said...

Angie, I think you could still plant them where you are. It's too late up here because it will be cool soon (in about a month or so). You could plant them close to the posts on your fence so you wouldn't have to till up soil or anything. And the posts would keep Shane from mowing them down :) Planting them in the grass also hides them from birds and other things that will eat them when they're small. It takes a couple months for them to bloom but you could have some really pretty sunflowers in the autumn. Ooh, I could see a table scape with sunflowers and tiny pumpkins. That would be really cool. You might just want to give them some liquid fertilizer to help them along. That could help make up for sandy soil. I use Organic Choice by Miracle Grow and you can use that every 7 to 14 days. Hope it helps.

Joyce said...

I don't have much to add except that your blogs make me smile...

Angie said...

Wow! Thanks Amy!!! This should be fun:)