Humming bird feeder

Quite a while back, like mid summer, I took the kids out to spend some gift cards and their allowance. Now, most of the money was gift cards that I had held onto since Christmas for a "Special treat" day. I like the kids to have a day to just go out and browse without too much pressure so spending their money is fun and its a great way to cure the mid-summer "I'm bored."

On this day, Pooka had been asking for a humming bird feeder. I refused to buy one because she had a garden. I figured what did we need with another thing to maintain and that she would forget about. Boy was I wrong.

Pooka's hummingbird feeder

Pooka is nothing if not determined. She wanted a hummingbird feeder, and asked if she could use her money.  I told her it was her money, she could do what she wanted with it, but I had veto power. I wouldn't veto this. Pooka bought this little hummingbird feeder with her gift cards. I made the food from a recipe online. I figured it couldn't be that hard to make. We filled the feeder and hung it by some of the tomato plants.

Her humming bird feeder in place

Yet again, I was wrong. The clear food didn't work as well, since it was still there a couple of weeks later. I will admit when I am wrong so we broke down and bought a bottle of the concentrate. That was gone in a couple of days. It worked like a charm and there were so many things that ate from it. I know I saw a few butterflies and some bees, and it helped Pooka finally see her hummingbird. Hopefully Pooka learned from this that sometimes things are better when you buy them than when they are given to you. 

Sunflowers down, sunflowers down.

This is a little story about how you should be careful what you think about. A few weeks ago I was thinking random thoughts while doing something else, and I said to myself, "Gee, maybe planting the sunflower seeds straight in the ground is the way to go. We have not had a single sunflower fall over this year."

A few days later, another one of windy, blustery storms came through. The next day I walked outside to collect some Chinese 5 color peppers and I saw this outside. 

And everyone hit the ground

As usual, none of the stems broke. One small set of roots pulled slightly out, but not by much, and with the fact the ground was so saturated with water, we were pretty sure we could just push it back down and it would be fine. 

Hi fence, how are you

Some of the sunflowers were laying on the neighbor's fence. Fortunately, they are very nice people and were understanding. They had a few of their own plants go falling over in the storm. The sunflowers themselves seemed in decent shape, even if they were a bit droopy. A day or 2 later (after we bought some more poles) we were able to stand most of them back up. In a day or two I will post the 1st of the month pictures for October, and you can see how we supported them for what little remains of the growing season.

Visitor to the Pollinator garden

Pooka was outside one morning with me waiting for Brother's bus to come. I will say I am still not digging the whole bus thing, but that is not the important part of the story. While I am watching a corner full of kids, Pooka yells "Mommy, Mommy look what I found." Once all the kids are on the bus, I came up and took a look. I didn't see it at first, but Pooka saw something on her milkweed. 

Do you see what Pooka sees?

Well, once I was convinced to get closer and I saw our little friend and went for the camera. Turns out she had a little monarch caterpillar hanging out on the milk weed. I did kneel in the wet grass to take this picture, but Pooka had a new friend in her pollinator garden.  Pooka was so happy her pollinator garden was attracting some new friends. Pooka kept tails on this little guy for a couple of days before he wandered off. She did tell me she saw a hummingbird a few days ago, but it was gone before I got the camera. Hopefully for her this is a sign that more "friends" have found her little garden and are content.

Hello Caterpillar.