Congratulations to Mr. & Mrs. Bluebird! Proud parents of these newly hatched babies. I think there might be a third one underneath, but I didn't want to mess around with them too much on this chilly afternoon.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
It's a Boy! or maybe a girl.....
Monday, May 28, 2012
Memorial Day Holiday Weekend
Looks like summer has definitely arrived in time for Memorial Day weekend here in Minnesota. It doesn't seem very long ago that we were wondering what happened to winter and now summer is here. We had storms on Saturday that dumped quite a lot of rain (which we needed) then a nearly record-breaking warm day yesterday (high of 89 degrees).
It's really nice to hear all the birds singing in the backyard again and I have some birdies taking advantage of the houses and nesting material I put out for them. Here's the cozy little nest the chickadees made with moss, grass and some of the alpaca fiber I provided for their use. There are 6 little eggs tucked into this fuzzy nest!
I took a look yesterday and here are 3 little baby chickadees almost ready to fledge. They are just the cutest little things! I'm not sure why the other 3 eggs didn't hatch, but 3 babies will be more than enough for the parents to take care of.
Mr. & Mrs. Eastern Bluebird also moved into one of my Peterson nestboxes. They built a nice multi-layered nest with alpaca fiber on the bottom, then some grass and lastly a good layer of white pine needles. This is the first time I can ever remember the bluebirds using white pine needles, but it definitely makes a nice, substantial nesting material for them.
There are 3 pretty blue eggs in here. They should hatch sometime in the next week.
I've been working on getting some more native flowering plants added to my butterfly and hummingbird garden. I bought this Golden Alexander plant at the garden center a couple weeks ago. On the plant info card, it said Golden Alexander is a host plant for swallowtail butterflies. I was happy to find this little swallowtail caterpillar on the plant stem. Now I'll have to be really careful when I plant it so I don't dislodge the little bugger!
I'm starting to see lots more butterflies in my yard already this season and I'm hoping that all the new flowers I'm planting will encourage them to stick around for the summer. I had a nice Question Mark on the hummingbird feeder yesterday and also saw a couple of Mourning Cloaks earlier this spring. Quite a few Monarchs are already flying around and the milkweed is coming in nicely, so there will be plenty of food sources for the monarch caterpillars. I bought 2 new milkweed plants for my butterfly garden too -- one has orange flowers and the other has yellow flowers. Probably won't be long and I'll have to think about getting the monarch ranch up and running again too......
Monday, May 7, 2012
A good bird sighting!
Now that the weather's nice & it stays light later in the evening, we usually take Holly for a walk up the street after supper. Tonite we saw this little white bird in the front yard of one of our neighbors. I thought it might have been a goldfinch, but of course, I didn't have binocs or camera along to make a positive ID.
We hurried home so I could grab my camera and binocs all the while hoping that this bird would still be there......and after a few anxious minutes, it showed up again!
I was still thinking it was a goldfinch, until her amorous mate showed up -- a handsome Chipping Sparrow. Mystery solved! We watched the two of them fly down to the lawn, pick up some grasses and fly over to a small evergreen shrub right by the neighbor's house.
It was so amazing to see this special little sparrow. I'm not sure if it would be categorized as leucistic or partially albinistic. I'll share these photos with some real "bird experts" I know and see what they have to say.
I hope we get additional chances to see this bird and that it raises a nice little family, although walking back home, we saw 3 homeowners on this same street all outside spraying toxic chemicals on their lawns. :-(
I wish I could invite this Chipping Sparrow couple over to my yard where I know it's safe.......
Sunday, April 22, 2012
A Trip to the Alpaca Expo
We took a trip last Sunday over to Owatonna for the Minnesota Alpaca Expo. This was such a fun event for us last year that we decided to make the trip again. Alpacas are not the friendliest creatures -- they don't really care to be petted or even have strangers standing very close to them. However, I was able to photograph some of the many different colors and cute faces that we saw at this show and wanted to share them with you in this post.
No, this wasn't a talking alpaca -- just happened to snap the picture in "mid-chew"
No ears on this guy! Their ears are very expressive and it seemed like when something was going on they didn't like, the ears went down or back......extreme paparazzi disapproval here!
Pretty gray coloring on this alpaca (I was seeing yarn shades.....)
Alpaca Kiss!
I really liked the colors on this one!
And look at this beautiful dark, dark brown color......like french roast coffee or dark chocolate!
This is Fancy Pants, sporting a fashionable hat and heading off to the show ring
Three different colored alpacas from the same farm (notice two have ears but one is in "no photos, please!" mode)
This sweet little gray one was watching some activity at the pen across the way.
This was also a fiber show and not limited to alpacas -- the angora bunnies were there!
along with their angora bunny babies! I love angora -- it makes the softest (but very expensive!) yarn.
These guys were anxious to get back on the road to their home in Wisconsin.
I bought only 1 skein of yarn. This colorway is called Ripe Tomato.
There's 500 yards in the skein and I'll be using it to knit this shawl. Can't wait to get started on it......
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Chickadee Takes a Bath
As we were eating supper last nite, a Black-Capped Chickadee arrived to take a rather vigorous bath in the deck pool.
Fortunately, it's right outside the dining room window, so I quickly reached around to my desk and grabbed my camera to capture this one quick photo. Isn't it amazing how much water this tiny little bird is able to splash around?
Fortunately, it's right outside the dining room window, so I quickly reached around to my desk and grabbed my camera to capture this one quick photo. Isn't it amazing how much water this tiny little bird is able to splash around?Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Spring in March
March of 2012 was one for the records books -- warmest ever! I don't think we even saw a single flake of snow the entire 31 days. As a result, spring arrived about 5-6 weeks earlier than ever before. Now that April's here, we're actually experiencing more March-like weather, so I'm wishing for March weather again and reliving those spring-like days in these photos that I took during March.
I cleaned out my pantry one Saturday morning and found a partial bag of old, dried-up raisins. I dumped them out in the bird tray on the deck thinking that perhaps the robins or house finches might enjoy them. I was very surprised the next morning to find these honeybees feasting on the sweet raisins. Two of my neighbors have beehives, so I'm hoping these bees were some from their hives that survived our mild winter.
A few years ago Mr. Johnson got a deer, but he decided not to mount the antlers. He was just going to throw them away, but I told him I wanted to nail them to a dead tree in the backyard for the birds to perch on. There's a birdfeeder nearby and the birds actually do use the antlers for perching because all the branches have fallen off the dead tree. One afternoon when I was putting out yarn scraps for nesting material, I noticed that these antlers have also been munched on by some hungry little critters.
I've heard that small rodents will chew on antlers in the woods, but I always thought it was strictly when they were laying on the ground. I was surprised and amazed to see that they were even able to find these antlers attached 5 feet up a tree. They've done a pretty good job of chewing up this "bird perch!"
Last September at the Midwest Birding Symposium, I bought one of these alpaca nesting balls from my friend Kimberly who owns All Things Alpaca, LLC. It sat in my dining room all winter just waiting for spring nesting season. With spring birds arriving early this year, I decided it was time to get that nesting ball hung outside where it belonged. A couple days after this photo was taken, I moved the nesting ball to a tree branch in the hopes that maybe the birds would be more likely to notice it there......
In just the last few days, I've notice the nesting ball is looking pretty ratty -- something's been pulling on those alpaca fibers! I know the chickadees are busy in the little nest box in my front yard, so I did a little snooping the other nite..... Sure enough, mixed in with the grass and moss, there's all kinds of soft alpaca fiber! With the cold nites we've been having again lately, I'm sure Mrs. Chickadee really appreciates that cozy little nest she's built (and so will her babies).
My Nanking cherries put on a beautiful display of flowers in the middle of March. I know the birds love these cherries once they're ripe, so I'm hoping the overnite, below freezing temps we've had lately haven't frozen off the developing cherries.
Late last summer, I bought a purple butterfly bush at local garden center. The blossoms were beautiful and even though it was still a small bush, the butterflies found it right away and loved it. I know it's a Zone 5 plant, but luckily we had a Zone 5 winter this year in Minnesota and I was thrilled to see this plant is still alive in my butterfly garden!
A little red squirrel is living underneath the utility shed. She showed up one afternoon to raid the peanut feeder. Seeing her round little tummy makes me think that there will probably be more little red squirrels in my backyard this summer! What do you think?
Spring birds also began arriving earlier than in previous years. On March 26th, a Eurasian Collared Dove showed up in the backyard. It was only here for that one day, but they're becoming quite common in Minnesota, so maybe I'll be seeing them here more frequently too.
A couple male Red-Winged Blackbirds had a little showdown at the birdfeeder one morning. Aren't they handsome? Fortunately, they were more interested in eating than defending their territory, and both of them had to fly away when a Bluejay showed up at the birdfeeder too. I love Red-Winged Blackbirds and feel fortunate that they nest nearby and are regular backyard birdfeeder visitors for at least 6 months of the year.
I cleaned out my pantry one Saturday morning and found a partial bag of old, dried-up raisins. I dumped them out in the bird tray on the deck thinking that perhaps the robins or house finches might enjoy them. I was very surprised the next morning to find these honeybees feasting on the sweet raisins. Two of my neighbors have beehives, so I'm hoping these bees were some from their hives that survived our mild winter.
A few years ago Mr. Johnson got a deer, but he decided not to mount the antlers. He was just going to throw them away, but I told him I wanted to nail them to a dead tree in the backyard for the birds to perch on. There's a birdfeeder nearby and the birds actually do use the antlers for perching because all the branches have fallen off the dead tree. One afternoon when I was putting out yarn scraps for nesting material, I noticed that these antlers have also been munched on by some hungry little critters.
I've heard that small rodents will chew on antlers in the woods, but I always thought it was strictly when they were laying on the ground. I was surprised and amazed to see that they were even able to find these antlers attached 5 feet up a tree. They've done a pretty good job of chewing up this "bird perch!"
Last September at the Midwest Birding Symposium, I bought one of these alpaca nesting balls from my friend Kimberly who owns All Things Alpaca, LLC. It sat in my dining room all winter just waiting for spring nesting season. With spring birds arriving early this year, I decided it was time to get that nesting ball hung outside where it belonged. A couple days after this photo was taken, I moved the nesting ball to a tree branch in the hopes that maybe the birds would be more likely to notice it there......
In just the last few days, I've notice the nesting ball is looking pretty ratty -- something's been pulling on those alpaca fibers! I know the chickadees are busy in the little nest box in my front yard, so I did a little snooping the other nite..... Sure enough, mixed in with the grass and moss, there's all kinds of soft alpaca fiber! With the cold nites we've been having again lately, I'm sure Mrs. Chickadee really appreciates that cozy little nest she's built (and so will her babies).
My Nanking cherries put on a beautiful display of flowers in the middle of March. I know the birds love these cherries once they're ripe, so I'm hoping the overnite, below freezing temps we've had lately haven't frozen off the developing cherries.
Late last summer, I bought a purple butterfly bush at local garden center. The blossoms were beautiful and even though it was still a small bush, the butterflies found it right away and loved it. I know it's a Zone 5 plant, but luckily we had a Zone 5 winter this year in Minnesota and I was thrilled to see this plant is still alive in my butterfly garden!
A little red squirrel is living underneath the utility shed. She showed up one afternoon to raid the peanut feeder. Seeing her round little tummy makes me think that there will probably be more little red squirrels in my backyard this summer! What do you think?
Spring birds also began arriving earlier than in previous years. On March 26th, a Eurasian Collared Dove showed up in the backyard. It was only here for that one day, but they're becoming quite common in Minnesota, so maybe I'll be seeing them here more frequently too.
A couple male Red-Winged Blackbirds had a little showdown at the birdfeeder one morning. Aren't they handsome? Fortunately, they were more interested in eating than defending their territory, and both of them had to fly away when a Bluejay showed up at the birdfeeder too. I love Red-Winged Blackbirds and feel fortunate that they nest nearby and are regular backyard birdfeeder visitors for at least 6 months of the year.
Hope you're enjoying spring in your backyard too!
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Be Kind to Animals Week
Did you know that May 6-12 marks the 97th annual "Be Kind to Animals Week?" First established by The American Humane Association in 1915 to celebrate the unique bond between humans and animals.
Did you also know that we got our new dog, Holly, from Paws & Claws (our local humane society)?
To celebrate Be Kind to Animals Week and also Paws & Claws, we will be participating in the 18th Annual Paws & Claws Pet Walk fundraiser on May 5th. Our goal is to raise $250 (and maybe more!)
If you would like to donate to Team Johnson's efforts for this fundraiser, please click onthis link . Anyone who makes a donation of $10 or more will receive a handmade gift from Holly's mom.......that would be me ;-) You can also read more of Holly's story and see some cute pics of her at this link.
This will be Holly's first official fundraising walk in a group situation. I think she'll be pretty excited to see all her old friends -- the volunteers and staff of Paws & Claws!
I'm sure you're always aware, but when looking for a new furry friend, please keep your local shelter in mind. There are lots of beautiful animals in need of a new forever home. We are really happy Holly has adjusted so well to ours!
P.S. If you'd like to donate to Holly's pet walk, but aren't comfortable with the on-line option, you can send me your pledge using a personal check. Click on my name under the "About Me" link on my sidebar and I'll send you my mailing address. Thanks again!
Did you also know that we got our new dog, Holly, from Paws & Claws (our local humane society)?
To celebrate Be Kind to Animals Week and also Paws & Claws, we will be participating in the 18th Annual Paws & Claws Pet Walk fundraiser on May 5th. Our goal is to raise $250 (and maybe more!)
If you would like to donate to Team Johnson's efforts for this fundraiser, please click on
This will be Holly's first official fundraising walk in a group situation. I think she'll be pretty excited to see all her old friends -- the volunteers and staff of Paws & Claws!
I'm sure you're always aware, but when looking for a new furry friend, please keep your local shelter in mind. There are lots of beautiful animals in need of a new forever home. We are really happy Holly has adjusted so well to ours!
P.S. If you'd like to donate to Holly's pet walk, but aren't comfortable with the on-line option, you can send me your pledge using a personal check. Click on my name under the "About Me" link on my sidebar and I'll send you my mailing address. Thanks again!
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