Ramblings of a rural(ish) geek

There is a 'baby' Baltimore oriole using the birdbath and the rill to bathe in. Not fully orange yet, and is smaller than the pair I saw earlier in the year. They don't actually nest in our yard, but across the street in the abandoned orchard and hedgerow. We just have the closest water. I put the oriole feeder back out, but won't be putting nectar in it, just the blackberry jam.

I found a baby praying mantis (about two inches long) on the birdseed bins a couple of days ago. I put it on a daisy plant out in the E garden where there are plenty of bugs for it to eat.

There are at least four hummingbirds using the feeder. They haven't gotten territorial yet, so I haven't deployed more than one feeder.

I was a bit concerned when the milkweed seemed to be coming in sparsely and late, but they seem to have caught up now, and there are the usual clumps in the front gardens. I have seen butterflies at them, even. The bees are very glad of them, as they are flowering just when there's a gap between other flowers.

I moved strawberry plants yesterday. I think there's a few more I could move today, but I need to decide whether I want to put some in the west bed before I commit to moving them all. We've gotten over 2 inches of rain in the last week, and it's all soaked in -- I expect an explosion of weeds in the next couple of weeks. I should go get a start on all of that weeding....