Wednesday, May 24, 2006

A textbook raspberry-ectomy

Lately we've been seeing a great big flicker hanging around the property, mostly in the tulip poplars. We've seen flickers before but only briefly; generally they stop by the feeders for a few days and then move on. This one seems to be sticking around. It may have been a flicker I heard this morning thunk-thunking against a tree, but I couldn't spot it so I don't know for sure.

The flowers in the newly planted flower garden have survived some very cold nights. Since Sunday, the temperature has been falling into the 30s at night and rising into the 70s during the day, an unusual range for this time of year. The chief flower gardener dug up a thick clump of daisies from the slope beside the house and moved them down into the flower beds, where they seem quite content. Yesterday it took all five of us to dig up some stubborn raspberry bushes that have been trying to colonize a rose bed and move them to a more appropriate location. Those tough roots just resist easy extraction.

I suppose all that effort looks pretty silly to the birds, who sow not....but so what? If we insist on rearranging the wild things that colonize our little bit of land, at least it gives us a good excuse to get out in the sunshine.

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