Important Visitors

Yesterday I took the day off work to get a start on planting the garden.  Vegetables go in first.  Flowers can wait. I got a good start.  My Yukon gold and my blue potatoes are already up.  Garlic and some stray onions were also growing.  As I turned the soil the chickens followed me and ate the June bugs and angle worms as they were uncovered.  Gross.  I eat the eggs that come from the chickens that eat angle worms and June bugs?  Can't think about that too much.  These chickens are smart.  They scratch and scratch at some areas of the garden but not near the seeded areas or by the new plants.  So my chickens double as garden weeders which is handy for me.  I added carrots, Castor beans, peas, 9 red kohlrabi (will I regret that?  It was either 9 or none so I went with 9), gourds, peppers, and tomatoes.  I planted sunflowers too.  I don't know why I do that.  Every year the deer eat the tops off the sunflower plants when they're a foot high leaving me a row of sticks.  Why do I even bother?  I just like the sunflowers so much that I keep trying when experience has taught me to give up. The weather was foggy in the morning but got more and more beautiful as the day went on.  I had a 4:30 appointment.  When I went to leave at 4 I had some important visitors arrive making me late.  In the driveway were a bunch of yellow warblers, yellow rumped warblers, chestnut sided warblers, Nashville warblers and chipping sparrows flitting around in the mud puddle in the driveway.  What a treat to look at warblers down on the ground for a change.  When they're up in trees I get "warbler neck" which is a sore neck to be sure.  I was watching the warblers flit around when two bright blue birds with purplish heads jumped in to the party.  I got so excited to see my first of the year indigo buntings that I now owe my swearing jar another dollar.  Will I ever mature enough to express great excitement with something other than coarse language?