Clouds and Flowers and Birds, Oh My!

I've been doing a lot of weeding this month and spending a lot of time looking down.  And while there are interesting things that I find in the rocks and beds surrounding our property I have to take a break every once and a while and remember to look up. Usually the birds attract my attention with their antics, but on this day it was HWNSNBP who alerted me to look up over my right shoulder because our neighbor was cutting the grass and I hadn't heard the sound of the balloon in the sky very nearby - the first of the season.

And when I looked over my left shoulder I couldn't believe the clouds.

And closer.....

and closer......

and further away .....  Can you spot the plane?

Two minutes later they were gone - all piled together.

Over by the garage the brunnera are in full bloom.

So are the barberry bushes.  Those yellow flowers are always a surprise to me.

There are several clumps of wild geraniums scattered about.  Some consider them weeds but I let them thrive hoping they'll spread some more.  The flowers don't last long but they're so pretty bouncing in the wind.

And this combination really caught my attention.  The forget-me-nots have been outstanding this year and very prolific.  This is the new poppy that we added to this bed and I love the contrast in colors of the poppies themselves as well as against the blue forget-me-nots.  

And look what HWNSNBP found in the basement a couple of weeks ago that decided to bloom.  Two stalks opened at the same time.  On the top stalk the two blooms left of the center one are solid red while all the others are striped..... very unusual.  

And here's a bluebird update.

Five eggs were laid, the last one on April 12th.

On April 27th they hatched.  This was taken a couple of days after hatching.

And this was the last picture taken the week before they fledged.  We came home on Saturday and they had all left.

But curiously, a few days before that and right up until Monday of this week, the female bluebird was acting very strangly.  She kept fluttering around and into the windows of the dining room.  

She had me really worried that she would hurt herself by hitting the window too hard.  She would grab onto the screen or the door handle and perch there intermittently.  There were mealworms in the feeder and we even put some live ones in the planter outside the window to see if she was looking to be fed, but she kept up this behavior even after that.  She finally stopped when I put some cardboard and wrapping paper along the bottom 3 feet of the windows.  It's been a couple of days since she's been here so I'll remove the cardboard and paper and see if she returns.  

And I'll circle around back to looking down and say I had a big Oh My! last night when I went to get my little gardening trolly that I sit on when I weed.  I heard some rustling in the leaves that had collected against the house and what we refer to as the well cover though the well is no longer under it.  It only took me a moment to realize that it was a snake.  I can't tell you what kind it was but it was patterned. I did not see the head or tail, I just yelled to HWNSNBP that there was a snake there.....several anxious times...... and quickly left the area.  By the time he got there, it had burried itself in the leaves again and he questioned my outburst but he had brought a shovel with him and started moving the leaves around and there it was.  I had my phone camera at the ready, but before I could snap a picture the snake decided to check out the house and slithered up under the fascia board beneath the siding.  The back of our house is very low to the ground being on a hill, so the fascia board is almost on the ground giving the snake a very short distance to get to it.  And it was gone......into the house.......who knows where it is now.  HWNSNBP doesn't believe that it got into the house, but I am not so sure.  The mice get in somehow and I reminded him of the awards banquet that we had attended at a banquet facility when Rachel was in high school where everyone in the audience could see the snake slithering around in the plants that were above and behind the head table.  In the 43 years we've lived in this house I've never seen a snake - salamanders, toads, turtles and all sorts of mammals and birds, but no snakes ..... until now.