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The View from my Happy Chair

With the outdoor scaffolding gone a week now, I’ve really come to appreciate the view from what Hubby calls my princess chair but I’ve renamed my Happy Chair.

Some of the reasons I am happy today:

1) had a nice nap in that chair today

2) the view of the east yard contains almost pristine snow since the deer have been fenced out since December

3) the scaffolding has been gone from outside for a whole week and from the inside since Feb 1 (after being up in both places since October of last year)

4) the last time that contractor will be in this house – ever again – was Monday night and the last bill was just received and will be paid tomorrow

5)  the remote controls for the gate have finally been installed and they work

6) we’re finally getting some warmer weather and spring may be here soon – at least we can see the end of winter

7) I’m knitting my first sweater and it looks like it is going to fit !!!

8) I am going away on a quilt retreat soon

9) there have been bluebirds at our sunflower feeder and on the nesting box in the north yard

 

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Lime season, er…… Lyme season

So — it’s finally summertime in Connecticut. I bought fresh limes at the grocery store so hubby could make us some of his excellent margaritas. Well, he hasn’t had a chance to take us into lime season yet but, as of Monday, we are officially in Lyme season. Hubby has had Lyme disease (illness carried by deer tics and transferred with their bite) twice since we moved to Connecticut 8 years ago and now he has found a deer tic embedded in the fold of skin next to his pinkie finger. So, we are on the watch for the telltale red ring-shaped rash and other symptoms. Supposedly they appear in about 2 weeks. “Why might he have found a deer tic on his body?”, you ask. For the answer to that see my post from June 23 titled “Gardening challenge # 1”.

So — it’s finally summer here in Connecticut with all the good, and bad, things it brings.

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Gardening challenge # 1

Hubby and I worked hard in our pond, yard and garden on Saturday and were enjoying a relaxing Sunday afternoon being “trapped” inside by thunder and lightning storms in the area.  I was sitting in my favorite chair by the east windows in our living room, reading and watching TV, when something moving outside those windows caught my attention.   One of this year’s fawns was approaching a flower bed by my patio where I grow the plants and flowers that “deer don’t eat”.   What I have discovered is that the fawns don’t know what deer don’t eat and must taste and try everything at least once.  This spring I have found tops eaten off of plants that deer have never touched before.  I had found the outside edges of this plant munched on earlier this week and asked hubby to spray the area with Bobex (a horrible smelling liquid that deters deer from eating the plants you spray it on).  It was amusing to watch this fawn start to nibble on this plant and then sort of spit and stick out his tongue.  You could almost read his thoughts —- “this plant tasted much better on Thursday!”.

Fawn munching on Penstemon, Husker Red

I ran and got my camera — and this photo’s poor quality is due to the fact that I was photographing the fawn through a not-so-clean window.   And no, I did not zoom this photo — that’s how close he was to the house.  His nose has just been pulled back from the funny smelling plant and he seems to be staring at it accusingly.  So, perhaps now he knows this is one of the plants that deer don’t eat.

And on the other side of the house the fish in our pond were in what I called before “crazy fish” mode.  Swimming in circles, darting around the plants and through the falls, and swimming about as fast as I think they probably can swim.   We do have a hatch of very tiny, almost invisible, fish in the pond from an earlier spawning and if hubby is correct in that this circular swimming and chasing of one fish in particular is spawning behavior — well, there are more to come.

Crazy fish II

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About face!

I was sitting on a bench on our front step, deeply engrossed in the final chapters of a mystery novel, when something running through our front yard caught my attention. When I looked up, this little fella’ was running back and forth, leaping up in the air, and making full use of the yard as his playground. He didn’t even notice when I jumped up and ran inside for the camera. When I came back out he was headed directly toward where I was standing, but his mother barked at him from further down the yard and he changed his mind and direction just as I snapped the picture.

fawn 5/29/08

I followed doe and fawn down into the lower yard, but they were too quick for me and headed into the woods. The deer that live here are very predictable in their habits and in the times they walk through the property. So, next time I’ll have my camera with me and perhaps can catch a photo before the about face.