Thursday Thirteen

Here are 13 things you would see in my yard this morning:

1. Another partially eaten bar of Irish Spring bath soap, courtesy of some critter that is supposed to find it repulsive. Instead the creature now has lovely smelling breath. This is the third bar that has been gnawed upon.



This was the second bar, not the third, to have been eaten.


2. Six-inch high sunflowers. I planted these a few weeks ago because my zinnias and marigolds had short lives, courtesy of a rabbit. I put a fence around them. I am hoping for bright sunny flowers before frost.



These are zinnias that were coming up well before the rabbit decided it needed a salad.


3. A rabbit. There he goes, hopping through the front yard. The other day I bought a box of Trix, the first time I'd purchased that cereal in years, and found the rabbit sitting on the front porch by the door. Silly rabbit.




4. Four blue spruce trees. We planted these trees about 20 years ago. My mother took us and showed us some trees we could dig up. After we'd put three in the truck, she said, "Better hurry, this isn't part of the property we just bought." We thought it was, of course, and were surprised to find out otherwise. Our stolen trees have prospered.



Birds like the blue spruce.



5. A single blueberry. Last year we planted a small Concord grape vine and two blueberry bushes. One of the blueberry bushes died. The living one has produced a single blueberry.

6. Doves. I hear them cooing in the mornings. It is a comforting sound.

7. A ripening tomato. Like many local gardeners, I've been fighting blight/fungus on my tomato plants, but I do have some on the vine. One is starting to turn a little yellow. I can hardly wait for it to turn red.

8. Green beans. My beans, which are of varying variety, are doing very well. My husband planted the beans for me and didn't mark which ones were the pole beans; they should have been staked out better than they were. They nearly throttled a tomato plant with their fast-growing tendrils before I rescued it with some wire and retraining of the vines.

9. Queen Ann's Lace. This weed grows in the fields all around the yard. This is actually the tops of a wild carrot, which I did not know until I looked it up a while ago. Folk remedies use this for contraception. Learn something new every day.

10. Clover. Our yard is not exactly the greatest. We have a lot of weeds, clover and wire grass.

11. Bees. I have seen a few honey bees this year, for which I was grateful given that last year all the talk was about honey bees dying out.

12. Forsythia bushes. These are great in the spring, when they burst out in yellow. In summer they are a nice shade of green. Ours are overgrown along the driveway. My husband leaves them like that so that in winter they will serve as a snow break to keep blowing snow from the road. They do that job fairly well.



Forsythia in the spring is one of my favorite sites.

13. Me! You'd see me out there, waving at you as you pull up the drive! Then I'd bring you inside and we'd have a cup of tea.



Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; you can learn more about it here. My other Thursday Thirteens are here. This is number101!