Mid Michigan Nature

I went out to look for the kind and brand of paint I needed and it took me three stores before I hound it. I added a light coating on the patch area and you can hardly tell where I fixed it, from this view anyway. It was getting too hot sitting there and I still had to mow the front yard yet.

Yesterday morning as I was rinsing out the birdbath, I wondered how these leaves keep getting in here. As I was watching the birds I got my answer. A grackle was in the bath throwing water all over the place. Meanwhile there was another grackle pacing around, waiting for the first one to move on. When number one moved, the second one carried a couple leaves up and tossed them in the water. I had never seen this before. Anybody got a guess why they did that?

Today I will be going out to get a gallon of yellow paint so I can continue with my repairs on the yellow shed. It is also garbage day so I have to drag that stuff out to the road. No rain here again but we got pleasant weather here. Right now it’s 57F degrees (14C) and very light wind.

My yellow shed has shown up in a lot of my posts but it needed a little repairing.

The area where the blue is showing is a new piece of wood. That area had developed a rotten spot. My friend had a similar piece of wood with grooves in it and I had to surgically fit in the new piece after trimming out the rotten part. How did I do? 👇

Here is an up close look from above. I will have to repaint the shed now but it needs it. I just painted it a few years ago but that paint sure didn’t work well. Got the grooves pretty close.

As you can see out in the field, that short rain we had a couple days ago did not help much. Here is a Sunday morning view of one of my peonies.

I have made no plans today and I will just feel my way through today. I did not feel well at all yesterday and I am not going to push things today even there is much to do.

The birds around here waited until it was pouring rain before all decided to head over to the birdbath at the same time.

You can even see a couple raindrops in mid air. There were even a couple grackles trying to get in. When the grackles landed, then the American goldfinches would fly away a few feet. Then as soon as they left the grackle took off and the goldfinches would come right back.

I thought I had time first thing this afternoon to get out and cut the backyard but the rain blew in about five hours early. I had to bust my butt to get a quickie cut finished.

This peony is the one closest to my yellow shed. 👇Does it look like a piece is missing?

Yeah, I was whipping around so quickly that I clipped one of the flowers. ☹️ Oops. I was lucky to get this one shot, the wind started gusting at 40 mph when the storm started.

The flower hung on to the mower deck until a bunch of petals were ripped off. I brought the poor thing into the house.

Things were quiet while I was outside looking for my morning shot. We finally are getting some rain here in about eleven hours. 💦

I hope today goes better than yesterday, I had a real problem with fatigue yesterday and kind of laid around all day. That’s probably why I didn’t sleep so good last night. I hope things are back to normal today.

You can see the soybeans out in the field creeping up slowly because of the lack of rain. Watch then shoot up after today. You won’t be able to see field dirt then. 🙄

I started some herbal tea to brew and forgot about it. It ought to be quite potent by now. 😂

It is getting very warm here and still dry. Many birds are visiting today.

Two more here ☝️but I’m not sure of their names.

This one ☝️looks like mom robin on the right. The one on the left looks too big to be a sparrow. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Three at once.☝️ I skipped cutting the grass today. I just didn’t feel that well today. It looks like it needs to be a bit longer until just before it is going to rain.

There are some wispy clouds out this morning but no rain is due here for maybe another 39 hours. ☹️

Everything seemed to go well at yesterday’s dental appointment. After the cleaning, the tech and the dentist gather around and talk low, in their secret numbers code. Try as they might, they couldn’t find anything that needed fixing. 😂 Yay for me.

You can see in this morning’s shot that my peonies are starting to open but they look like they are struggling a little.

Only two of the five peonies are starting to flower this morning. Maybe with tomorrow night’s rain they will perk up. I need to get the mower out today, the backyard is starting to get a little shaggy looking. Time to get this day started. 👍

I added another stepping stone in the water for another place for smaller birds to land.

When I stepped out back, it was very quiet this morning. There was no birds singing and no birds out hunting for their breakfast. I did not walk out too far so maybe the robins did not spot me. 🙄

I came in and got my shower and need to go back out and water everything. It has not rained here and it is getting quite dry. The crop in each field is slowly pushing up but I bet they would like some rain. None is on tap for today or tomorrow.

I have a routine dentist appointment this morning and they are good people over there. I don’t mind going in. Need to get my coffee started and get outside and hydrate some plants. 🌱

I was successful today. 😃

I was already out in the flower garden, sitting on a low stool doing some weeding. He came around after I was already out there a while. He is in the center of the above picture.

Got another pic a bit closer. I added more water in the birdbath while I was there. A lot had evaporated since this morning’s fill

Daddy robin is up on the shed, standing guard and just waiting for a bug to move. 🦅

You can see him at the front peak. Birds like to stand at that front peak and look around.

The HVAC guy came here yesterday and got my heating and cooling working. My thermostat was only a couple years old but that was the problem.

Today is laundry day and change the bedding day. I also need to run to the grocery store too.

This is my first time planting broccoli and this one looks happy. I planted it up behind the house so it would be out of the wind. I planted the bigger tomato here too. The wind has been terrible this year.

Started feeling better after I was up and moving around so I headed for the gym. I started out as usual on the bike and moved around on other strength machines. Here I am on the calf extension machine. I wanted to do some dumbbell exercises but my timing was off and it got crowded down there. 💪

I was out just before sunrise this morning. All was quiet, not even the birds were up yet.

Today is supposed to be a very windy day, but I don’t have any trash (or stray car bumpers) 🤣 to put out this week. One person just doesn’t generate enough trash in one week to warrant wasting a garbage bag on. It takes me two weeks to fill one bag.

It has not rained in days around here. I have to monitor the plants make sure they get a drink without drowning them. I need to get my shower in and get out there and get this day started.

In the picture above there are two microscopic lady bugs, but these are so tiny that you may never spot them. If you can, let me know in the comments. Below is what they look like. 👇

It took about three tries before I got a good snap of this thing. They were seated towards the upper part of the sprigs.

I found those stupid keys I couldn’t find, and then misplaced them again! 😠 I got a way to keep track of them today. 👇

Maybe this way I won’t lose them so fast 😂

I did not post yesterday because I was not feeling well. I did not sleep good because it felt like all the bones in my feet were just aching. I stayed off my feet most of the day and feel better now.

This morning I walked all the way out to the farm field to see what was growing because the plants are up a little higher now. Looks like soybeans was the choice this year.

I was out watering my garden already this morning because it has been dry and windy here and it looks like we have another day of the same coming.