Mornings At The Farm

Bees, Birds, Fall, Flowers, garlic, Reflections, The Farm,

September 5, 2019

My plan this morning was to clean garlic. There were about 150 bulbs that I wanted to get done. I figured it would take me about an hour to complete this task so I also took some time to enjoy the day. Would you like to join me?

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As I walked past the garden I was greeted by this sunflower. I wonder, is it possible to look at a sunflower and not smile? As you can tell I was not the only one happy to see this flower. The honey bees were all over it.

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This was the view from were I was working. Nothing but blue sky and sunshine this morning.

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While walking through the prayer garden I discovered that the honey bees were also foraging the anise hyssop. This is a recent addition to the prayer garden and was largely added for the benefit of the bees.  I only see one bee in this picture, but I assure you there were more that the camera did not capture.

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My husband discovered that bees like this plant while working at his landscaping job. They had to go to a greenhouse to purchase some anise hyssop plants for a job they were doing, and he said the bees were all over the plants. A couple weeks later he took me to that greenhouse to purchase some for our farm.

Another visitor to the prayer garden this morning was this Hummingbird, searching for nectar in the hanging plants.

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It is a bit camouflaged by the green plants in the background. Do you see it just left of center?

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It is now to the right of this basket.

In recent weeks we have seen the return of an annual visitor. For at least the past 5 years we have seen this bird (or one like it) in and around our pond in the late summer. I am assuming it is the same bird and although we usually see just one at a time on rare occasions we will see two.

Since it was not a bird I was familiar with and was unable to positively identify it through our bird books or internet searches, in 2016 I turned to my blog readers for help through this post. While the answer did not come through the post comments, I learned  that our bird was a Green Herron.

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He or she is a quiet bird and blends well into the grasses that surround the pond.

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Can you believe this is the same bird? It’s appearance certainly changes as it makes a quick getaway.

Before noon I return to the house with that batch of garlic cleaned.

September 6, 2019

Though there was rain in the forecast I was hopeful it would hold off and I could finish up cleaning the last batch (about 100 bulbs) of garlic.

The sky was gray and the sun was hidden. Before getting started I took in some of the surroundings.

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Maple leaves are indicating that Fall is not far off.

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Squirrels have been collecting nuts.

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This sunflower with a fancy hairdo.

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The Norway Spruce that is loaded with pinecones.

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With the threat of rain it was not a good morning for cleaning garlic so my plan B was to work in the prayer garden.

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As I brought out my garden tools the rain began.

Perhaps plan C, canning tomatoes, is a better job for today.

Thanks for joining me. Are you seeing signs of Fall in your area?

 

38 thoughts on “Mornings At The Farm”

  1. So beautiful!!! Our garden is almost ready to shut down here. I hope to start the process this weekend. It always makes me a little sad, but it feels good to have everything tidy and ready for winter. There’s a real peace to it.

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    1. Thank you. 🙂 We are coming to the end of garden season as well. We have harvested most of our vegetables and I am preserving what I can. We are beginning to prepare for winter but hoping it does not come too soon.

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  2. What a lovely meandering post Ruth. To see Humming birds must be lovely. I love seeing all the birds in our garden, but saw some yellow hammers recently, and some green woodpeckers – l am going to try and encourage more birds to the garden this winter with the bird feeders and diets we can offer them. They say it’s going to be a hard harsh winter and l can’t have that, so the birds need as much help as we can offer them 🙂

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  3. [I am quite behind in Reader Ruth] I once saw a green heron and did not know what type of bird it was, took a picture and sent it to the DNR as no bloggers could advise what it was. It turned out it was a green heron – so unusual looking, not your regular heron. Fall is in the air here too – we are having 20 degrees warmer tomorrow. I took a lot of pics last Friday at the park as I saw twinges of red and orange, even yellow

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    1. I am also behind in both reading and writing so I know what you mean. When I first asked for help identifying the bird my sister shared the post on Facebook, then I think someone else shared it and then someone from the Audubon Society replied that it was a green heron and my sister told me. I’ll take the warmer weather for now – after all it is still summer. 🙂

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      1. I asked too when I posted the picture (and I just searched for it but the search engine on WordPress does not always pick up the word(s) so I couldn’t find it) … no one knew, so I reached out to the DNR. The thing was it had its head tucked in so it did not look like a heron. I thought we were headed to cooler weather for good and I could deal with the heat, but not the severe weather they predicted. This morning they said severe weather but didn’t pinpoint any details, just 4:00-10:00 timeframe … right now there is rotation in the Midland and Saginaw areas, but nothing has touched down. For that reason, I’m ready to head into Fall. We will have an okay weekend, except hot after three rainy days.

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      2. I am glad to know the DNR was willing and able to help Sometimes it seems like these agencies are unreachable or too busy to deal with little thing.
        I sure hope fall doesn’t rush winter. Are you making plans for the weekend?

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      3. Well the DNR was really nice that time and even said it was a good picture. I tried searching for it to show you before using key words “green heron” and as I was writing this I thought I’d try “River’s Edge Marina” – bingo! I have walked down there sometimes and watched the boats and the rowing club skiffs sometimes go into the alcove where the marina is. I’ll put the link at the end of this comment.
        However, I was at Bishop Park on the Detroit River and saw a seagull with a fishhook in its foot and a line hanging off the hook … the seagull didn’t move, just sat on one leg. I sent them a Facebook message since that worked well the firstt time. I said the bird didn’t move, maybe a local vet could catch it – they sent me a message many days later that the hook would come out eventually, not to worry. I also recently wrote to ask what type of squirrel had tufted ears (that recent post I did about a squirrel with tufted ears, but it was not a tassle-eared squirrel). They wrote back after looking at the pics and said it was a fox squirrel who was “having a bad hair day”. No, it was not a fox squirrel but I was not going to press the point with them – they’d think I was a little off.

        As for the weekend Ruth, I am going to take another stab at the sunflower festival. My issue is that I don’t like to drive on expressways, however right now the best route to take is I-94 and it is really torn up. I got lost going to Belleville last Saturday and ended up at Lower Huron Metropark – it was nice there, so all was not lost and the metropark was in the same city/zipcode as the sunflower farm. So how did I get so turned around? Google map was not accurate as I wrote it down to the letter. So I bought a paper map and need to consult it … bigtime. That will be Saturday, and Sunday Elizabeth Park has a “Somewhere in Time” festival – a free festival with old cars (Model T and Model A type and 60s cars like you see at the cruises) and the old-fashioned bicycles, vintage clothing etc. That’s at 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 but I would only stay a few hours and walk beforehand – another butterfly event to raise money for animal shelters is in the afternoon. I have things to do inside/outside and have not even begun loading in my groceries for Winter – I load pantry items in so I don’t have to go out much in Winter. I don’t like to drive in ice/snow so only go once/month for refrigerated food and that’s it.

        I don’t like Winter weather, but this weather is nothing special right now as we may have severe weather this evening or Winter so stay safe Ruth.
        So here is my green hereon pic: https://lindaschaubblog.net/2016/09/12/sunrise-and-scarecrows-on-a-late-summer-morn/

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  7. That is so beautiful, a prayer garden. I use my garden as my quiet place and there I will sometimes sit and say prayers for my love ones and friends. It is a private conversation between me and God. A lot of my plants I have planted in memory of my lost love ones. I have never heard of a prayer garden too. Your farm is so pretty. We don’ t get Fall leaves here in the city, Phoenix is a desert. We do get them up north where Our Little Red House is. I can’t wait to get up there in a couple of weeks to see if the colors are changing yet. It is so gorgeous when that happens. Have a great weekend.

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    1. Thank you. It’s sounds like you have a prayer garden even if you don’t call it that. I would miss the fall colors, and walking through piles of fallen leaves. It’s great that you have a place where you can go to enjoy that. I hope you have a great weekend as well.

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    1. Enjoy summer while it lasts! It seems to have gone so quickly – I would love to have it around a while longer. We love our windmill too and especially that it is functional. It is used to pump air into the pond, providing oxygen that is needed by the fish. We also use it to pump water out of the pond for irrigating crops in during dry spells.

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      1. Eh. Summers in NC can get HHHHHHHOT. I love me some Autumn & Spring. Our winters can be mild compared to the northern states.

        That is awesome. A functional windmill. I’d love to have one but, the town I live in would not approve.

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      2. That’s true. Here in SE Michigan we usually get a few summer days in the 90’s but winters can get extremely cold and snowy. I prefer summer over winter but spring is my favorite time of year.
        Thankfully we did not need a permit for our windmill.

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  10. I loved following your day with words and photos.

    There are hints of colors in some trees in the NC mountains. I’m trying to be aware of all the subtle changes, because fall is my favorite time of year.

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    1. Thanks Anne. I’m glad you enjoyed it. After blogging for four years I have found that I can now go back to posts from previous years to compare one year to another. Like the Green Herron – I am not sure why but seems to show up in August and I had written that in my previous post. I hope you have a wonderful fall. 🙂

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      1. I’ve been blogging about four years, too. When I look at Facebook, the older posts show up on their anniversary dates. It’s fun to see those things. I’m behind since being away and still have lots to catch up on.

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    1. I plan on doing a post specifically on our prayer garden – what it is and how it came to be. I suppose a prayer garden can be different things to different people – ours is basically the center piece of our property. I call it a prayer garden to remind of us our gratitude for the gifts He has give, it bears a scripture that reminds us not to lose faith, and it inspires me to commune with God. I will try to get a more detailed post finished soon.
      I was happy that the hummingbird photos turned out – they move so quickly it was point and click and hope for the best. LOL. Enjoy summer while it lasts!

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  12. Thanks for sharing your days with us! The sunflower is beautiful. That’s my favorite flower. 😊 One of the trees in our backyard have a few leaves that are starting to turn. I’m so excited for fall!

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I would love to hear from you.