GREEN SPRING GARDENS CONTINUED, PLUS A BIT OF THIS AND THAT

I start off with another tree, as you can see. I'm not sure what kind but what I was more interested in was the vine growing up the trunk. I have never noticed it before, probably because it wasn't blooming. No doubt the reason I love coming in all seasons because you just never know what you'll notice that you haven't noticed before.

It is the Trumpet Flower, also known as Crossvine (botanical name Bignonia capreolata) and native to the southeastern United States. A cross section of its stem reveals a marking of the Greek cross, hence its name of Crossvine. I also read at this website the vine is usually a dark, glossy green but in the colder areas of its growing range, the leaves take on a reddish-purple color. 

I will be sharing Green Springs in bits and dabs for a while. I am behind on everything. I thought I would add a bit of a ramble and hopefully it won’t bore you too much, but it is where my head is at. 

Right now I am enjoying having the windows open and listening to the birds. Yesterday (the 27th) we had a tornado warning that lasted several hours. Rare for this area!  We saw a heavy yellow sky in the late afternoon, it was a bit windy but seemed to move away quite quickly. Then it rained hard and there was a thunderstorm. These things are horrendous, so I hope you didn't have any nasty weather in your area. 

It's been cooler today and there has been a lovely breeze blowing into the house. It rained again and it became even cooler. Hearing the birds twittering out there has been a joy and of course watching the antics of these little rascals. 

The Mourning Doves seem to have made this their permanent home. They appear early in the morning and late in the evening. 

I watched one stand its ground with a squirrel which surprised me. The Dove claimed its prize of a recently filled basket of birdseed, and the squirrel departed! Those doves have been very feisty lately.

I have seen Doves, a male and female Cardinal, a Black-capped Chickadee, several Blue Jays, and a Crow.  The Cardinals and the Black-capped Chickadee were hard to take photos of. Added note on 6/1/24: I am very grateful to David who hosts Travel With Birds, who let me know that what I am seeing is a Carolina Chickadee and not a Black-capped Chickadee as I have always believed. You can read what he said in the comment section.  David is very knowledgeable about birds and I always appreciate his expertise.  I am also very grateful to anyone who thinks I may have misidentified anything in my blog. I truly do want to get it right, and I love learning even at this time of my life. Thank you David! If you are curious how you can tell the difference, this website has a very good explanation.

The other bit of drama was watching the Crow being dive-bombed by the Blue Jays. It happened today and yesterday, but the Crow also stood its ground, leaving when it was good and ready. He was a big one!  Not the one above, I couldn't get a photo of Grandpa Crow. A couple of minutes after he left, each time, the Blue Jays flew in for a feed.

 We even had a chipmunk in the flat tray for a while.

And then several children started playing in the neighbor's yard at the back, and all critters disappeared. It was time for me to get back to my chores.

It has been a quiet afternoon with me going back and forth doing other chores. Very entertaining outside though! I have a ring-side seat of all the activity, which was what I had in mind when putting this feeding area together after saying goodbye to the old deck. 

I haven't done a lot of cooking this week, so nothing too exciting in the way of meals. Throw-together ones more than anything. Today for dinner I roasted four large Portobella mushrooms, spraying avocado oil on a parchment lined sheet pan and sprinkled with salt and pepper, in the oven on 400 deg. F. for 20 minutes. I had leftover (uncooked) cauliflower florets in the fridge, from a cauliflower cheese made the day before, along with (uncooked) strips of sweet bell pepper. I put two roasted portobellas on my plate, three of the cauliflower florets and a few sweet pepper strips, with a spoonful of hummus. I will have the other portobellas tomorrow with a poached egg for breakfast. I know we've got a bit of green in the refrigerator! There are times my dear other half and I fix our own meals. It's called "I don't like yours and you don't like mine, but I fancy this for a change' night! It doesn't happen too often but if we don't have anything planned, we go that route. We are both trying to eat extra healthy these days.

Waffling over with. See you next time!