Gathering at the Bird Feeder

As far as I can tell these are house finches.  These are all female though since the male has a distinct tinge of read on his breast. I don't think I've ever seen this many birds on the feeder at one time though.  I have been keeping up with making sure there is always seed there so I really shouldn't be surprised. 

Among the other birds we've seen flying through are blue jays, cardinals, and mockingbirds.  Flying above and around the are there are often turkey vultures, ducks, herons, and some other kind of smaller raptor, probably a hawk of some sort.

The seed we get is relatively fresh since the spillage has created a small sprouted forest.  It will be mowed down this weekend so somewhat short lived I guess but I wasn't trying to grow my own seed anyway.

Looking forward to mowing the mint though.  We'll see just how minty the air will get.  Our friend who gave us the  mint says when he mows it a nice aroma that fills the air.  We really don't have a lot of mint though so I'm not expecting it to be overwhelming.  I might try to reign it in a little though so it doesn't really become a huge problem.  I do need to get the edging done though before we take off on our trip. 

Fortunately we have friends coming to take care of the house and cats, mainly the cats.  We've been prepping for them and have made several dishes that we've frozen for them to have plenty to eat.  Still need to get that manual put together so they have a go by for anything they need to know.  Missing the cats already and haven't even left.

Roses and Cats

Cats really like flowers, especially roses.  I'm not sure what it is about a rose that attracts cats so much.  A quick search revealed nothing so I'm not the only one who doesn't know.

Our current cats were very interested when we received some roses recently, even standing up on their haunches looking like they were begging to have a treat.

Our previous cats were so used to eating a petal or two for a treat that they could tell when you walked in the door if you had a petal hidden in your closed hand.  If I dropped a petal it would hardly hit the floor before a cat was on it.  They nearly inhaled them.

Of course these flowers did not go to the cats due to being from a florist.  As most know, pesticides are a constant worry for store bought flowers so they actually went outside (the flowers not the cats) so they would be safe.

We used to have rose bushes in front of the old house but we haven't added much to the new house yet.  We though we'd be in the previous house forever but things happen.  The plants we had stayed there for the most part and we get to start over.  We'll probably get roses at some point in the future since they are such a nice flower to have around.  We already got the daylilies and the fig is coming back but that's been about it as far as planted plants that we have chosen.  Still planning on doing a garden at some point but that's still in the planning stages.

Cherry Blossom Season, Japan

It's cherry blossom season in Japan again and one of our friends sent us some awesome pictures from the Nagano prefecture which is Northwest of Tokyo on the coast near the Sea of Japan.

The cherry blossoms sweep across the country each year. So while you will have local events surrounding the blooming of the cherry trees, you will be able to see it at different times starting at the south and spreading North up the country.  So if you miss the blooms down in Kyoto you still can catch them up in Sapporo if it hasn't been too long.

Interestingly, although the cherry blossom is important in Japan, even being a symbol used for the police, some find the pear blossom to be even more preferred.  Pear trees have a white flower while cherry trees have a pink flower so it's probably more what color someone likes better.  Either way you get a lot of petals on the ground.  Another friend once sent us pictures of a river that had been covered with cherry blossoms.  The boat was cutting through the sheet of pink. It was surreal.

Lemon Mint

We got two kinds of mint that I put under the fig tree.  Mint can be hard to get to grow sometimes but when it does it can take over.

On the plus side it can help keep some bugs down like fleas. We haven't had a problem with fleas as of yet but it can't hurt to prevent them in the first place.

The mint shown here, I believe, is lemon mint.  I could be wrong but that's what I'm told we were given.  The other mint we have is spearmint.  These have spread out a little but still not very far. 

The fig tree is still coming back nicely and has several shoots now.  Taken off two leaves so far and not a lot of change. Will wait a bit longer before trying it again.  Maybe it's not quite big enough to send enough to that sprout to make a difference.

The green onion is blooming nicely. Several poof balls of flowers have opened up and some fairly large ones.  Also planted a red onion among the green ones.  It was sprouting anyway.

I was able to remove a lot of weeds recently.  The best time to do weed removal is right after a good rain or possibly during a rain if it is late and will get dark before it's over.  Instead of having to fight the weeds to pull them out, most of them came out fairly easily if not immediately.  A couple of the harder ones to pull were the dandelions.  They have a tap root that can go down for a while even on a relatively small plant.