Flowering Gardens

I just love to watch my flowers blooming. I took a couple quick pics, mostly of my favorite -- Lillies. I enjoy watching then bloom into the beautiful, vibrant colors. Right now the orange has bloomed, and it looks like next the fuscia will bloom then lastly, my giantic yellow Lily.

This weekend when the sun is out mid-day, I will take some more pictures of my purple coneflower just beginning to bloom, and my other potted flowers including my 7 hanging baskets! Other flowers will continue to bloom throughout the summer. Be sure to come back and check out Roxanne's Flowering Gardens. Until then, please enjoy......

They're gone... :(

Our baby bunnies have left the nest. The last I spotted all 5 of them together was yesterday right after work. By the time Tom came home around 1:30am, he could only find 2 and they were on their way travelling thru the flower bed and off to find their siblings and mommy.

So this morning I got up, went out to check, and sure enough.... THEY ARE GONE! Waaaa! Wawawaaaaa!! It's so sad to see them all grown up in a matter of two weeks, and moved on to live their little bunny lives.

Everyone thinks we're crazy to have let that go on in the garden. I keep hearing, "oh, they'll be back eating your flowers". But I really don't think so. Mumma bunny never ate the flowers. We'd see her eating bird seed and grass. Mumma and the babies were so sweet. I do hope to see them bouncing through the yard some time.

A Fight!

Guess what I did this morning... I broke up a wildlife fight in my backyard!

Every morning, I look out the back window to see if I can spot Mumma Bunny in the yard somewhere. I caught her movement in the garden when she hopped. Then I looked up the dog run fence, and saw what she was hopping for... the mean old crow was sitting on top of the fence right above her baby bunnies!! AHHH!! So I ran out my side door, got an eye on him, and yelled "CROW! Get OUT!" He flew away to the tree tops, but I was furious, so I got more plastic bags and tied them to the very top of the fence where he was and poofed them up like balloons. Poor Mumma Bunny trying to protect her babies. I told her I was there to help, and she just hung out in the garden watching me out the corner of her eye.

Does anyone know how to make a scarecrow? I think I need one. Maybe I'll check out marthastewart.com, she's gotta have something like that on her website!

Baby Bunnies Update

We've been watching these cute little guys all week. Baby bunnies grow so fast! They are really becoming too cute and I have this overpowering urge to pet them. Somehow, I manage to control my urge because we've seen Mumma Bunny around the yard constantly the past 4 or 5 days. She's always somewhere nearby and she doesn't startle very easily. It's not been easy, but we've managed to distract Theo from "looking for bunnies". He has chased her thru the fence a couple of times, but she comes right back. As for that mean old crow, he's still scoping out the place, but keeps his distance.

See Mumma Bunny!

What a cute little thumper that baby bunny has on him, huh?! So precious. These little guys just squirm and squirm around getting cozy with eachother. In other baby animal news, Mr. & Mrs. Robinson (robins--birds) came back again this year and built their nest under the shelter of the roof overhang, on top of our patio spot light (which is broken). We saw Mrs. Robinson up there in her nest a couple times, then saw her sitting over on the fence looking quite plump. Not sure if she's layed her eggs yet, but we haven't seen her around lately. I hope The Robinson's didn't scare away from Mumma Bunny hanging in the yard all day. We'll see... Last year we had a cookout get-together and the baby Robinson's all decided to leave the nest that afternoon. It was amazing to watch.

Other than our baby animals in the backyard excitement, the Schwandt household is holding up. We keep wishing on winning that lottery so we don't have to go to work... Oh, and Tom had quite the experience at work the other night. The car wouldn't start (to go home), so he and his car-pool buddy from Oshkosh, hitched a ride with one of the other guys home that night (1am). After talking to his car guru buddy, we figured it was the started, because they tried to jump it with no luck. So the next night at work, Tom and some guys went out and lifted the car up from the front with a forklift and one of them went under their to tap on something to advance the starter thingy (real technical here people...). Then the car started right up! Anyways, we have to get a new starter, cuz that problem could happen again...and you are not seeing this girl dealing with that. Anyways, I just had to laugh at the whole forklift thing. I can just see these guys at work and someone had the brilliant idea. Well... it worked at least! hahaa!

This weekend I'm planning to go get dirt and flowers to plant my pots by the door and hanging baskets along the fence. The new perennial garden we put in last year is starting to come up, so I'm excited to see everything bloom this year and even more next year. I'll take more pics as things come up, but for now here is one of my tulip varieties. I also have bright yellow and bright red, but this mix color is my favorite :)

Baby Bunnies!

As I was washing some dishes today, I looked outside and saw my tulips are starting to bloom. Already one of my hyacinth bloomed last week, so you can imagnie my exictment to see 100 tulips blooming! I seriously planted only about 20 bulbs 3 years ago, and now I have huge crops of 10+ tulips per planting. Pretty cool.

So while I'm out there admiring, I decide to check out what else is peeking thru. I see my Iris's are about ready to peek up, as well my huge Wal-Mart special Lilly that bloomed with over 20 heads last year (started out as 3). That same year, 2 years ago, I had also bought some Oriental Lilly's from a local grower, paying about $20 each, I was sorrily dissapointed last year when they hardly bloomed more than 5 heads. So as I notice those two I had planted peeking thru the mulch, I scanned over and to my amazement, look at what I found....

BABY BUNNIES!!!!

At first I didn't know exactly what they were. As I had run outside to admire my tulips, I saw a huge crow leave the yard, and he had actually been in the grass near my flower bed, which I initially thought was freaky. Now I know WHY. Bastard! As soon as I saw this little moving nest of animals, I ran in the house seraching for my camera and yelling to Tom with excitement that I had "found a nest of babies in my flower bed, and they look like puppies or something!"

Tom took one look and said BUNNIES. Sure enough, look at their ears. So we have a nest of wild baby bunnies and a jerk-ass crow towering above. I snapped some pics, making sure to use my zoom and not get too close, and ran back in the house to get my phone. I called my vet, my very trusted resource, and learned that Mama will only come twice a day to her babies, we should not touch the nest (of course), and that wild bunnies are illegal to keep as pets and are much different than domesticated bunnies as house pets. I asked about this mean ol' crow flying from the tree tops and power lines. She said to tie plastic bags to our fence which surrounds the flower bed. (this is the chain link fence to the dog run). She said it won't deter Mama bunny, but hopefully it will deter the crow from flying near. I went out and tied up three plastic bags, and I just about want to tie them up all along our wooden fence in the back yard as a warning to KEEP OUT! At any rate, here are the rest of the pics I took...

The vet also said the babies will mature in about 3 weeks and start hopping away. Besides that crow, our other challenge is Theo. We have to really watch him in the backyard now. Usually we say encouraging words to him to get him out there to do his business. Those encouraging words are usually "Look! Bunnies! Go get 'em!" Yeah, not going to be saying that for the next month!