Summer Solstice
So the longest day of the year is history. Can you believe that?! Everything is looking pretty good in the yard. The garden is growing at a good clip now. It seemed to start out very slowly but we’ve had lots-o-rain and humid, warm days so now things are taking off. Today we cleaned out the shed and moved everything to the garage. We are tearing the old thing down and will put up a new one before winter. It’s an old, rusting, mouse-pee infused metal model that just had to go.
To complicate things, there was a huge old, 700-800 lb. safe inside that we had to get rid of too. Previous owners of this house had a grocery store here in Stoughton and it belonged to them. We got it when we bought the house, lucky us. It’s been out there for 10 years taking up space. We had no way to move it. Annette put it up on Craig’s List and we had lots of inquiries. A guy from Madison came out to get it but didn’t plan for it’s size and weight. He couldn’t budge the thing. The 2 guys who ended up getting it out were here for a good hour and a half wrestling with it. They had a truck with a winch and dragged it out on boards but it was really pretty tricky. I’m just glad it’s gone now. It ended up at the High School and will be used for teaching purposes in welding classes according to Gary, the guy who took it. Another guy, Dan, is coming to get the shed tomorrow. He has a salvage business and will take metal of any kind.
Gary and Dan moving the safe out of the shed.
We put a couple strawberry plants in the herb garden.
I knew that the chipmunks would not share these berries with us so I had to build a chipmunk-proof cage to protect them. It’s actually is working!
Mama duck is doing well. She is on the nest most of the time with a break once a day to eat. She flies out of the yard but isn’t gone for too long. We are expecting ducklings the first week of July.
Starling mother and (big) baby.
A few pictures from our trip to Horicon Marsh on June 9th.
Yellow-headed Blackbird. Horicon Marsh is the only place we’ve ever seen these birds. They are rather striking.
We saw over 100 American White Pelicans. Pretty impressive and these birds are HUGE!
Black-crowned Night Heron along Dike Road. Pretty cool to see one so close. We took these from the car which makes a nice blind.
Redhead Duck
The fields here in southern Wisconsin are filled with grassland birds. I love the Bobolink song. It’s kind of a crazy jumble but very unique and you can’t mistake it for something else.
The Meadowlarks are singing their loud song as well.
You can hear the Common Yellowthroat about everywhere but it’s hard to get a good picture as they are very “skulky” birds but I managed one this morning.
Sandhill crane babies are growing up.
Have a good week everyone!