Saturday, March 15, 2014

Randoms

When I left you last, I was soaking some seed to see if I could germinate them using the coffee filter/baggie method. (Some use paper towel, but I read the shoots don't get tangled into the coffee filters as easy.)

Last Sunday (3/9) I put my soaked seeds onto a coffee filter, into a baggie, and laid them on top of the fridge to...do whatever they do.



Today, 6 days later, I checked on them, and found that the Black Russian tomatoes had germinated/sprouted.


(J's partner at the station first gave us Black Russian tomatoes/seeds a few years back. I don't know where he got them, or who, what, when, how.  Recently, when I was looking up Native American gardening, I saw an heirloom tomato called the Purple Cherokee, and they look the same to me. So I wonder if they are actually the same plant, maybe different name in different areas, or...how to tell which one we actually have.)

I planted the little sprouts into gardening soil and covered the tray with saran wrap and set them on my window sill to get the morning sun.


Please, grow.


Earlier in the week, the weather was so warm and nice, up to 78* one day. But then again, we had a freeze warning and dropped down into the 20's at night for a couple of nights.


I picked some Jonquils  and brought in and put in a mason jar to enjoy fresh flowers.

1. The ones left outside didn't freeze and/or disappear like I thought they would,
2. The "fragrance" of these was too stout - Kev said it smelled like someone died. I hope he meant it smelled like funeral home, not a dead body - I ended up sitting them back outside. We couldn't stand the smell anymore.


This morning I walked out on the back porch to (do something, I forget what) and this rather large bird was sitting there with it's back to me, doing...something.

I need glasses, but won't get any, so anyway I thought the bird was a turkey, laying an egg in the yard.


Turkeys are plentiful around here, you can see them while just driving up the 4-lane highway, and really a lot on back roads.  I was excited to think there was a turkey taking up residence in our yard.

I called Ryan out to come look, and he was like, Mom, that's a Hawk, eating a blackbird.

Oh.

It stayed out there for a long time, and Ryan was able to take lots of pictures and video. (Much better pics with his fancy/expensive camera than the ones my cheap-o camera takes, but he had to leave and didn't share his with me yet.)

Pretty awesome nature show event right in our backyard. Hawks are awesomely awesome.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can not wait till gardening season!! I wanted to do seeds but being we may sell I will buy my plants this year =0/

I can see the turkey resemblance!

Melissa said...

I mostly just do seeds for the challenge, to see if I can. Used to when I was busier, volunteering with the Rec leagues and hauling the boys around, I just bought already plants too. Totally understandable.

When I first saw that bird, it had it's back to me and all I could see was it's dark tail feathers. And that it was big. It's hard to tell how big it is in this picture, but that black bird it's eating is about the size of a Blue Jay or Cardinal or Robin. You know, not a tiny bird. The hawk was like 3 or 4 times bigger than it.

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