Patio Expansion.

Eric has doubled the size of our patio. This past weekend, he dug in the new edges and it has very little finishing left to do. What is left does not interfere with my objective: to plant three new beds. Also this past weekend, I dug a tremendous amount of reseeded blanket flower, wild daisy and a few other random things out of the main bed to clear room for the perennials that were already there to get more light. The displaced flowers are finding a new home in beds at Don Carter and at my nephew's house.

One of the new beds has already been dug. I will be moving flowers from other areas of the yard into this bed, as well as planting some entirely new things. One of the other beds will be dug later. An old bed from another part of the yard is going to be moved into the new one, once it gets done blooming. The last one will come along at some point.


The orioles are back in force. They are getting a little bolder about coming to the orange feeders with us on the patio. Eric picked up some bright white, all cotton batting and yarn and we cut / tore it into pieces for nesting material. I spread it around by the feeders today and am hoping that it will help me to spot the orioles' nests.

Today, the bluebirds showed up, again. They were checking out both houses. We were afraid that we wouldn't see them again after last week's nesting tradegy, so we were pretty delighted by their arrival. Both boxes are cleaned out, just waiting for them to make a choice. Hopefully, it will go better, this time.

The deer at the pit at Reedstown was all decked out in spring regalia in honor of May Day.

More photos are here.