COLOR

There's a little notebook in which I started making notes about what vegetables were being planted, where, and when, at Stu's suggestion, in order to track what works and what doesn't and how things progress.

There's been an ongoing list in the computer of birds seen in/from the backyard, going back to 1999. This month, besides "the usual" I noted a white throated sparrow foraging with the golden crowns, the return of the chickadees, the departure of the goldfinches; last week a sharpshinned hawk leisurely flew across the yard at eye level while I was on the phone with my mom, and today a red breasted sapsucker was busy on the apple tree.

It struck me that I would like to make regular notes on the vegies, the birds, and also the front yard as plants there make it or not, and that starting it on January 1st would be a nice starting point. My thought was to do it as a word processed document, like the bird list. But today I realized it would be a very good use for this blog (um, pretty obvious, right?), so I think that's where it is headed.

These are two shots of fall color taken today while on a truck run for more fir bark. Do click to see larger versions. If I remember to carry the camera to work tomorrow and Wednesday, there will be more.

After putting in the fir bark, we went to the nursery for cheap flats of bedding annuals to fill in empty spaces: put in pansies, snapdragons and stock, plus some more small natives I'd grown from seed (Calfornia bee plant, rosy yarrow, and cow parsnip) so all of a sudden there is color in the front yard beside the one glorious California poppy that started blooming three days ago.