Postcards from Summer

The mockingbird, back again and favoring the electric pole between our house and the neighbors. When he's courting, he sings a routine of many bird songs and then flies a tight vertical loop above his pole perch. I've yet to get good shots of his dance. Mockingbirds can develop a repertoire of over 30 tunes including some surprising pieces, mimicking dogs, cats and in this fellow's case, even a frog. I have heard it. I swear. He ribbits at then end before doing his little loop above the pole. When the mockingbird is courting the tree swallows and bluebirds are already raising their families in our boxes and summer is well and truly here.

These are buds from a malabar spinach. My green thumb friend M gave me three plants and they were my garden favorites all summer. Thick, dark green earthy greens that I put on my turkey sandwiches at lunch or put in a salad. I didn't like them cooked in eggs though as they had to me a distinct ammonia odor and taste when heated. A climber, this malabar grew about 3 feet up our pea tripods and I loved going out to collect the leaves almost every day for about two months. In the south, they grow year around and large enough to fill in a trellis arch. In the fall, their seeds went from black-purple (when pressed the juice stained my skin quite strongly to a deep black and when I ripped them out in the fall cleaning, loads of seeds stayed in the bed. It will be interesting to see how much I'll have to thin them out this spring.

Here is a shot from the back deck Andrew built for us, and the gravel patio he dug out and filled. It has changed since then, as he put a paver patio in the corner of the beams for our grill. And here, are the morning glories growing on the attached trellis.

I love morning glories because I have such fond memories of them. My Grandma Perdue had ground to roof white trellis all on one end of her house and there were loads of morning glories on them every year. I remember when I would spend the night, I would wake up in the morning to sunshine and morning glories in the window. This year we planted them in pots but next spring I am going to try planting them directly in the ground to see if they don't do better. And I'll end with some shots of the chickens, confined to their pen because of the ripening grapes, digging through weeds pulled in the lavender.