Big Bird Visits.

8-9-15 VERMONT: It’s been beautiful, warm days and cool nights and no rain for several days. Now we need some dampness. The pond has dropped an inch below full.

The blue heron was here for a brief visit yesterday just before sunset, late for him. They are not nocturnal birds.

The blueberries are almost gone, but we’re eating tomatoes every meal. The corn is almost up to the third fence rail, but no tassels in sight.

I have been busy with pruning and weeding, but got to Brown’s Nursery for some stock, including two echinacea, ‘Chiquita’ and ‘Rubinstern’, planted with some lime on the pond bank. Four lupins added to a different spot on the bank, Lupinus ‘Russell Hybrids’, ‘Russell’s Yellow’, and two ‘Red Flame’. An aster, ‘Lilac Blue’ and an astilbe, ‘Visions’ also went on the bank.

Near the new house, I planted two gentians, Gentiana cruciata ‘Blue Cross’, and a foxglove, Digitalis purpurea, and by the old house in a shady bed. I added a toad lily, Tricyrtis hirta ‘Myazaki’. I would have preferred to plant non-hybrids, just the basic plants, usually hardier, but they’re not available.

New blooms: black-eyed susan, blue lobelia.


Big bird - Blue Heron often visits the pond for a fish, frog or crawfish snack. I recently heard about one catching chipmunks.

It was late in the day for the heron, who you can see on the bank of the pond before he got tired of our attention and flew off.

A few minutes later we had a nice sunset.