I am reading The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, one of the books I recently ordered. The story is quite heavy – I expected it to be, but not this much. I often immerse myself in the books I read to such extent, that I get really upset sometimes. I even thought of leaving the book aside and starting another one – but now I am glad I didn’t, as it promises to get truly magical further on.
I love spending time in the garden, one of the best things about living in a house. And now it is the best season – warm but not too hot, quiet and peaceful. Many of the flowers are in full bloom, birds and butterflies are flying around.
And the bees seem to prefer mimulus and dipladenia. A few days ago a big bee got stuck in our dipladenia’s flower – it was buzzing helplessly for a long time, unable to get out, and finally Nick had to rescue it.
The yard is full with young jays, learning to fly and crow – it is like a birds’ kindergarten.
The squirrels have little ones too – we saw one of them trying to balance on the wire in front of our gate. (The adults run along the wire all the time – we call it “the squirrels’ highway”, and they also use it to safely cross the street.)
I really love squirrels – they are my spirit animals. My friends even call me The Squirrel, hence the name of my website and my shop. My friend Jessica invented this nickname when we were teenagers, after The Dormouse in Alice in Wonderland (translated as The Squirrel in the Bulgarian version).
So I was delighted, when we moved in here and we found out there were squirrels living in the yard! They like to play on the pines along the north side of the house (some mix between game of chase and hide and seek, with a lot of merry squeaking). They go to the fruit trees on the south side to look for food and to peel bark for their nests, and they hide in our attic when the weather is bad. We try to feed them, but the magpies keep stealing the nuts that we leave out for them. I’ve heard some people complain about squirrels stealing food from their bird feeders – well, with us it is the opposite 🙂
Rumours must be spreading among the cats in our neighbourhood, that someone here has a lot of food. Recently, except from “the usual suspects” (my yard cat Krasivcho and the neighbours’ cat Sivcho), another small black-and white cat started visiting our porch. Yesterday Krasivcho let her eat from his bowl, but she started growling and then he chased her away. And Sivcho waited for the remnants from his meal, as usual.
I understand that all these animals are hungry – but there are a lot more strays around, and I don’t feel like becoming a crazy cat lady yet. So we have to find a way to discourage any new ones coming around… The worst thing is that when there’s more of them, they start to scream and fight, especially at night. It happens when a new one dares to come in the yard, and the others are not happy about it.
My new order from the garden centre arrived today – Tricyrtis (“frog lily“) and purple Roscoea. I potted them and I did a research on how to grow them. I hope they feel good here and bloom soon 🙂
