Our local flower show continues to do its annual spring parade in the garden. The mountain laurel had its day, and now the dogwoods are blooming. This year they are a pristine white. For some reason, they sometimes have a green hue.
On the veranda, my pots are looking fuller. I used to plant only a single variety of a plant in one pot, but this year I really like the mixtures of color and textures. Here a white begonia is next to a mixed pot of pink impatiens and a variegated leaf coleus.
In the birdcage, a spider fern shares its pot with two colors of impatiens. It is looking full and I love how the plants are growing through the rails.
In the vegetable planter, tomatoes are making progress and I actually have two squash plants.
Gracie came by a couple of times for a sandwich. I have not yet convinced the second squirrel that there are good things here.
A variety of avian visitors have been by to enjoy the bounty. Here, one of the many goldfinches that live in our forest shares the seeds with a chickadee.
Then this interesting sight. A fledgling woodpecker is still being fed by its mother.
They stayed on the feeder for quite a while. The fledgling just couldn’t get the hang of reaching into the feeder to get a seed. Mom kept showing it how to grab one, but it would just sit until she gave it a morsel.
Ah, the lovely scenes of a tranquil life. But, the peace was broken one evening the day after a day of rain. A sudden crack and crash as a 100-foot tulip poplar tree fell from near its roots, thankfully missing the house. When you live in a forest, this happens from time to time.
As it went down, it took out the tops of five more trees.
It also missed the retaining wall, landing parallel to it behind the redbud. Unfortunately, it took out a couple of the redbud’s branches as well. The little evergreen pine on the right was broken at the base, so it will have to go, too.
A day or two later, as it begins to wilt and die from lack of water, it is a bit easier to see what will need to be chopped up and removed.
The part with all the branches will be mulched and taken away. The big section of trunk will be cut into sections and rolled into the cove, to tumble down to the bottom.
Over the holiday weekend, the tree guys came to take care of it. They brought several pieces of big equipment up our single lane road, a challenge in itself.
They started cutting branches off the tree, and taking them to the mulcher. With the guys standing on the slope, you can get a sense of how big the trunk of this tree is.
They cut some side branches off, then a guy got on top of the trunk (on the right) to work on those branches. On the left, another worker drives a small bobcat down to pick up loads of branches.
He’d back up the meadow with his load..
then turn to feed the branches into the mulcher.
Then other workers would pick up what didn’t make the trip and feed them in by hand. I was amazed at the size of branches this thing could handle, spitting out mulch into the truck’s container.
It took them 5 hours to get all the work done and clean up. With all the debris gone, you can compare this shot of ‘after’ to the ones above to get a better sense of the amount of debris they had to deal with.
The lone turkey is still visiting. I don’t know why she isn’t with the others that seem to stay in a small flock. She did accept some bits of whole grain bread, but she didn’t run towards me like the others do.
When I saw this little guy, I tried to feed him too. Although he saw the sandwich as it bounced in the grass, he didn’t go give it a sniff. Later, a blue jay found it and took off with it.
Adorable little chipmunk. This is the first time I’ve seen him around here, so I hope he comes back.
My toad lilies have apparently died. I didn’t put the pots in the Carolina room this past winter, and I guess I should have. I do have some seeds I harvested from the pods last year, so I need to plant those and see if I can grow more. They have such wonderful cascades of flowers in the fall. This photo is from last fall.
Our weather has been glorious this week, with temperatures in the 50s in the early morning, and reaching only into the 70s during the day. It has been lovely to do my errands and go to meetings in our roadster with the top down. The dogwoods are in bloom all over town.
What is happening in your garden?
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From My Carolina Home 
Our little chipmunk is adorable but I am not too pleased with him. He has dug in my patio pots and has managed to kill some of my lily’s and my only flowering peony in the front garden by digging down to their roots. I’m less than pleased and wish he would move on. There was one chipmunk we re-homed because he kept sneaking into the garage and getting into the bird seed container. He would lift the pour spout and climb in to feast. We caught him in there once so we brought the container on a walk to the woods half a mile away and released him.
Tulip poplars seem prone to fall like that. I love the flowers, but the tree near the drive worries me. We had some trees removed a few years ago, it was amazing how they got the equipment maneuvered into our tight space. And, it’s time to have them back to take down that which filled in the blank spaces.
Glad you are safe from the falling tree! Mother Nature can unleash incredible power.
Appreciate how you balanced nature’s brute with her beauty.
Oh my! You were so lucky it didn’t land on your home or the retaining wall. There’s quite a difference between the before and after photos. I love how you documented the phases of the removal. I’m sure you have many others you haven’t shared. I’m the same way whenever something major occurs on my property. I was gifted a small gallon size Benjamina ficus tree about 20-25 years ago and, unfortunately, planted it too close to my neighbors home. It grew to about 30 feet tall and the lower branches began dying off, so I had to have it removed last year. The workers fed branch after branch in the same type chipper used on your site and it was soon gone.
We have chipmunks. They are so so adorable. We have had a lot of birds but no turkeys. Our squirrels like to hang around the railing on the side of the house and tease my kitties.
Your pictures are beautiful. We have had some very heavy winds with the rain storms, and that always leaves behind a few branches. Yeah, good thing it did not fall on the house.
Enjoy these last few days of nice weather before the big heat comes.
I love chipmunks. Just love them! I’m so glad that tree didn’t land on the house or damage TOO much. The dogwood is lovely. We put dogwood up north a few years ago — they grow like weeds, which is great (we wanted trees). But I’ve never been north to see them in flower, just the shriveled buds when I finally get there! I love that you feed the turkeys!
Good morning, Carole. We just returned from The Swag, so we enjoyed the cool mountain air! It is amazing that dogwood is just now blooming in your neck of the woods. It bloomed here in early April. I am glad that you didn’t have damage from the tree fall, just a lot to clean up. Happy Friday!
That is too bad about the big tree falling, and all the other trees it damaged on the way down, but so glad it didn’t fall on your house! It’s always interesting to watch the tree guys work, though. Fun to see what else is going on at your house, too – pretty blooms and all the wildlife. Have a great weekend, Carole!
oh goodness..tree cleanup can be time consuming. My #3 son does this when he is off from Gulf Crain work..Aren’t chipmunks just the cutest?. We don’t have them but did in N. Ala… I like your bied cage plants..this morning one of our new kittens was in an old birdcage..for some reason they can get in but not out .lol…Enjoy the cool..it may not last.
It’s weird but I love watching tree people work.
Rabbits won’t leave emerging plants alone but I think I can now safely remove temporary fence around my perennial garden that I am protecting from destruction. Last year we saw very few rabbits as we had a pair of nesting falcons in a nearby tree.
We’ve always had ducks visit our area. One Mama hatched out ducklings in a neighbor’s planter and they all left the next day.
The garden has been planted for a few weeks and was doing well. The bean plants which I planted from seeds were up a doing quite well until they weren’t! The tops were all eaten off. We thought it might have been chipmunks because we have a zillion of them, but no holes in the dirt nor was there anyway for them to get in. Hubby decided to set up his trail cam and the next morning we saw the culprit…..a big, fat robin. He was eating the beans and all the ones we pulled out and threw on the ground. I had a windchime available so I replanted the beans and hung that in the garden. We are trying to think of a way to put netting over the plants if this doesn’t work.
our bird feeders have been busy. This week we had both golden finches and house finches both males and females. We have a couple of red-breasted grosbeaks that come by all day long and also the male and female Baltimore Orioles. We love seeing those and they love grape jelly. We also had a big-mouthed bluejay and some woodpeckers of different varieties. I’m not fond of them, my husband watched a red-headed woodpecker slaughter a golden finch yesterday. The finch was on the ground and he swooped down in him and pecked him to death and carried him away. We read afterwards that these woodpeckers are very territorial and agressive and will kill finches to eat their eyes. How horrible! I’m glad I didn’t see it.
I had to chase the neighbor’s cat from under my feeder and now we just saw it had two kittens! Ugh! I’ll have my hose ready to spray them next time they come around. Why can’t people be more responsible for their pets!
All and all I’m enjoying our spring in NW PA. A lot happened this week. My 68th birthday was Wed, Thurs was my 8th year retired and Friday was 50 years to the day of my high school graduation. I didn’t attend my reunion though last night. Upcoming event is our 47th wedding anniversary on June 9th. This is my busy time of year.
It’s a shame about your tree, but your flowers are beautiful. Gracie is as cute as ever. Nature is very beautiful this time of year. Enjoy it while it lasts!
Oh dear, I’m so sorry you lost your tree but glad everyone was okay. I loved each and every one of your photos, thank you so much for sharing them. Happy June!