Sun And Clouds Morning Coffee Muses

That spider I spoke to on Tuesday… he strung his web across the opening of the porch in front of me. He’s actually in the photo above but I doubt you can pick him out from the background of the red oak.

For the last few days I’ve been watching blue jays congregate at the base of the cedars. I couldn’t figure out what they were doing until i pulled out the binoculars. They are gathering nesting material. I guess the glut of blue jays in the neighborhood is about to get bigger.

I  keep hearing bluebirds singing in the backyard, I don’t see them often, but it’s good to know they’re here. I just watched a male check out one of my bluebird houses. I’ve had four houses set in two different styles for about five years. They see a lot of traffic each year… lookers, no takers. Though this past winter I cleaned out most of a nest from one… it looked unused, but hey, at least it was in the running.

The live oak at the edge of the woods is dropping leaves like a rain shower. Live oaks are different, they hold their leaves through the winter and then after almost every other tree has leafed out in spring they shed all of their leaves at the same time the new ones are coming out. So they end up looking shabby for a couple of weeks as the old and the new intermingle. About that live oak, I planted it probably fifteen years or so ago from a group of seedlings I got from the Arbor Day folks. Since they are from the Midwest, this tree isn’t like our native live oaks. The one thing I’ve noticed over the years is it throws the densest shade I’ve ever seen from a tree. In the years it’s been in the ground it’s grown to over twenty feet tall and wide.

Coffee’s gone, time marches on. It’s a beautiful day to enjoy on the back porch, but, other things are calling my name.