Spring's Here

(photo of Carolina wren by Joan Kocur)

It's official, spring has finally arrived in South Texas. How do I know?

Yesterday the first hummingbird dropped by to visit our sedum planter. My wife swears she recognizes the hummingbird. She thinks it's the pudgy one from last year. I couldn't tell for sure. But I've been married long enough not to argue.

Maybe it's because the day before a pair of Carolina wrens decided to make a nest in one of the hanging fern baskets.   We had tried tying on ribbons, strings to discourage them from coming back. My wife even added packing tape sticky side out.

Did it stop them? No way.

It slowed them down, the tape had a few feathers on the tape.  Long story short they continued building. So the nest has been removed and the fern is now living in the bathroom. Had to refill the hole they had built their nest in. It was the size of two of my clenched fists. Now I know why Carolina wrens have such long pointed beaks. Talk about adaptive gardening.  Container gardening can be interesting somedays.

All in the day of a gardener's life,