Draco has discovered the bird feeders out front these last few days and has taken to watching them as well as the little pond where they like to take baths, which is quite amusing.

None of the other dogs seem nearly as interested as he is; they’re too busy playing with their toys and bugging me to get them something from the kitchen. He is like a religious zealot, though, and spends a good part of the day on the chairs in the bay window, completely enthralled in the goings on out there in bird land and anxiously waiting for new birds to arrive.

There are three feeders in his line of sight, so there’s almost always some activity to entertain him. The feeder on top of the tall pole needs to be refilled so the birds are having to be creative while trying to get seed from the bottom, and that grabs his attention as much as the splish-splashing in the pond water does.

It will have to wait for the weekend since the rain has returned today and I doubt the hubs will want to pull the big metal ladder out to top off the feeder in the middle of a thunder storm.

That particular feeder is the one we put the black oiled sunflower seeds in and the birds have been dropping them everywhere on the property so they’ve been sprouting like mad all over the place. We mow them down in the grass but we’ve been leaving them in areas where we don’t mind sunflowers growing, like the front planters and along the edges of the yard.

I also planted some a few weeks ago in the corner next to the coop, in front of the giant sunflowers we’d already planted there. They are filling in really nicely!

And some of the giant sunflowers are finally blooming, which makes me so very happy.

Next year I think I’ll fill both sides of the planter boxes next to the coop with the smaller sunflowers instead of veggies, just because it would be so pretty and also really cheap! A huge bag of the black oiled sunflower seed is just a few dollars and there’s enough to probably fill the entire acre with just one bag. Hopefully next year we will have a few more raised beds put in for the carrots and lettuce anyway so those beds will be mine to do with as I please.

There I go, getting way ahead of myself and making garden plans again…. 😆