The rain is knocking the blossoms off the crab apples which is tragic, but expected. Not to mention necessary if we want those lovely fruits to form which will help feed the birds and squirrels this winter.

They sure were gorgeous these last few weeks…

I am pretty sure the lilacs won’t last much longer, either, which is even more tragic because they don’t lead to anything except empty lilac bushes! 😪

Before the clouds fully emptied out their contents upon us we put up one of the new bird houses out near the soon-to-be bloomless lilacs.

Hopefully they’ll use it this year even though we’re already seeing fledglings here and there. This one stared me down the other day when I opened the upstairs window to fill the feeder…

He wasn’t scared and he wasn’t exactly friendly, either. 😄

Speaking of friendly, Fred nearly escaped the pasture to come say hello when he saw us sitting out near the garden taking a break yesterday…

I jumped up and shooed him back down and he stayed put but I wouldn’t put it past him to do it again. He’s very tenacious! I don’t think he’d go far, though. He’s pretty loyal to his girls. Two of them are sitting on clutches again.

Speaking of egg layers, we had to remove another starling nest from up under the hood of the truck this morning! This time we caught it early so there were only a few eggs instead of hatchlings to deal with…

I had no idea starlings laid blue eggs like a robin. I do know they are a nuisance bird and are fair game here in Idaho though, so the pups were more than happy to help dispose of them! 😉