Project update

This evening, while bringing out an egg carton to add to the compost, I heard the alarm call of a bushtit.  It reminded me of the noise the squirrels make when they’re trying to get avocados and Rosie is protecting the tree.  I’m not sure if the bird was annoyed by Rosie, Shadow or me but the cats have figured out that the nest is there. David and I are thinking that when it’s fledgling season, we’ll have to try to keep the cats inside.

I’m not sure Mardi knows there’s a nest yet, but  I caught him staring up at the angry bird. Notice the nest on the right side of the picture; he’s pretty close!

I’ve been meaning to post pictures of the garden growing up.  We have so many little projects happening right now, I wanted to update on those first!  We’ve had two days of rain, which is a special treat in Los Angeles.  Our front yard is watered with the sprinkler irrigation system, and the back yard with a hose or watering cans.  It was nice to not have to worry about watering the back yard for a few days, although it’s back to needing it.  Just today, while I weeded our freshly sprouted Scarlet Runner Beans, I flushed out a whole mess of ants.

Because of the rain (and the sprinklers), our seedbombs in the front yard are starting to break down!

It’s great to see the clay breaking down and the seeds being revealed! This bomb is right next to our wildflower mix/ sprouted compost mystery garden.

The mystery garden was devoured by snails, and then re-sprinkled with seeds about two weeks ago.  Here’s what it looks like now:

Notice the seedbombs and sprinkler in this picture.  The two nasturtiums were not eaten by the snails when everything else was, so that’s why they’re a little bigger. I also recognize cosmos and calendula.  Hoping to recognize some more flower friends soon!

David spent a day prepping the sink that was full of sauerkraut.  He recently purchased a 5-gallon crock and the cabbage is now fermenting in it.  Five gallons?  Yes! He wants this to be the only crock he ever needs!

David also purchased weights and lids but they were backordered until next week, so he’s getting creative with the bag of water and saran wrap.  It’s been working out pretty well so far.  We were worried the cats would climb on the top of the crock, as they like sitting on things, so we covered the top with a towel.  I don’t think they’ve been sitting on it, but we did find the towel soaked in cat urine…. ew.  (We have three cats and cat pee is sadly part of our life.)

Sauerkraut should be ready for eating and storing in two weeks! We’ve been storing away as much food as we can, and we (David) just finished making two jars of nasturtium “capers”.

Last weekend, while I was deadheading the roses, I noticed that we had a nasturtium plant that was dense with flowers.  When I looked underneath the plant, I was able to easily pull off handfuls of fresh, young seeds. David helped me pick and clean them, and then we looked up the recipe I had read earlier this year for nasturtium pod capers.

The recipe itself was simple. Picking the seed pods was a bit time consuming. Between David and myself picking over this one plant, we were able to triple the recipe! It was great timing on our part, and if we like them we will have plenty for the next batch when these finish flowering.

We cleaned the pods, separated each of them, and soaked them in salt for 3 days.  Tonight Dave heated up the vinegar and sugar and we put them in a jar. Can’t wait to try them! I hope they’re not too strong for me.

We’ve also been spending the week eating chard. I pulled out one plant to eat, and there’s another one that has to come out. We’re making room for one more tomato plant. We have three more tomatoes to plant: Prudens Purple, Black Krim and Abe Lincoln.  I’m not sure which will go in the raised bed or where we’ll even put the other two, but they still have a little ways to grow.

If you look at the chard compared to the coffee maker, you can get an idea of how immense the leaves and stem were. We ate it that night with pasta and last year’s tomato sauce from the freezer. The stem and more chard went in our quiche cups, which is my daily breakfast.  The stem has such a nice crunch!

The yard is starting to bloom more and more. The succulents, herbs and tomatoes are all flowering.

The daffodils by the front door are blooming, one at a time. This was our first year planting the bulbs, and it’s a fun treat to see them blooming.

Mardi can’t resist a camera!

We’re excited to get more projects underway and to see how these all pan out.  Our new mason bee house just arrived in the mail, and we’re brewing beer this weekend. As if we didn’t have enough to keep us busy…

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Nest building time!

This morning I planned to rake avocado leaves for the last lasagna bed.  I brought my camera to snap a few pictures of our impressive and prolific avocado trees.  There are two trees that sometimes shed avocados for us to gather, while other times we have the challenge of picking them from a ladder.

Notice the tree shades our compost bins.  We often scoop a handful of leaves to toss on top of the fresh kitchen waste.  The leaves have been great for us, and our dirt-making.

I quickly noticed that it would be hard to sweep the driveway, as our cars were in the way.

How good are your avocado spotting skills?  I feel like mine are pretty good, and I only saw one when I took this picture (by the forked branches slightly left of center) but now I see another one!  These are within reach with the ladder.  These trees have a lot more avocados hiding about 45 feet up.

As I took this picture, I heard a bird chirping at me and turned at saw this:

A NEST!!

It’s about 8 feet off the ground and it’s hanging next to our precious avocados!  I quickly called David over and we grabbed a ladder for closer inspection. (Later I wondered if we’d be able to continue harvesting avocados, as we’re finishing up the ones we grabbed two weeks ago.  This question is still to be determined.)

A closeup of the nest made of fiber from palm trees, red bits from a Bottlebrush tree, straw from our garden and bits of fiber from our laundry on the line??

This past Thursday I noticed that there was a tiny grey bird on the power lines, and it was making alarm calls.  It sat on the line like Black Phoebe does, and chipped angrily like a mockingbird.  Rosie and I listened to it’s chatter, and quickly moved away from the tree and the power lines, as we finished up watering the backyard garden.

Today, upon spotting this nest, we thought we saw a flitter of birds around it.  I decided to stick around and try to find out what was going on.  I quietly waited next to the cars, and saw two birds fly into the next, noticed the nest pulsating from activity, and then saw them fly off again.  Mom and Dad are building their home!  I snapped a few pictures of the happy couple as they hopped around outside of their nest, and then went inside to confirm the species.

Hopping around on the branch with a piece of nesting material in it’s mouth.  Anyone know if this is the male or female?

A closer shot of the same individual getting ready to go into the nest.

Bringing a bigger piece to the nest.

During all of these photos, Rosie patiently waited for me to throw the ball.

Here’s a view of where I can safely stand to watch the nest.  Notice that our little area is quite small.  Shadow doesn’t seem to realize that he’s disturbing the nest, which is located in the cluster of leaves above him.  Also check out the leaves I was going to rake.  We just raked up the avocado leaves a month ago, and there looks like there’s enough for our last lasagna garden… if only I could rake them up.

After spending some time inside, and then running back out to listen to the bird’s calls, I am 98% sure that we have a nesting pair of bushtits!  The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has a great bird site, with lots of calls.  I also was excited to see that I went to summer camp, and then later worked with, the photographer who took the identification photo.  It’s a great feeling to have a connection to both my past and to the natural world.

More nesting updates will follow as we watch them, and try to stay out of their way.  We’re excited for them to eat our grubs and caterpillars!!