Mr. and Mrs.

 

I've been wanting to get pictures of the male and female Acorn Woodpeckers that would be easy to compare. In my wildest dreams we would one day see babies come to the feeders.  This is the male.
The marking on his head are black beak, white and then red crown.

Here is the female. She has a black beak, white, then a black band before the red crown. I actually had to go to the bird guide book to figure this out. One day I saw them at the feeder together and felt they must be a pair but they didn't stay long enough for me to get a picture to figure out the difference. Now I can tell which is which and they come and go almost every day but usually not together. They are larger than a lot of the other birds we see here and the smaller birds clear out until the woodpeckers have had their fill. It is a delight to have them as regular visitors.

Water Drops

The drops of water are magnifying the leaf underneath. DH snapped this while sitting on the patio. He is loving our new Canon SX20.

Bird in the Bath

I had to do a double take to make sure that wasn't a baby duck in the water. He was having so much fun.

How the Garden Grows Today

We picked our first tomato today...nothing special but it shows us that they are making it and there are lots more to come. There are tons of green ones and if they can make it through all this fog without getting blight or rust, we will have tomatoes by the baskets. I found a cucumber that is about 2 inches long, and the peppers are loaded with babies. I see salsa and gazpacho in our future.

The California Poppies are in their second crop. Now in the wild this wouldn't have happened unless they got a good rain storm. We watered this patch and stirred it up and were rewarded. The pink and purple flowers were labeled as Godetia or Farewell to Spring on the seed package but they are very different from what I've had before. This flower is much smaller and many to a long stem. They are also a native California plant that must have several varieties. We enjoy them all!

A Rainbow of Chickens

These happy chickens were all over the garden scraps we took to a friend. What a flock of interesting chickens. Every color and every size. They free range all over the yard. The one in the wheelbarrow was...King of the mountain!

 

Sunlight on Flower

Shades of lavender bathed in sunshine.

What a Face

We visited a friend today and took his pigs some veggies from the garden. They are so cute and only about eight weeks old. Oh, what a face! I think I would have named her Charlotte...remember the book? However, our friend decided on Sarah P!