Over the past month or two we have been watching as two Sandhill cranes have grown up. We were lucky enough to have their parents choose our pond as their home. After about a month one of the parents came up missing it was very sad. Sandhill cranes mate for life. You could tell the other didn't know what to do. But did not abandon the babies. The lone parent carried on with the two chicks and now they are just about grown. They have become quite accustomed to us but still keep their distance.
Sandhill crane family back in March.
Babies were pretty camouflaged by the weeds from predators.
And here they are in May. click here It is amazing how quickly they grow up. Our birds are unique because usually Sandhills only have one chick at a time. We have twins.
Same chicks one on either side of parent.
And I found some pictures I took while oldest daughter was here for a visit. We went to the Swan Creek Candle Company in Leesburg where a friend of hers is now working.
We went in the back way.
Here is my daughter and granddaughter with her friend who works for the candle company.
I liked the candles that looked like food. And the grand baby liked to eat them. Luckily they are soy based and free of lead.
They have all kinds of candle and candle accessories.
Latte? No it's a candle!
Hot chocolate with wipe cream? No candle.
Some of the candles you would never guess was not food.
You could make your own candles. They had the kits.
Over view of the shop. Everything was so beautiful
I could go crazy making gift baskets for people in this shop. And the smell of yummy was almost over powering. Visiting the candle company was a lot of fun and I will definitely be back for my candle needs or at Christmas for gift ideas.
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It's finally Spring! Or is it? Every time we think "that's the end of winter" we get hit with another frost. But I am hear to announce it is officially finally spring and with 100% certainty because I have seen the signs.
We have babies!
We have a family of baby cranes living down by our lake.
They are very protective and wont let us get any where close at all. This is about the best picture I could get. Notice how dad shows the chick how to forage for food.
It's such a beautiful sight to see among the spring wild flowers.
One parent always keeps and eye out while the other eats. If they think there is danger they make a loud warning call.
They don't stray too far from the taller weeds. and once they are in those weeds you can't see the babies at all.
Another sign that spring has sprung are these tiny little purple flowers.
And this strange plant.
The cabbage patch is looking good. We will be up to our armpits in cabbage in no time.
I also had a picture of a snake that I think the cranes killed but for some reason it will not let me add the picture so sorry you can't see the dead snake. These cranes are good for aeration of the lawn and getting rid of grubs and other bugs but also I guess they are snake killers.
Dead snake that the cranes killed.
I hope everyone has a wonderful Easter! And a great spring.
Husband and I went to start up the old rototiller and found it dead. So with shovels in hand, we dug what we thought was a pretty good size patch for our garden. It was about half the size of last year but we thought it would be adequate. Then I planted all the cabbage that we had started and nope. It turns out it was only large enough to be a cabbage patch.
Just a cabbage patch!
We planted red and white cabbage. We found last year it grows pretty good in this area. I don't know about my yard... where nothing grows but we are going to try. We've got about 12 plants. That's a lot of kraut.
Red and white cabbages.
We also started squash and radish and lettuce and sunflowers and some black eye Susan's. The squash is growing strong it wont be long and it's got to be in the ground too. So I hope we can get the old rototiller to work before then.
These will need to be planted soon
These guys come visit us and our little pond just about every day now. I don't know if they have a nest out there in all those marshy weeds or not. It sure will be neat to see some baby sand hill cranes walking around in a month or two.
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