The Heat Brings Bees And Tourists

It got up to 103F in Seattle yesterday, setting a record. Here on the island it "only" got up to 90F. It still cools dramatically at night, though, so if you open the windows and get a cross draft going the house is cool by morning.

Maybe it's my imagination but it seems my lavender is buzzing with more bees than usual. The rest of the island is complaining about the tourists and it isn't just the traffic. There are some public boat launches in residential areas and it seems people are overloading parking areas and being rude to residents. Crab pots are being robbed and boats are launched at odd hours when most people are in bed, with little consideration given to those who might be sleeping at 5:00 a.m. I'm thankful we don't live in such an area.

Our only access to the beach is down a steep road--one that washes out periodically when we have a particularly wet winter--and then down some steep stairs to our private beach. Our homeowners association owns the beach lot, which isn't very big, but at least it's there if anyone wants to use it. Last time I was down there a huge tree trunk had washed up during a storm the previous winter, and while it offered a place to sit it took up quite a bit of the beach. When I suggested we have someone in to float it away I was told island residents did not, as a rule, remove driftwood from where it washed up, preferring to leave the beaches as natural as possible, so that was that. On the other side of the island, where there are fewer gale force winds, there is actually a small cove named Driftwood Beach because it consists mostly of washed up trees. The cove acts as a natural collection point for them. An aerial photo of the beach was on last year's telephone directory. It's very picturesque.

Last month I was stung by a bee while I was cutting flowers. I felt something on my back, and assuming it was a fly I shooed it away only to get stung in between my fingers. Wow, did that hurt! I'd forgotten how painful a bee sting was, but a baking soda paste relieved the pain. Now I'm afraid to pick some lavender with so many bees buzzing around.

Harriet & Charles Raise A Family

Harriet and Charles are our resident robins. For weeks they had been trying to build a nest on the window trim on every single window of the house. They started on my office window. I noticed it when, out of the corner of my eye, I became aware of bits of dried grass constantly floating down from somewhere above. I finally stepped outside to see what was going on and found a very frustrated robin going through the motions of gathering dried grass and string for a nest, only to see it drift downward when the slightest breeze came up. This was becoming a drama we couldn't help but follow so I named our uninvited house guests Harriet and Charles.

Harriet tried the dining room as well as windows at the rear of the house only to meet the same futile result. Then, coming around the side of the house on the far side of where she had begun, she really set her mind to it. We watched her progress & kept shaking our heads as stacks of dried grass piled up underneath the ledge where she'd decided to build. But this time nothing discouraged her. It was going to be THERE and that was all there was to it! Each spring for the past 3 years we've seen robins attempting the same futile task, but of course we don't know if Harriet was "it" or one of several. In any case she finally succeeded. And the truth was, it was rather ingenious because it was nearly invulnerable and invisible from a bird's eye view. Branches from nearby trees hung over the roof in that area, but not close enough for predators to attack from above, nor could they crawl up from below.

She settled, she laid her eggs, she incubated them for 2 weeks, then one morning we saw 3 small beaks sticking up from inside the nest. A few days later they had grown enormously and started perching on the edge of the nest, waiting for Harriet to feed them. She finally got a little impatient and pushed the biggest one off. He fluttered to the ground, peeping and hopping around, finally finding his way around the side of the house to the edge of our bank overlooking the sound, and then over.

David was concerned and tried to reach the poor thing, but Harriet seemed to oversee it and the 2 others who followed soon after. David was highly critical of what he considered the cavalier treatment she gave them and sure the little ones were doomed. They disappeared for a few days, but one evening I looked out at a patch of new grass that David was watering and saw a family of robins looking for worms, the speckled breasted ones waiting expectantly to be fed by the adults. It looked as though they had all survived--at least for now. According to an article I found in Wikipedia, only 25% of young robins survive the first year.

Record Setting Hot Spell

I picked these daisies from my garden early this morning before they had a chance to wilt. The temperature today, and probably tomorrow, is expected to get up to 90 F in Seattle. It rarely gets that hot in Seattle and here on the island almost never. We have that wonderfully cool breeze off the the sound and no one, except businesses, has air conditioning. It's what I love about the Northwest. It cools dramatically during early evening and, leaving our windows open when we go to bed, we sleep under down comforters.

David is helping me more in the garden this year since so much of the work wreaks havoc with my back. Up to now I've forbidden him to do anything except under strict supervision because in total ignorance the first summer we lived here he pulled up all the lilies of the valley I had so laboriously planted several weeks before, thinking they were weeds. As calmly as I could--for he meant well--I asked him never to touch the garden again!

We are experiencing almost total quiet since Harriet and Charles, our resident robins, launched their fledglings from our window sill. Whether the youngsters made it in the wilderness is anybody's guess. More on that later.

Dog Days Of Summer

We're heading toward the end of July--about the time I usually decide next year I won't have a garden. Too much trouble for just a month of beauty, I find myself saying. However, I think most gardens look bedraggled by July & mine is no exception. Roses are about the only thing left blooming but it's nothing like the profusion in June. The lavender is blooming by the garden house, as well as the impatiens in the window boxes, altho I've trimmed everything else back since it's through flowering.

Our new sand filter is in & we're $7,000 poorer; then there's our new dishwasher which set us back over $1,000. The old one was 15 years old & would have cost about the same to fix, so it was a no brainer. It's a Blomberg--a European company I'd never heard of, but it's very silent & uses only 3 gallons of water per load. I'm liking it!