April Days in May

The weather is still mixed up. It was a fine weekend with temperatures in the 80s and clear skies with low humidity.  We were able to get out into the garden for the usual April chores: applying composted manure and mulch after dividing the perennials--a little late for this but "better late than never."  We made a new bed for a neighbor that we can see from our deck and from our living room window on the first story of our home. It will be a nice addition to the back garden--and we can appreciate it from above as well as below from the covered patio under the deck.

This morning I continued to divide perennials even though we had a London-like mist.  I needed to divide the daisies, cone flowers, artemisia and black-eyed Susans.  Some I put in the neighbor's bed yesterday and some I put into pots this morning for the annual Belltown Garden Club perennial plant sale on Saturday.

It was fun to work in the rain, but within an hour it began to rain in earnest.  Perfect for my newly potted and re-planted plants!  This rain preceeds the first hurricane of the season which will pass well south of here but still bring "April showers" to us for the next several days.  We need it.

The resident sparrows are busy feeding their young, even in the rain.  The male waited for me to leave to approach the nest box with an insect in his beak--

but was "in and out" before long. He seems to sense that we will not harm him but is still wary by nature.

It was great to be back in the garden, sunny or rainy, but I headed in for the day, leaving nature to fend on its own through the next few rainy days.  I had done what I could do for now.