Texas

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Hydroponic Gardening

I have planted the first seeds in the rockwool that are for the inside plants.

This time of year it is so hot for lettuce, spinach, cabbage and swiss chard but if you grow them indoors hydroponically it is a win win situation. Those are the seeds I just planted.

I have ordered many supplies for the big greenhouse outside we are waiting for the plastic to arrive. The kind I ordered is 10 mil. woven clear plastic it has a longer life span than the regular clear in fact I think it is 7 years compared to 4.

We are also doing shade cloth since Texas is so hot it will allow for better ventilation. The shade cloth will go first then the woven plastic and we can raise the plastic up and open the screen doors to ventilate the greenhouse.

We will be doing several types of hydroponics the dutch buckets and the Kratky method are two and we may even do a third.

I have to get a load of sand delivered and then the pond liner that is 22 mil. will go over that because this hydroponic set up is a sterile environment there will be no dirt inside of this greenhouse. Only water, buckets, container, plants grown from seeds, and nutrients.

I will post pictures as things start happening hopefully in the next few weeks.

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Ducks, ducks, and more ducks

If you remember there were two black bellied whistling ducks that frequented our bird feeders they were coming every day a few times a day for the last few months.

We decided to build them a nesting box. Their boxes have to be pretty big because they are bigger than the average bird.

I guess they told all their friends where there was a free meal because we have had as many as eleven ducks at a time. They show up around 7 – 7:30 a.m. stay about 1 1/2 hours then they leave.

In the evening, they come back again mainly to rest in the shade but they do some eating too.

I had to grab a picture of them on the arbor above the walk through. As you can see one is in the feeder eating. Most of the time there will be two in each feeder and they take turns with the ones who are waiting.

At this point, we are looking at adding more feeders because when they are eating the little birds do not get to eat.

 

Lotsofducks

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The juvenile cardinals

We have always had cardinals in our yard but this year we have a lot.
There are so many juveniles going through so many different stages you have to laugh about it.

The males especially seem to get the worst of it and tend to look so awkward during this stage.
In the pictures, below the males are in the first two pics you can tell their feathers are changing colors so they have two colors of feathers right now.

The females are the last two pictures but all these birds are juveniles.

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Cardinal in the shadow

When you shoot towards a bright area such as towards the sun whatever is in front of that will be a silhouette or a shadow as long as it is darker than the background.

There are at least 8 cardinals that hang around our yard and come to eat. In the early morning, I can get silhouettes quite easily because the sun is rising behind them.

You can tell by the shape of the birds and the head that these are cardinals.

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The colors of Crepe Myrtles

Here are some of our crepe myrtles.

We only have one purple one and one red one we have numerous of the pink fushia ones and one white one.

I really do not know how many we have but I think it is around 10 -12 of them. Some are big as a tree because they are much older.

I love crepe myrtle time.

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