Bread, bluebirds, and taking a break with friends

What with goldfinches, orioles, indigo buntings, and rose-breasted grosbeaks, you'd think we would be satisfied in the bird department.  But a couple kinds were still missing--bluebirds and wrens.  Today was the day for bluebirds though.  They were back today checking out our variety of possible bluebird houses to see if any would suit them this year, and chatting to each other up on the power lines.

And we got some more gardening done today.  The old silo pit from when this was a real farm is a great place for a variety of plants.  Since it already had some milkweeds growing in it, today we adding more of the milkweed seeds that we had "vernalized" back in April.  The seeds have been layered in wet paper towels and kept in the refrigerator until today when they all got planted.  We were pleased to see that none of them had rotted, so maybe it will work and they'll grow!  We also put in some tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and the rest of the Monarch Waystation seeds--zinnias, coneflowers, Indian blankets and a couple others. Still to be planted are the scarlet sage plants that we seeded back in April.  They are still so little and spindly that I question whether they have any future at all!

And just as we finished that project, our friends stopped by with some little flowering tree saplings that they received from an Arbor Day donation.  We sat out on our front porch and watched the bluebirds and the world go by for a little while.  It was a beautiful day!  And we shared some slices of our homemade white bread!?!

The subject of bread machines came up because it was their bread machine bread a couple weeks ago that caused us to think it would be fun to have one.  The bread machine arrived (Amazon.com) last Friday and I tried the first loaf on Saturday.  It was a recipe with rosemary, olive oil--nothing very complicated, but it was lumpy, tasteless and AWFUL!  But there was a lot going on and I couldn't troubleshoot the problem right then.  Yesterday I finally tried it again, but I made the basic, boring white bread.

The crust is a little "crusty" but I'm encouraged to try it again, maybe with a little more exciting list of ingredients!  

Mowing the lawn took up the rest of our day.  By Sunday night we realized that neither of our riding lawn mowers--new or old--were working right.  So our angel-mechanic fixed them both up again and delivered them today.  Leann used the "new-to-us" mower, but she may be the only one to use that.  I think she thinks it's too complicated for me to use.  So I used my tried and true and trusty old one and mowed again what had just been mowed last Saturday.

All those feet of snow this winter must have put lots of good stuff in the ground to grow some powerfully thick grass!

Tomorrow our truckload of composted dirt comes.  Finally!  More to plant!