Update to Butternut Squash

One of my followers posted that the plants are sunflowers and I think she's right.

Here's a post with a picture of the sunflowers I grew in 2010 and the plants look exactly alike.  I don't know why I didn't recognize them...except that I had it in my head it was a squash plant, until it didn't look like a squash plant anymore.

http://tilemosaics.blogspot.com/2010/06/sunflowers.html

I have no idea how those flowers got planted in that spot.  The 2010 flowers were at the opposite end of the garden, so I don't think there's any way those are seeded from the ones I planted.

Oh!  It just occurred to me!  I've been feeding the goats black oil sunflower seeds and that is where I had Tom dump the load of bedding and goat manure that we shoveled out of the stalls.

Mystery solved!

Thanks to Maree Clarkson ( http://www.blogger.com/profile/16274329795088706720  )for identifying the plant.

Now I have no butternut squash.  What a pity, but I will enjoy the accidental beauty in the garden.

Butternut Squash, or No?

What in the world is this?

I had these plants spring up in the section of the garden where the butternut squash grew last year.  Since some of the squash was left on the vine last year and the seedlings looked like squash plants, I assumed that it had reseeded itself and I just let it grow.

Now, I'm not at all sure that this is a squash plant.  It's too big, too upright and still doesn't have any blossoms on it.  As you can see in the picture, it is bigger than nearly three-year-old Liam.

And this is how big the leaves are.

And I keep thinking these things on the top are blossoms, but they just keep growing leaves.

Some of them stand straight up and some of them lean over kind of like a vine.

I haven't seen another plant on our place that looks like this, but if it's some weed, this won't be the first time I've let a plant grow, thinking it was something else and it turned out to be just a monster weed.

I guess I'll find out eventually if this is a squash plant when it does or does not actually grow a squash.  But I sure hate wasting all this growing time if it's not.

Finches Growing Up

I've taken pictures of the finches in their nest every couple of days and they've made quick progress.  I haven't checked in a couple of days, but they've been very quiet so I'm wondering if they've flown away already.

 Four little peering eyes.  Still have their baby fuzz.

 Looking wild and crazy haired.

 Little old man stage.

Almost all the fuzz is gone and they can barely fit in the nest anymore.

Time to fly.

Later...Yep, I checked.  They're gone.  Wow, that barely took two weeks for those birds to grow up.

Happy Mother's Day to Me!

From my sweet children for Mother's Day...

A gorgeous flower arrangement, designed and arranged by Meagan.

And a resin bangle bracelet that has real flowers and leaves suspended in clear resin.

Love.

Fern Resident 2013

This year's resident of the front porch ferns is a family of house finches.  I originally thought they were cardinals, but too small and not red enough, so...young cardinals?  No, that wasn't right, so I googled and came up with house finch.

They're very pretty little birds.

I didn't think to get a picture of them before they hatched, so don't know the size or color of their eggs, but these little fellas are tiny.  And they're crammed into that nest like moldy sardines.

If you click on the picture and make it bigger, you can see that birds have little tiny ears.  Who knew?

Here's the daddy protesting my picture taking.