last year, we had wrens, and they met a tragic end in the clutch of a local cooper’s hawk; this year, we have chickadees living in the rosebush in the back. the rosebush is one we discovered under an overgrown garden plot choked with myrtle; i haphazardly threaded it around a cheap home depot trellis and it has absolutely flourished. the birdhouse is decorative, a description which apparently has no meaning to its current tenants. every day we see the pair of them flying back and forth, bringing food to the nest, taking turns, perching on the overhead wires and the tomato cages. no sign of the babies yet, but i am checking as often as is seemly.

can you spot the chickadee in this picture?

they don’t mind snoop playing on her swingset, but they despise me hanging around their box with my camera trying to get a snap.

and yes, i know these pictures would be much more lovely if that rosebush happened to be in bloom currently, but it’s not, not yet; although it is full of the promise of a riot of violent pink blossoms. any day now.

so here is an obligatory shot of the first bloom on the much more boring yet always reliable ‘knockout’ rosebush in our front yard. i took it hastily one morning in the rain, pulling out of the garage to take snoop to school and get myself to work; but we stopped to take a picture of this first blossom.

now that the engine has started, it will finally cease its relentless blooming sometime around thanksgiving.

yup, the lilacs came after all.

there’s a lot of other exciting stuff going on in our backyard as well.

every year, gb does the vegetable gardens and my only complaint is that he wants to make the most of every inch of space. traditionally, by august, our gardens are riotous and chaotic and we’ve succumbed our patio in a war of green attrition. key learning: squash vines have no place in a square foot box bed.

i am more minimalist.

this year, i went to flower day at eastern market in detroit and purchased 3 varieties of heirloom tomatoes – cherokee purple, mr stripey, and hillbilly. i bought 4 pickling cucumber plants, and saved my splurge for basil – 3 kinds, traditional, lemon, and dark purple. the joy of our summer garden is making caprese salads out of our tomato & basil, fresh and vivid, with beautiful buffalo mozz dripping with oil. mmmmm.

that’s it. although gb is immensely dissatisfied with the open space in the gardens, i think we will both be pleased with a more orderly and limited garden this year. i do subscribe to the belief that you shouldn’t try to do too much, but what you do, you should do well.

another exciting item of note is that our neighbor has a beautiful japanese maple tree, and last week i noticed a small crimson leaf struggling to emerge from inside one of our hostas. closer examination revealed that a tiny japanese maple sapling had taken root inside the hosta. gb & i did emergency surgery to extricate it (and divided the hosta while we were at it). we planted it in its own pot and we will see if we can nurse it along so that someday it is as big and glorious as its mama tree next door.

due to a late, cold spring, the peonies still haven’t emerged, but it looks to be a banner year for the rosebush, which is laden with buds.