Big day today. We had a war over the bluebird house. A tree swallow couple was attempting to take over the house and they were being driven off by both bluebirds who had laid claim. The other nesting tree swallows jumped into the fray and they was an incredible racket. The bluebirds stood strong and are hanging onto the house. I hope they nest in there.

On Friday we planted Johnny's sugar snap peas and today we planted lettuce. From Bountiful Gardens, Bronze Arrow, Bologna, Ice Queen, Winter Sun. From Seed Savers, Bunte Forellenschuss and Crisp Mint Lettuce. From the Cook's Garden, Pandero Romaine. While we were planting the lettuce a huge blue heron came gamboling up the road next to the stream. It's head looked pure white, I thought it was an egret. We watched it stroll along the side of the stream and it eventually flew off.

Then we got two loads of rotted manure from the dairy farm up the road, Lazy Crazy Acres Farm, I have a link to the farm on the home page. The plan was to drive it up the hill with my John Deere lawn tractor (it's a 100) but it just wouldn't do it. So we wheel barrowed as much as we could and we'll finish tomorrow. It's a little more manure than we thought so we'll put the rest in this fall when we till the garden under. It was tiring work going up the hill. The trick is not to put too much manure in the wheel barrow and make more trips. We initially were spreading it with the pitchfork but ultimately I was dumping it out in dribs and drabs from the wheel barrow. The manure was quite close to the blue bird house, I hope we didn't spook them digging around in it. It certainly will provide plenty of flies.

When we were finished with the manure I noticed that I wasn't hearing any bird sounds which was unusual. I looked in the maple tree and saw why. There was a medium sized hawk sitting in it looking around. Not a bird sound to be heard. I'm not sure what kind, I think it was a Red Shouldered Hawk or a Broad Winged Hawk. I crawled toward it taking pictures but the sun had dipped behind the clouds and I wasn't able to get a good shot.

All in all it was a good bird day.

The first garden (of three) is tilled. I broke out the old roto-tiller and it started on the first pull. This is truly a miracle. Something almost always goes wrong but not this time. It sprang to life after it's long winter nap and busted up the winter rye strewn grass with aplomb. Now we're going to start in with the lettuces and the sugar snap peas. Of course I have two more gardens to till so there is room for more adventure.

Already have garlic and shallots growing in the garden I'd planted last fall. I planted some elephant garlic that is just starting to come up now. I thought it might have rotted but it's there. I've stopped eating last year's shallots and will plant them in the garden as well.

Here's a shot of the tilled garden with my kitty cat in the center of it checking out the cat mint.

Newsflash, my wife says Tree Swallows and Bluebirds are battling for one of the empty bluebird houses right now. The Tree Swallows have already set up shop in one the empty houses. They get very territorial, I hope they don't scare the Bluebirds away, we haven't had any nesting for the past three summers.