Feather brained

My pigeons, well, not mine really, but just seeming to have made this their (we hope) temporary home, set me thinking on how insulting some of our expressions are to birds. For instance the definition of feather-brained as being - lacking seriousness; given to frivolity; silly, not serious in content, attitude or behaviour. And of bird-brain as being stupid.


Yet watching the behaviour of birds, they do have brains and they do use them sensibly.
Ok, maybe these 2 pigeons didn`t use theirs sensibily enough to fly home yet, but they certainly know how and where to come and get food. Having given them some seeds this afternoon, I put the bag of sunflower seeds on a stool in the summerhouse where I was sitting, and it wasn`t many minutes before one of the pigeons spotted them there, so he (or she) trotted up to the entrance, round the door and jumped up onto floor of the summerhouse and then proceeded to jump up onto the stool to peck at the bag of seeds!

They`re growing!

Having posted a picture of some seedlings starting to grow the other week, here`s an update of how well they`re doing. The one at the back is a sweet-pea, so I await to see what colour it will turn out to be, and the one in the foreground I think is a sunflower.

I shall though, soon have to transplant them into their own pots or they`ll outgrow where they are.

My windowsill, as you can see below, is now my seed nursery!

New Life

I decided last week, to give myself a weeks "holiday" from Blog writing, hence no posts last week. But now, I`m back to it, and will try to keep things interesting!

My Dad, although not a keen gardener, always used to grow vegetables in our back garden (although he didn`t eat vegetables himself), and on Good Friday each year, weather permitting, he set the seed potatoes and carrot and beetroot seeds, and I spent many happy hours over the years on that day helping him.

The other week, in church, we were given some seeds, compost and plastic cup as part of the theme of the service, so I kept mine to set on Good Friday... and here is the stage they have reached since then. There were three seeds, so hopefully the other one will germinate soon.

It`s several years since I set any seeds, but the wonder of the way something so dead looking can come to life, is still a miracle to me when I look at these tiny green leaves and stems.

I`ll from time to time over the next weeks give updates on their progress.