Gopher Turtle?

We were out in our yard checking on the growth of the sunflower plants and we heard a noise. I looked and it was this big turtle coming across the field. By the time I had gotten back with the camera it had disappeared into a hole. A neighbor told us it was a gopher turtle. Guess I will have to look that up and maybe get a pic of him.

Downey woodpecker and peanut butter?

I didn't have to go in today so I got to watch my birds. I put a new feeder out for the downey woodpeckers, but they don't seem to want anything to do with it. I read that they like peanut butter, so I mixed it with seeds and hung it. They seem to prefer the oil sunflower seeds in the other feeder. They would fly under it to get to the other feeder. I tried changing the feeders thinking that the downey would go to the new one, but he landed on the hook looked down and knew that it wasn't the feeder he was interested in, oh well I tried. Now the Bluejays are hitting the feeder, and when the downey would be there they would go to the ground cause the pecker was throwing out seeds. I'm watching the two morning doves hunting around for food. The chickadee and titmouse are hitting the feeder in front of my window pretty steadily.
Haven't seen the hummingbirds lately though. And the Cardinal were eating at the feeder earlier

Birds feeling neglected

I'm afraid that my backyard friends must think that I've abandoned them. There has been a change in my schedule and as a result my friends don't seem to be around as often. They could be I'm not here during most of the day. I fill their feeders before leaving, unfortunately that is the active time of the morning for the pesky squirrels in my backyard. So they probably don't have food available when they come calling mid morning.
My little squirrel chaser is not going out in the mornings as usual, she is going to be a mother and seems to have become lazy in the mornings. When I let the pup out she races around the house to the squirrel tree looking for the buggers.

The Owl was here again

I took the pup out early this morning, it was still dark, so for my safety I had to put on the back light, and because she doesn't like the dark. I also took a flash light so I didn't get any surprises from the neighborhood dogs. The light is pointed towards the back of the property, after I hooked up the dog I saw a branch move so I wanted to see what it was. Then something flew over to where the feeders were. I followed and shined the flash light in the trees til I saw it sitting there. It's so little couldn't of been more than 6 inches if it was that. It was so cute, so I guess our chance sighting before isn't going to be our last. I thought the flashes from the camera before might of scared it away, and I don't want to take that chance, it'll have to be one of our habitants that will not be photographed again.
I wish the other picture came out better. I wonder what owl it is

The hummingbirds found us

We finally hung the hummingbird feeder up this afternoon, about 3 and its almost 7:30 and I just saw one at the feeder. I was thinking that it would take a lot longer before they found it.
Now I wonder what the squirrels are going to do in the morning when they see something hanging there. I certainly hope they don't knock it down and break it, its going to be another week before I get to the store to replace it.

Free plants

I already told you about this link,http://freeplants.com/ check it out. I signed up for the newletter and get interesting tidbits to help in the garden. His latest was about this additive that will improve many aspects of your garden and not be harmful to humans or animals. Once we really get settled in to this place I will plan on growing and selling plants. But thats down the road, in the mean time I'm working on getting the front and backyard in order, the shape its in now won't exactly encourage anyone to buy from me. Here I am trying to sell plants and my front yard isn't even the slightest bit attractive, not even to me. But heck I just moved in here and there is lots to get done before doing the front yard. We've been working on the backyard because that is where the kids spend most of their day. This place is on a downslope and everytime it rains it uncovers something else, the last rain we found a knife in the tree cluster next to their playground. Not good.
Really you should check out the link, he has all kinds of interesting things on his site, free stuff too, now who doesn't like free, especially when it comes to setting up your garden.

Woodpecker nest hit the ground

We had a couple days of wind, some of the gusts were so bad that it blew over our screened in canopy. It got worse that night, when going out the feed the birds I found a huge hunk of the woodpecker tree laying on the ground. Yesterday we were cleaning up the area around the woodpecker tree and found a nest and one broken egg. We looked around for another egg but had no luck, the nest was hanging on one of the branches but it was empty. We figure something got the others or it only had one.
I can hear the pileated woodpecker out there now, its knock is much louder than the downy woodpeckers.
Didn't get to make the pinecone birdfeeders, we went out to the woods and checked under all the pine trees and there were none. I should of gone to the park and gotten some but I wanted the kids to be apart of it. So will have to leave that for another day.