JBigg: Life in Kentucky: and birds

I'm still continuing my series on barns, blooms, and birds. This week, I'm sharing another barn around the Murray, KY, area.

Wow, isn't it special with the cross on the side. I bet there are interesting old stories to go with it.

Blooms in my yard this week are mostly daylilies. These beautiful pink daylilies surprised me one morning.

My roses are starting to bloom again. They opened in May then nothing for a few weeks but now there are new buds forming and are beautiful. I have been watering them more since it is getting so much hotter (94 degrees today) and spraying them with Sevin Bug Spray trying to keep insects from feasting on them. I talked to a lady at Lowe's the other day and she told me she uses epsom salt to feed her roses so I think I'll give it a try. I do use epsom salt on my ferns and they are gorgeous.

I'll share a few of the ferns on my porch with you. That's a Kimberly fern on the left, a Boston fern in the middle, and a macho fern on the right. I use 2 tbls. of epsom salt dissolved in a gallon of water once a month.

For birds this week, I'm sharing a few visitors to my backyard feeders. I recently have made some changes with my feeders and the food to try and keep the blackbirds away.

I switched to an upside down suet feeder which has deterred the blackbirds from the suet and this red-bellied doesn't mind this new feeder a bit.

The cardinals visit each day, I never tire of seeing them at my feeders. They are such a gorgeous birds.

I have changed their food too, again to deter the blackbirds. I now have safflower bird food in some feeders for them. The blackbirds don't care for the safflower. Below the cardinal and house finch are enjoying the safflower food. You can see the seed in the cardinal's mouth.

The chickadee likes the safflower seed too.

I do still put out some black oil sunflower seeds in a dome feeder. But the squirrels won't leave it alone. I have taped the dome back together several times but today it is back on the ground and may be broken beyond repair.

I even put out a tractor feeder that holds two ears of corn to try and keep the squirrels away from my feeders. But as soon as the corn is gone, here they come.