Greensboro Birds

Jealous much? Cardinal wishes he had that sunflower for himself

Here it is, my other favorite bird-photo element: the mixed group. American goldfinches are busy deseeding this conjoined sunflower bloom (we don’t say Siamese twins anymore, right?). I didn’t plant this sunflower; it’s the result of a seed dropping from the feeder. I got a few blooms this way. Next summer I might actually try to grow more of them on purpose, although if we continue to get no rain, the birds will just have to live with cactus.

Fluffy, frustratingly dry cumulus clouds

I know Raleigh and points east have had rain, but I’ve watched storm after storm just miss our house all summer. And I mean just miss our house. A couple of weeks ago, it was absolutely bucketing down rain three blocks from our house, while our yard remained bone dry. Seriously, one side of the street was dry, and on the other side it was pouring. You could jump back and forth between rain and not-rain. Bizarre.

We did get an amazing 1.25 inches of rain over our house two days ago, but that barely makes up for the previous weeks of nothing but sun and mid-90 temps. Argh. Next spring we’re planting more perennial grasses and knockout roses, because those are doing fantastically despite these tough conditions. The front yard will become clover paths through ornamental grass/knockout beds. Anything else out there is a folly. More rain, please!

UPDATE: Haha! Think I’m being melodramatic about the storms narrowly missing us? Check out this screengrab of the local radar earlier today. There was a raging thunderstorm just about a mile from us. I could hear it, I could see it just to the north, the wind was blowing, but we remain D.R.Y.