Smokey & Laburnum Tree

SMOKEY

Remember that abandoned blackbird's nest I was telling you about? well we finally took it down when we realised the bird had flown the coop, so to speak and inside was one tiny speckled blue egg. The funniest thing about this nest was one particular item the bird had chosen to use as its nest building material and that was the Caution label it had twined into its nest. I thought that was so hilarious - almost as if the bird could read and was putting up a notice in its home :-D Click on the pic to get a clearer image of the label.

Anyway, I put it on the lawn to photograph it and Smokey came along to investigate, so I thought, "hey great composition!" and clicked a couple of shots of him and the nest. He wasn't particularly interested in it anyway, besides he likes his eggs scrambled or fried - he's too old in the teeth to start cracking eggs himself :-D

We've been having such beautiful, sunny weather lately and one particular weekend we were in the garden and I was potting some plants and flowers and had my floppy sun hat on to avoid the glare of the sun. After a while of being out in the intense heat, I thought I'd take a little rest on the garden swing and dip into the latest issue of Artful Blogging by Stampington Publications, whilst having a cool drink. I got up to go into the house to get myself some water and within minutes of returning I find Smokey on the swing eyeing my magazine first - cheek of it! :-) I managed, eventually to persuade him to let me read it first and like a good cat he relented :-)

LABURNUM TREE
My Laburnum tree was in full bloom last week and now this week all the vivid yellow blossoms are blowing off and are scattering across the lawn like confetti. It's so sad that this tree flowers for so short a while - in a whole year it'll only flower for about 2 weeks and then that's it - doesn't make sense does it? But while it flowers, oh my! I just can't stop gazing at it and thanking God for the beauty of His creation. I love my Laburnum tree, it's given me years of pleasure just looking at it. My kids, when they were little used to climb this very tree and played around on it. I found out later that it's poisonous, but Thanks be to God we've never suffered any harm from it. When it's in bloom it lights up the garden like a golden beacon - I wish it would bloom forever.