Miscellanea

A brand new amaryllis has bloomed by the front door. This one is a deep garnet or ruby red.

The mockingbirds nesting out back have had to fight off an attack of crows. Three or four of the raiders swooped in, probably to steal eggs, but, as far as I can tell, were unsuccessful.

The mango tree, covered with blossoms earlier this spring, has lost most of its fruit, partially due to the high winds we've been having for the past week and partially to birds. We may end up with only a couple dozen mangoes this year. My brother already picked two smallish unripe ones off the ground. At least we still have bags of frozen mango from last year's bumper crop.

My brother kept saying he was going to cover the blueberry bush but never did so now the birds have had all of them, too. (I think this should be filed under the last Redneck Studies post.)

We joked about the inch long $3.00 plum tomato he "harvested" last week but another one just ripened so they're down to $1.50 apiece now.