In a "Bind"!

I wandered to the pier late this afternoon and there found that I was in a "Bind". This Bind being the collective name of a group of Spotted Sandpipers that had decided to rest on the pier. I am assuming that they are in route to some faraway place and just stopped in for a visit. According to the bird book that I was given by a "birder" cousin, these Sandpipers will winter in the South and then head back as far as Alaska or Canada to breed. There were a dozen or so of these small birds huddled together against the stiff southerly wind. The birds were all wobbling and looked as if they were going to topple head first onto the pier. I thought that they were being blown around a good bit as they were all bobbing up and down, but the bird book said that this is a trait of the species. It is called "teetering"..imagine that..hmmm..someone had to think long and hard to come up with a name as appropriate as "teetering" for a wobbly, up and down motion. The birds wobbled around for quite some time as I sat watching them. I decided that perhaps they needed to rest, so I eased off the pier and gave them their peace. Have a good night, little birds..rest up for your long journey.

Walking back up the boardwalk to the house, I realized that the Wisteria on the front arbor is brown and crispy. This is not good. I assume that it is just the drought but I have never seen Wisteria just up and die like this. Just last week, it looked great. It was full of seed pods and still bright green. Hubby was quite concerned that the Wisteria might overtake the Jasmine and Seven Sisters Rose that inhabit the same arbor. Not to worry..the Wisteria has met its demise..much to my dismay. At least the two on the back arbors still look rather healthy! This drought is killing off a lot of the garden. We try to run the sprinklers in hopes of saving what we can but I noticed that things are dropping fruit and withering. If we do not get several good soaking rains soon, the garden will be at an end as will the canning for the season. Perhaps I shall have to find more drought tolerant plants for the Summer garden. Here it is only Spring and there is a rainfall deficit of over 14 inches. The lack of rain has caused the grasses and leaves to become a severe fire threat along the Coast. We need rain! Desperately!

The earlier part of today was spent mostly in the kitchen. My brother so graciously donated me a bunch of squash..as if I did not have enough already! It seems that squash plants can do well in dry weather and so between the two of us, we have squash..lots and lots of squash! I do not care for the canned or frozen squash so just what do you do with approximately fifteen pounds of the lovely little yellow things?? Simple solution..you make relish. When all else fails, you chop everything into tiny pieces and call it squash relish! Actually, it is delicious! So, Son and I spent the morning dicing twenty-four cups of squash, twenty-four cups of onions and as many bell peppers as we could get..which was not many..only about a dozen. After chopping, the whole conglomeration was salted and iced for several hours. After mixing together the vinegar, sugar and spices, the vegetables were drained and added to the liquid to be cooked. Now there are seven quarts of beautiful relish instead of two buckets of squash! Hmmm..somehow that just doesn't add up! Twenty-four cups of squash plus twenty-four cups of onions plus the peppers, vinegar and sugar..that should be a lot more than seven quarts! Oh well..it is made, I am happy, my brother will eat relish and I have no squash in buckets on the kitchen floor! Just think...we have to pick the squash again tomorrow...oh my!