Heavy grey clouds are building and thunder can be heard all around.  This morning I dug up a few more yellowed potato plants before the afternoon storms soaked the clay.  In March I planted one row of about fifteen blue potatoes and two other rows of Yukon golds.

The blue potatoes taste the same as white.  I like the fresh moist crunch when eaten raw.  And since Barb's and Mike's retirement and relocation to Blairsville, GA last June, she and I have been trying new recipes and experimenting  with new foods.  The men are never quite sure of what we're cooking up.  I had never used fennel in my cooking until I bought Dr. Weil's True Foods recipe book.  Fennel, which is in the carrot family and is indigenous to the Mediterranean shores, has a sweet mild anise taste and the bulb can be sliced into salads and added to soups. 

The soft feathery fronds can be chopped and added as a topping to any meal and the stalks used like celery or chopped and fried like onions.  While I'm excited about discovering new cuisines, Cliff is playing with his new RSP2 software defined receiver.

When I told him I was going to take a picture of this thing and needed to know which end was the front, he looked at me like I had three heads.  Evidently, there is no front, just a top and bottom and wires and plugs hanging out the ends.  My kitchen is much more fun. 

                                            Just another hummingbird photo.
Early one evening about a week ago, from my recliner by the back porch French doors, I noticed lots of bird movement, jumping on the rails and in and out of my hanging plants.  It looked like three juvenile Carolina wrens were learning to fly.  The parents were perched on nearby branches encouraging them to flap and fly.  The young were unsteady and reminded me of toddlers wobbling while taking steps.  Their feathers were still unkempt and flying techniques weak.  By dusk, the two parents and the fledglings had jumped into the hanging planter and bedded down under thick leaves.  This afternoon while cutting cantaloupe and watermelon for our snack,  I noticed lots of dead leaves on my geraniums in the window box.  With scissors in hand I was ready to head out the door and snip the dead leaves away until the fresh leaves moved.  Standing at the window looking into the box, I saw two Carolina wrens with their beaks full of pine needles and dead leaves, packing the debris into a new nest.

 Both parents have been scurrying back and forth with nesting materials all afternoon. 

If I get to close to the window it startles them so I placed my Mother's Day cards in the groove and I can still see them fly in and build.  Carolina wrens are very beneficial birds to have around the garden as they are insect eaters.  And they're the happiest most playful creatures.