Over two dozen yellow and green beans were planted in May.

This is my harvest.  With every visit to the garden, I found missing bean leaves, chewed down until only a bare naked stem stood.  The garden is wrapped in a wire fence with tent stakes holding it tight to the ground.  There were never deer prints in the clay but we know we have the large bunny residing nearby.  I kept thinking the bunny was too large to fit through wire squares and we checked for openings often.  Mice can squeeze through a nickel-size opening but I never expected this large bunny to be able to get through this fence.  A few evenings ago I stood on the back porch admiring  the garden and the full lushness of the forest from all the rain we've had.  The air was still, not even a slight breeze, but one of the Swiss chard leaves was swaying back and forth.  Then large bunny moved on to the next leave and blew his cover.  Cliff and I stealthy sneaked down toward the garden.  He went to the south end and I walked to the north end hoping to see how he got in and out each evening.  Frightened that his cover was blown, large bunny zig-zagged through the vegetables right to his escape hole near the compost pile disappearing into the brush.  When we examined the hole, we found the wire opening wider and deeper than normal.  I saw that opening one day but couldn't imagine that large bunny fitting through it.  Bunny was busted!  Yesterday Cliff ran one inch chicken wire along the whole south end of the garden over the existing fence.  This morning when I checked the garden, it looked liked nothing had been eaten.  We try to make the fencing safe so that little animals don't get caught or stuck trying to get to the greens.  Once bunny found it had eaten all the bean leaves, the Swiss chard was the second choice.  I'm still watching daily for missing greens just in case there's a second undetected opening. 

It was a rough spring for some nesting birds.  Early in April we watched our Carolina wren couple carry nesting material to the top shelf in my gardening cabinet on the porch.  Each year it's the first nest built and the young ones fledge when their wings are strong.  This couple abandoned the nest after it was finished when it was taken over by some nasty bees.  Weeks later the wrens built in their second place in the geranium window box as they do each year, too.  This time they completed their nest, hatched the eggs and were bringing large insects to their chicks when something destroyed the nest in the night and ate the babies.  Along the west side of the vegetable garden,Cliff put up two blue bird houses last year.  This spring we noticed bluebirds flying in and out carrying pine needles ad other nesting materials.  It was exciting because we've never had bluebird babies.  At some point all the nesting stopped and the bluebirds left.  In June I opened up the side hatch to the bluebird houses and found completed nests made of pine needles and forest moss and a wasp's nest hanging from the ceiling.  It's been a rough year for bird nesting and sad for us.