A faintly alarmed Bird in the Blooms

The blossoms on the cherry tree have peaked so I'm not sure how much longer I'll be able to continue my "birds and blooms" theme, but for today, I'm going with this handsome Purple Finch.  We've had a steady stream of these beautiful finches coming through over the past several weeks - one day this week, there were over a dozen.  Today, I just saw this one male and two females.  At one point, this one landed so close that I wasn't able to focus without backing up - apparently he's used to humans.  

It was a perfect spring day so Hubs and I spent most of the afternoon doing various things around the yard/deck.  He powerwashed the deck and then put the canopy on the gazebo, after first stacking a yard and half of firewood.  Me?  Well, I pulled a bunch of weeds, did some clean-up in my small flower garden, planted a dozen gladiola bulbs, repotted some African daisies and herbs into pots and made what felt like way too many trips down the hilll to our storage shed, and back up again.  However, the reward was that we had our first dinner of the year on the deck tonight - a  pizza from our local place, washed down with a cold beer.

Tomorrow we're bringing MIL over for Easter dinner - I've got a nice ham ready to cook and will serve it with mashed sweet potatoes and a salad.  And we have some anisette cookies from the bakery for desert.  We plan to start the day with a phone call with my parents who arrived back in Portland this afternoon after spending the winter in AZ in their motor home.  

Spotted my first hoverfly of the year this afternoon too - it was tempting to blip it, but I decided to go with the finch.  I'll put the fly in Extra.  And, for a very "Easter-y" goldfinch, click HERE.

Cheers.
xo
Debbi