Seeds, seeds, seeds.....

We've had a bumper crop of maple seeds this year.  We have three maple trees within 50 feet of our house and all three put out seeds like they were the last maple trees in the world and needed to repopulate all the maple trees.  Directly on the heels of the last maple seed dropping, our river birch started to drop seeds.  Their seed pods look like 1.5" pinecones and each one is loaded with a ton of seeds that fall like rain.   Each seed looks like a piece of oatmeal.  Between the river birch seeds and the maple tree seeds, I scooped a 5 gallon bucket just off of our deck.  We have to heavily Preen the flower beds on either side of our deck because of this yearly covering of seeds.  And still some get to germinate.  All the pots of flowers, the hanging baskets and the indoor plants are now completely covered with seeds.  The leaves of the hostas are so filled with them that you can barely see the leaves.  As if that weren't enough, now the cottonwoods all around our house are dropping their seeds and it looks like snow.

On a good note, there are now four bluebird eggs in the box on the north side of the house, seven wren eggs in the bluebird house on the west side of the house, another wren nest in an ornamental birdhouse on the south side of the house that I can't get into to count the eggs.  The bullfrogs have started to bellow and the fish have been splashing water which says they will be spawning soon.  I have annuals in pots that are doing poorly - they have plenty of rain but not enough sun since it only shines once a week or so.  We saw several butterflies today.  Too much rain so we haven't seen many.  We are still not able to get the new raised bed filled with top soil because the ground is too saturated to get the skid steer loader in without ruining our grass.  So, we wait with so very much to do and very little time to finish - we leave on vacation in 12 days.