Successes and failure...

I have no photos of my success, because it is kind of gross.  It all started last year when a friend told me her mother would always bury a fish under her fruit trees for fertilizer.  As always, I mulled this information over for awhile then tried it.  It was unsuccessful, because a fox or something came and dug the fish up.  I continued to think about it and read several articles on the internet.  This weekend I successfully made fish fertilizer.  After my fishing trip with the nieces a month ago, I cleaned the fish put them in a five gallon bucket and threw in a carp for good measure.  Most of the articles I read advised to pour some molasses in the bucket and let things stew for awhile.  I also added two gallons of water.  I put a lid on it and stored the stinky mess in a corner of the orchard.  Four weeks later I steeled myself and prepared for a smelly mess.  I was surprised it was actually a nice liquid fertilizer.  It turned out much better than I anticipated.   I was able to fertilize 10 trees, of course I will never be able to use the bucket for anything but fish fertilizer.  

 My other success is the butterfly and bee garden.  I have several grasses and added a bee and butterfly flower mix.  It isn't a lush garden, but it is a very good start.  The bees and butterflies are using it. The concrete rhubarb leaf is filled with sand and makes a wonderful lounge area for the butterflies.  

 My sweetcorn is rocking.  It has never been this tall.  Hopefully it will be ready in a few weeks.  My bees are doing great.  They should produce a lot of honey this year.  

 This is the only planter that has survived.  The deer have munched everything.  Usually the smelly spray works, but this year it rained so much that I couldn't keep up spraying it.  This planter is on the deck.  It was the one place they couldn't reach.  I love the red geraniums and the bright yellow sunflower.  Below is my soon to be giant pumpkin.  It is growing pretty fast.  

My poor peaches and cream hollyhock.  If you look closely you can see the deer stripped every leaf and only left the one blossom  It is doing it's best.  Not only have I had a problem with deer, but the chipmunk population went from 4 to too many to count.  They are everywhere.  So far, they haven't done any damage.  I have noticed the hawk and the neighbor's cat have taken a sudden interest in my yard.   I don't think they have been successful, because I am not seeing a dent in chipmunk numbers.  

 I call the little guy above Rip, because his ear is a bit tattered.

 Perhaps you are wondering about my failure.  Well, here it is.  I spent half an hour trying to get a photo of this zippy little bird.  Finally, I got a photo, but now I cannot identify him.  Any ideas?  I have ruined my bird book pouring through it trying to identify the little bugger.  If you have any ideas could you please let me know.  It is driving me nuts. (Addendum: I believe Charade is correct.  After further research it my be a female redstart.  Now if I could just see a male redstart.)

 That is it successful fish fertilizer and a beautiful bee and butterfly garden, happy bees, a beautiful crop of sweetcorn and a big pumpkin.  To finish it off an unsuccessful attempt at bird identification.  I hope your weekend was also full of successes that outnumbered failures.