Feeding the birds, and what passes for normality at the moment

Morning all.  I am trying to live in what passes for normality here.  Trish is still holding on, despite being off the life support machine now, so I can only wait and hope and pray.

I will probably bake a cake this morning - apple-based to try and use up what we have over a hundredweight of, despite not picking two trees, or the small ones on another, and giving boxfulls away!

I need to top up the bird feeders, as they are mobbed.  This is what comes of living in the countryside and quite a heavily wooded area, so there is a constant flow of birds.  Dozens of "spadgers" (sparrows) as my mum used to call them, at the front feeder, which also hosts Coal/Blue/Great Tits, Chaffinches, a Nuthatch and a Greater Spotted Woodpecker.  I just have the sunflower heart feeder out there, but the latter two birds have learned that sunflower hearts are Good!  The garden is never still.

My other feeders are in the Damson tree which I look out on from the kitchen window.  Again, sunflower hearts (no waste with those) and a small round feeder of peanuts (as they are so expensive this year).  I have less sparrows, more Tits, and some Goldfinches visiting, plus the Nuthatch family and another Woodpecker, which again like an easy meal and seem to prefer the sunflowers.  It does my heart good to watch them, but they are too numerous to count for the famous Big Garden Birdwatch as they come and go in such numbers.

The cooking apple tree has now dropped much of its fruit that was too high (or small) to pick.  As I write the wind is getting up and shivering the yellowing leaves and the Jackdaws added to the number of apples floating in the big goldfish pond when they went for breakfast this morning.  There was a Treecreeper going upside down up the branches on Monday, and the Wrens and Tits are always searching for insects at the base of the leaves and in cracks in the bark.

I have 6 or 8 Blackbirds out in the garden, picking at the apples - their favourites are the sweet eating apples of which there are lots of small ones I've left on the ground for them plus the bigger ones on the ground from the two home-grown trees at the top of the yard, where life is quieter.

Right, your support over the last few days has been magnificent.  I will try and visit everyone's blogs and comment more often myself too (slap wrists).