Sunday Rosey Bird Blogging

The climbing roses in our backyard (above) are blooming bountifully this year. They're almost at the peak of their Spring bloom. When they're done, they'll rest until Summer or Early Fall and then send out another pack of flowers. Variations of this type of rose are seen all over our Northeast Heights neighborhood, which was built starting in the early 1950s. The plants are often quite large, very mature and chock full of roses when the time is right.

Bosco the peach-faced lovebird (above) loves to be out in the yard at this time of year, as he was this morning. He loves to be walked around the yard to see what's what and show off in front of the local sparrows, house finches, white-winged doves and black-chinned hummingbirds that visit our backyard feeders.

Bosco also likes to hang out on his cage on the patio and smell the roses (above), as long as we're nearby and paying him attention every now and then. This morning he shared the patio as we sipped our Sunday morning coffee, puttered in the garden and browsed the Seeds of Change catalogue we recently received. (Click photos for larger images.)

If you're unfamiliar with this organic and heirloom gardening research and sale organization, located just north of Santa Fe, go visit their site. They describe the mission of their farm:

In 1989, we at Seeds of Change started with a simple mission: to help preserve biodiversity and promote sustainable, organic agriculture. We sought to do this by cultivating and disseminating an extensive range of open-pollinated, organically grown, heirloom and traditional vegetable, flower and herb seeds. This is still our mission.

We seek out traditional varieties from the Americas and treasured heirlooms from abroad, many of which are in danger of being lost due to the rapid consolidation within the seed industry and the decline of indigenous agriculture and seed-saving knowledge.