Springtime loveliness

I love the flowers at our house. These are Japanese meadowsweet, I think- some sort of butterfly bush. If I was a bee, I'd hang out on these with my friends and giggle about being tickled. Don't they look like such fun!?

This gorgeous moth had me fooled. I thought he was a leaf and I bent to swipe at him before I realized he was holding on tight in the cross breeze through the garage. He stayed put all day before heading off to adventure elsewhere. Such a fancy friend!

Blackberry blossoms, above, are beautiful! I had no idea! And the photo below is also some kind of berry blossom. I must have missed them blooming before, because I was unaware that they were growing in a spot on the side of our property until all of a sudden there were white blossoms but not where our black raspberries are... yippie!!

 

Cottonwood season

I didn't know anything about cottonwood trees growing up. There must not have been any in our neighborhood because I had no idea they were a thing until we moved here. And I still have no idea where the ones are who are shedding all their fluff like so much windblown cotton candy, but I do wish they'd keep it to themselves. It looks like it's snowing, they get sucked into my nose or mouth when I'm running, Damon had one float into his eye which just about drove him to distraction, and you can't sweep them up because they just start swirling around again! Liam parted a pair of curtains to confirm that they were blowing, took one look and declared, "yep, that's it. I'm not going outside until October."

They do look pretty snagged in the Japanese Meadowsweet which grows out front. If I was a flower, I think that's what I'd want to be. They look so tickly and I bet the bees just love them. Look at all those little spikes with balls on the end! I'm thinking Best in Show for Bee Massage.

 

Gettin' dirty

Yesterday I smelled like I was at camp. That's a good thing. That means I was outside in the sunshine, enjoying the huge bees and the many birds and the sunshine!

Our strawberry patch, sans baby bunnies, who have moved on:

Irises which came with the house- my favorite kind of plants- the ones I don't have to do anything to, haha! They come up and surprise me with their gloriousness every year all by themselves. Yippie!

Our "pond", as usual, is a disaster zone. We didn't even cover it last fall so I've been attempting to remove the gazillions of drowned leaves, spreading them out to dry, letting them air out all that stink, and then wheelbarrowing them to the compost pile where they'll probably sit until the second coming. But we have a big froggie! He's on the stone in the foreground, to the left of the small sapling. 

Dada and I worked in the garden yesterday. Since he burns pretty easily, we waited until after 5 as it was 90 degrees during the day. I know it doesn't look like much, but we are optimistic for a good showing this year. Unless these four days of storms which start today do everybody in...

This is my Borage Triangle. At least, I think that's what those guys are. I didn't plant them there this year, but that's where some were last year, so I'm hoping they're repeat guests. I can't say offenders as I'm more than happy to have them for the bees and butterflies. My mother insists they look like alien bioscouts, haha. 

Dada, the purist, and I are once again disagreeing about gardening. I planted the cucumbers right along the fence so they could grab hold and go up. He says I'll be fighting a losing battle with the weeds along the fence line. I suppose we're both about to be proved right.

These tomatoes are called Allegheny Sunset. I didn't prop them last year and so they got very sprawly. I think a vole was helping himself as I didn't get a single bite; by the time I found them they were all chewed up from below, so I guess they're tasty but I wouldn't know from personal experience.

The yellow broomsticks mark basil, to the left in the back are pepper plants, and then everybody else is a tomato of some kind. I love the teeny cherry ones so we planted Sungolds, black cherry ones, yellow pear ones, and red currants. Scott likes real sized ones, hence the Allegheny Sunsets, Cherokee Purples, and Brandywines. 

We didn't get around to adding in the carrots yet, though there are some in the back garden with the onions and the peas. I forgot to take pictures of them, hmmm. And we saw on facebook that you can wire old bananas to a post and the butterflies will come enjoy them, so I want to do that, too!

"How does your garden grow?"

Uh, well, ours is a complete disaster. Thanks for asking. 

I guess we had other things going on this summer. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Here is our garden jungle: 

I can hear Ray Stevens in my head, "embarrassing." So let's have a closer look at things.

Here are the tomatoes:

We planted Cherokee Purples and either Big Boys or Beefsteaks, but I haven't seen anything other than teeny cherry ones come up...

The strawberries are still doing their thing:

And we have a humungous basil:

The borage I planted for the bees is hanging in there:

Heh. That would be the purply blue flowers in that mess. As ever, you can click on any photo to have it open in a more eyeball-friendly page to better investigate.

I have no idea what these adorable yellow flowers are, but they have carroty-looking tops/stems so I purposely didn't weed them as I wanted to see what would happen. Anyone have a name for them?

Cilantro has gone all to coriander:

Butterflies are visiting the apple trees:

Spiders are everywhere:

This particular one is either brave or crazy, having built a web just outside our back door. I can't tell you how many times I've opened the door just a few inches to holler out to the boys and/or the dog, remembered the spider too late, and have had to apologize. It's a good thing I have no hair, or this poor thing would have to redo the web several times a day. And it's right at face height, so it's usually, *door opens, I take a big breath to begin to holler, pull head back a little bit as spider takes cover, apologize to spider, commence hollering while keeping door as closed as possible lest any bugs make it past the web and into the house, slam door shut* The spider is doing a good job as I've only seen one stink bug make it in so far...

The zinnias and marigolds did well! I even saw a hummingbird enjoying the zinnias.

And this, my friends, was lettuce in its former life:

The back "garden" was overtaken by the ghosts of last year's veggies. Apparently we'd tossed zucchini out to die and they reincarnated, took over, and had to be chopped back by PaPa during his last visit:

We did get a few zucchini out of the deal except they were so huge by the time we found them that they were really seedy and not much fun. I guess that's why Aldi sells little skinny ones, haha.

And it's almost apple season already! Eeeep!

Dada bought some fun shades for the deck this summer, which give a whole new resort-ish feel to the place:

Yes, that would be Virginia Creeper, creeper-ing along. There's also poison ivy in there, which all the menfolk currently have as they just can't stay away from machetes and chopping vine-covered branches and oy vey...

And my lovely, tough, good thing they take care of themselves hostas. Hosta? Hmm.

Those poor guys were completely dug up and tossed aside when the geothermal install happened. The guys doing the digging asked what they were and then shrugged, "well, they'll probably figure out how to come back." And they did! Yay!

I sure hope nobody was depending on us for tomatoes (unless they're cherry ones) or cucumbers or anything this year. None of my cucumbers tasted like anything much, and I can't tell if it was just because of chemo affecting taste buds or if it was the ridiculous wet spell followed by months of hot and dry without being watered or what, and nobody else in my family eats them to compare notes with. If nothing else, we helped birds and bees and butterflies, which is half the fun anyway. Uh, I mean, sorry I didn't get out there to weed very much, honey...

Talking, talking, and more talking

While Care Bear is at preschool, I have a few minutes to get some goodies on here. Here's a conversation from dinner last night. Well, I say conversation, but I mean monologue. She hardly paused to draw breath! This is all her. I got to nod. Once. I scribbled this down with my right hand as I ate with my left so I wouldn't miss any of it. =)

I'm old.
I'm gonna have to get married in a couple weeks.
I haven't been married yet.
I'm gonna marry Lamb. (She means Liam)
He's gonna be in the white dress.
I'll be in the black clothes.
Do you dance at weddings? (This is where I nodded.)
I'm not gonna dance.
I'm gonna stand like this (she poses, head turned closer to a shoulder as her eyes cut the other direction.)
And smile at everybody.


And then she was off in a different direction. Now you have her latest thoughts on marriage. Then later in the evening, she informed Rita that she (Carrie) was going to marry Nina since she (Carrie) was a boy and Nina was a girl. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhkay.

Another, older funny has already made it to the quote board here. Frequently I tell her that when I'm talking to her, her eyes need to be on me. I was frustrated with her and remarked, "you better watch your mouth!" to which she replied, "I can't. My eyes are watching you!" Arrrrrrrrrrgh. This kid!!

Preschool on Monday went well. They dipped their bubblewrap in yellow paint and then pressed it on their beehive papers to make honeycomb designs. They read a bee poem, made bee decorations, talked about honey, had a bee song, colored bees... I saw ducks in the room today, so I'm sure I'll be prying duck things out of Liam's hands when she gets home today. Ducks and dogs are his favorite!

The preschool kids even played in the gym at the Y on Monday, although the story I get from her is that there is a person named Jim and that he was playing basketball in there, so I'm not sure that she gets the whole room is a gym. We'll see what happens today. Have a great rest of the week! It's over the hump day! =D