The beginning of August

Welcome August.
We saw our first buck in velvet close to home while having coffee in the morning. He was walking amongst several does who just stared at him as he walked through the neighbor's field and woods.

Something alarmed the gals and they took off to the west while the buck took off to the east. They look hazy because of the smoke and some fog.

I have 4 o'clocks blooming all over the place. Each year, I collect the seeds and then randomly drop them into different areas.

Some of them have grown to nearly 5 feet tall and others are being entwined with morning glories.

It's a mess in this spot, but I am enjoying the mess. I may chop it all down after a frost and see what comes up again next year.

Thankfully, Little Richard has been busy helping with the yard work. I put him in some spots that seemed to be growing faster than the rest of the yard and he did a nice job overnight.

Mornings are still the best to go look at things in the garden. The past few mornings are cool with fog and smoke.

The bees are really busy in the pumpkin plants I planted ... ahem, sort of ... by accident in front of the house.

Actually, having them so close is nice. I can see how the bees work the flowers and I can watch the funky pumpkins grow!

These pumpkins are a cross between some gnarly bumpy pumpkins I had last year and the original whitish-yellow pumpkins I had. So it will be interesting to see how large they get. 

I have several other pumpkins in another spot in the pasture that I fenced off. 

I have tossed pumpkins in for the mules to eat the past few years and it seems that they eat them and then stomp the seeds into the ground.

Here are some more flowers to enjoy. All of them taken early in the morning with dew drops on them.

I sure do love the morning glories!

 

Flower garden tour...

Just a walk around the house with my camera... well except for the Queen Anne's Lace and the white clover those flowers were in the yard.

Enjoy

 

Squirrels, seeds, and Charlie

Charlie's nemesis is back. The squirrel[s] are going 'nuts' under the hickory tree. Charlie believes that it is his duty to chase them away. 

I told Rich that we should build a ramp for Charlie next to the kitchen window so he can watch all the activity going on in the yard. The poor little guy is so short he can't see unless he is sitting on the porch.

Morris used to lay down on a step in the open stairway so he could view out the windows. Charlie hasn't mastered the stairs which are not carpeted any more, but are wooden. His long body and short legs make it hard for him to go up and down the stairs.

Charlie likes it even better if I put up the little hammock and let him sit in my lap so he can watch the tree above him. 
I have one of the old hammocks with the wooden ends that he will actually lay in on his own, but that is such a pain to put up and take down.

He is really quite happy on nice days to sit on the porch and watch the yard. I have a tie out for him that is a boat anchor. Everyone chuckles at that but in truth, it works so well for him!

He normally lays on the bench and watches the world go by.

As the zinnias start fading now, I am collecting seed heads for next year. However, the Marigolds that reseeded themselves by the porch along with the Nasturtiums are exploding in brilliant colors.

I will plant Nasturtiums for sure again next year, they really added mounds of beautiful greenery and flowers all around the porch. 

I should be able to collect a lot of seeds from these. I have a large board that sits on the old trunk in the kitchen with several bowls. Each bowl has different seeds that I have been collecting. I can recall my Grandmother doing the very same thing each fall. She'd put her seeds into envelopes that she'd saved from her received mail and then carefully label each envelope for her flower garden the next year. She repurposed before her time.

I would love to take out one of those old metal wagon wheels next year and add morning glories to my tiny side garden.

I think this coming winter I will really miss having a flower garden. Most of all, I'll miss the mini gardens I created this summer.

This morning it was cool enough to turn on our heat for a bit. 

Time to get moving with the rest of my day.

Flutterbies and bugs

Last year I planted petunias and verbenas in the annual garden by the kitchen window. It looked great, but I noticed that the butterflies and bees preferred the Zinnias further away from my house down in the veggie garden.

So this year I took seeds that I'd gathered last year and seeds from Aurora and tossed 4 O'clocks and Zinnias in my small annual garden.

You will notice some Marigolds mixed in and those were all leftover seeds from the year before. I picked up the seeds that had fallen on the ground and poked a few here and there.

What a surprise my willy nilly casting of seeds gave me this year.

I think the butterfly below is a Black Swallow Tail! I've learned patience this year. A LOT of patience!

To get a bright back lit photo of a butterfly takes a ton of patience and waiting. 

The butterflies like to hit up the flowers when it is warm and sunny, then all of the insects are going crazy in a sense.

I even planted 3 sunflowers within close proximity of the house. In years past, Rich would complain about the sunflowers blocking his view of the driveway. I made sure that he could see the driveway, but also see the sunflowers.

This year he stands at the kitchen sink window and gives me a commentary on what is happening in the flower garden.

I planted sunflowers over a few different weeks in hopes of having more blooming time. The insects and the Goldfinches have been having a hay day with those huge flowers.

And there are all sorts of secret things hiding in the Marigolds. Crab spiders love hiding between the petals of a Zinnia or Marigold to wait for an unsuspecting 'meal' to come along.

The bees, butterflies, and spiders are all having a blast in my tiny garden. 

I'm collecting seeds from the 'Wildflower' Garden I planted in another section of the yard. I recognize the Bachelor's Buttons, the Marigolds, and some of the others, but some flowers evade ID. I think they are pretty, so I am gathering their seeds to toss in another section of the yard that I mow [hubby won't mow it over then!] next year.

I'm fairly sure that I will surely miss this riot of color after the first frost this year.

The flowers have brought me a lot of joy this year, as well as practicing with my camera.

I planted Nasturtiums because my friend in Alabama says these were her absolutley MOST-est favorite flower when she resided in the North. She says they do not survive the intense heat of the far south.

They were not always my favorite flower, however, I am reconsidering them as they have added beautiful mounds of brilliant color around my porch where the ground cover was sparse.

Apparently they too, attract spiders!

The humming birds are still either here or passing through. They are all over the 4 O'clocks in the early morning and early evenings.

I'm pretty lucky to have all this activity just outside my door.

Distractions

I have the mind of a wanderer. Did you ever set something down right there, and then promptly forget where right there is? 

I do. I have to chuckle at that often. During my physical, I had a 'memory' test. I was sure I'd flunk given that I set my cell phone down, or my keys, and immediately forget which flat surface I dropped those things on.

I start to fold laundry and end up vacuuming because I see Charlie hair roll across the floor. That morphs into cutting up squash to cook and freeze while I am cleaning, washing dishes...and OH...wait, I was folding laundry!

What is this mean? Is my mind filled with gobbledee gook or what?

This past week has been especially distracting. IF I do not write down my list of To Do's with a cup of coffee first thing, I will definitely get off track for the day.

My father used to say that a distracted mind was a sign of being creative. My mom would say different and I think her mind always was calculating and spot on.

So for our Sunday Stills yesterday we were to go out and take shots from a bug's eye view. That is not an issue for me at all.  I have a flip screen on my DSLR and my pointy shooty camera is tough so I will lay it on a log or in debris to get those close to the ground shots. I like those views anyway.

I live surrounded by a cluttered forest. So my attention always falls to the forest floor. 

The afternoon light filtered through the trees above ... on a hillside...

But then above me ... more light.

and Charlie who is searching all tree trunks for any squirrels he can chase...

...then the sun and leaves provide a stunning scene along the trail.

So I just start to walk through the afternoon light in an aimless sort of way back to our place. I start finding fungi, moss, and interesting little things. I realize that as soon as I stopped concentrating on the one thing I set out to do, I was having much more fun.

I must be destined to have a distracted mind.

When I got to the house I spotted a butterfly. A spotted Sulphur, I think. So I dropped my stuff on the porch and completely forgot about getting things ready for supper and doing chores.

A tiny bee landed on the butterfly and then took off. Thanks to the feature on this camera that starts photographing before you press the shutter? ... I got the bee taking off from the Sulphur's wing.

How cool is that?

I eventually decided that I had better go in the house and get some stuff ready for supper.

Otherwise, I'd get distracted by something else important. Like watching the afternoon light on the trees that still have leaves.

I'll be that old lady that wanders off in her PJ's because she saw something pretty or interesting outside and just thought she'd go take a look.

Then she'd keep on going...