Flowers. I like them.

Hen & Chicks

Above is a birthday gift from a very thoughtful neighbor. Over the years she has added some amazing florals to my porch and garden. I've always admired this sort of set up for hen and chicks, but always passed as I thought it was too expensive.

I have several hen and chicks growing in log crevices and on rocks. This one is like a beautiful center piece.

My neighbor professes to have a brown thumb. Indeed she sort of does, but she has a wonderful eye for adding to my collection of flowers. Last year a lavender plant showed up on my stump with a note when my MIL died. 

Another year some beer and Gerbera Daisies showed up.

Flowers have a way of making me smile. My Grandmother Pearl loved flowers. Grandpa only let her have a small area for her flowers. She managed to have the most incredible flower garden in a tiny space. 

Moon flowers were my favorite. I have yet to grow some of those.

At one time I disliked geraniums. But my MIL always had a wonderful mix of them on her porch or later on her balconey. I'd cut the spent flowers for her and learned to have an appreciation for them. 

This year I have 3 colors of geraniums. I potted some exotic pink ones in an old pot I inherited from her balconey.

White ones in an old galvanized pail that was used to collect maple syrup by my father in law's dad.

For me this year, the flowers have it. I can be close to the house yet still outside working in the tiny gardens and watering those flowers in containers on the porch.

The Hen and Chicks I moved to the Forest Garden are doing well!

I couldn't resist a bit of playing around in the woods. The shade is nice and the breezes were warm but tolerable.

I didn't plan on a moderate drought this year, so hauling water daily to water my seedlings is an extra chore, but one I don't mind.

I had to put some 'fake' flowers in the basin of the Old Man's head. Real flowers would have withered away in this wind and heat.

In a way, I am happy that I didn't decide to do a large veggie garden this year. The lack of rain and the heat would have made the work much more intense.

My garden this time last year:

It was rather impressive. 

Rich keeps telling me that he will till it. But he has forgotten that the tiller is partially broken and lives at the neighbor's house now. My neighbor has tilled for us for the past 4 years.

I just don't have the heart to ask him to do it for us in this heat.

At least if we do get some tilling done. The garden will be much smaller but I will reserve an area for Zinnias and other colorful flowers to admire. 

If it were left up to me, I'd have flowers and plants to work with every day.

I have such a hard time resisting all of those bright colors.

Have a wonderful Monday.

My June week is filled to the brim with fun and exciting activities.

Ahem.

Who am I kidding?

It looks to be awfully hot and icky this week with a chance of humidity, clouds, maybe some rain, and chance of viewing a partial eclipse of the sun on Thursday!

Flowers....I just love them!

Quiet Weekend

 

There is the Wild Man in the skid steer.

I mentioned that I wanted to pull some multiflora rose bushes with the 4 wheeler, or chop them down and maybe then pull them out afterwards.

Rich thought he'd just grub them out with the skid steer. Oh and boy he did. He made a mess and tore things up like mad. But I just smiled because he felt good enough to operate his skid steer for a bit. 
He wanted to get down into the trees and muck around, but his fuel ran low so...whew. He had to go park it.

I'm so glad we don't own a bulldozer.

Sunday morning, my temp thingy on my smarty pants phone said it was 47 degrees out. I grabbed a heavy sweatshirt and Charlie and we headed out to watch the sun come up over the Merry Meadow. Brrrr. How did I think PJ pants and a sweatshirt with chore boots were going to be warm?

But the colors in the sky were interesting so I walked back towards the meadow.

It was worth it...

I heard some thumping that was strange and a bit weird sounding. I couldn't think of anything in the woods that would cause that. And to my surprise I counted 6 Tom Turkeys beating the hell out of each other.

They were literally running at each other and bumping chests then grabbing for each other's throats.

And...they were not uttering a sound. No gobbles, nothing. Just running at each other and wham!

This is one of those times I wished I owned a seriously Big Assed Lens. You know one of those telephoto lens that could take me right up to the Tom Turkey's faces. Alas.
I'd love to own one but probably wouldn't carry it on just a morning walk. This was my 14mm-150mm Olympus lens. It did a fair job with the low light. I took about a dozen shots and this one was the better of them.

One Tom in the left side was strutting after his battle, two are locked in a death grip and a loser is ducking under the line fence.

The fence? It has been that way for 30 years, this portion belongs to my neighbor to maintain. Yeah, it will stay that way for another 30 years. There is a hot wire to keep my critters off it.

I spent Sunday afternoon sitting on the porch with Rich and Charlie. We enjoyed the warm temps, no bugs, and sunshine. 

The veggie garden is a mess and I have to start working on that. I need to plan out some flowers for the east side of the house. My mental list of To Do's is long. 

I registered with the Wisconsin Vaccination Site and already received an appointment. 

Here's to the mini happy dance.

This guy is on one of the trees over by my shady rock place. I'm hoping to transfer some fern plants when they come up along with some other natural plants that grow in the woods. 

At least for now, the tiny Buckthorn trees are gone and I have a quiet spot for some afternoon reading if I want to get a stone's throw from the house yet feel like I am in a private place.