Saturday, July 30, 2005
Field Trip
My garden madness may be partly hereditary; I went to visit my sister, Dorothy, who lives about 80 miles north of us; this shows the front of her house. She has built a house on our old family homestead of 5 acres of wooded land, with a small creek running through it. The property is now smack dab in the middle of town, so is quite the oasis, and she has filled her yard with flowers, ablaze with color even in late summer; some more pictures of her garden follow.
Joe Pye weed; being in the milkweed family, it's a magnet for butterflies and bees.
My sister has a great friend, Bill, who has gotten into making garden ornaments and gates, out of copper tubing. This is the gate to her vegetable garden.
This is the top of a trellis they made, complete with dragonfly on top.
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
A Walk In The Garden Today
Monday, July 25, 2005
A Walk In The Garden Today
Sunday, July 24, 2005
Saturday, July 23, 2005
New Boid
Every year I add a few new birds to my sighting list, here in our garden, and I also add a couple of "call sightings", from birds off in the woods and ravines. Today it was the call of Bell's vireo, a very distinctive call if ever I've heard one. My bird book mnemonic is Cheedle cheedle chee? Cheedle cheedle chew! (I kind of like tippie tippie toes). They write of the bird sounding like it's singing through a clenched beak... to me it sounds like the bird gargled with razor blades... anyway, kind of a neat thing to hear.
A Walk On The Wild Side
There is a 12 foot retaining wall along a ravine that runs right by our house, leaving a nice, flat area at the top, and I've planted it all in wildflowers; this time of year it's mostly rudbeckias. I'd never realized what a sweet perfume they have until I massed them in this big bed. It's a haven for butterflies and bees, and later in the fall, goldfinches and other small birds in profusion, feed off the seedheads.
Bumblebee on rudbeckia (Kathy has gently pointed out that the purple coneflower is Echinacea; Rudbeckia is the orange coneflower, or Black-eyed Susan... DOH!)
A Walk In The Garden Today
Friday, July 22, 2005
A Walk In The Garden Today
Calla lily; the exact name on this one escapes me, but it's something like "Purple Pirate" or "Pirate's Patch".... it's nice, whatever it's called.
My sister-in-law from California visited us, and while our garden is a poor cousin to her and her hubby's Eden on a hill, she did like the tall Oriental lilies.
Ah, summertime; me and Liz on our newest garden bench, a gift from our nephew in Kansas.
Ah, Nature.
There's nothing nicer than a shady, winding garden pathway through the woods, redolent of cedar chips, and soft and springy on the feet. Unfortunately, this time of year, raccoons come into the garden, drawn by mulberries, and while they're there, they like to pull water plants from the pond, and dig up all the bark chip pathways and bark mulched garden beds, looking for food. The paths become so dug up, they have to be waded through, more than walked on. I used to live trap and haul away some of the coons when they got too destructive, but I guess I've mellowed, and just try and let the critters be now... besides I finally decided that other people were probably dumping coons off in our woods faster than I was hauling them away. The picture shows a critter on one of the paths, but it's Sadie the cat.
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
A Walk In The Garden Today
Where's the arborvitae? We have a LOT of new fawns prancing about... this is one of a pair of twins, so one has to watch carefully driving in. They are really cute at this stage, will be less so when they start munching on my weeping cherry tree, but they have the run of the place except for the fenced in garden, so live and let live.
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Monday, July 18, 2005
A Walk In The Garden Today
Snickers was usually up a tree when I went out in the garden; this is where she'll always be from now on.
Oriental lily, 'Casa Blanca', the classic, and still unsurpassed, white lily, reaching 6 ft. tall, with up to a dozen huge flowers that last and last, due to their heavy substance.
An old-fashioned tiger lily snuck into the garden with a hosta I moved from my first garden, and has spread around promiscuously, but I kind of like it.
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Snickers
Though a year ago, we still remember the day,
when Snickers first stole both our hearts away.
She was the tiniest kitten at the animal shelter;
we knew she was ours the moment we held her.
All eyes, paws, and tail, and with soft, dark fur,
she licked both our hands, and started to purr.
As she grew, she was a blur of energy and fun,
never sitting or walking, when she could run.
There were woods to explore, and trees to climb;
and I now think she knew there was so little time.
For on Sunday, she was sleepy, and began to sneeze.
By Monday she couldn't breathe and began to wheeze.
Her decline was so astonishingly fast and steep,
that by Wednesday she was mercifully put to sleep.
Tomorrow we'll bury her by the pond that's so pretty,
and over her it will just say "Snickers, the perfect kitty".
Monday, July 11, 2005
Catastrophic Illness
Snickers, shown above with the blue collar, one of our year-old littermate cats from the animal shelter, started sneezing yesterday, became lethargic, then this morning suddenly went into respiratory distress, with moaning, painful respirations. We made an emergency run to the vet, where exam and x-rays didn't show a definite diagnosis, but she was a tiny bit better after antibiotics and anti-inflammatory drugs. She's staying overnight for I.V. fluids and more antibiotics. Hopefully it's purely an infectious process with laryngospasm, and she'll have a shot at getting better, but it's pretty awful to have this normally cheerful and sweet little cat sitting in your lap, crying out with pain with every labored breath. Time will tell. On the trip to the vet, I suddenly felt something warm in my lap, and said that's the first time somebody else has peed my pants for me!
A Walk In The Garden Today
Welcome, Dennis
The remnants of hurricane Dennis are still heading towards us, here in the Eastern Iowa Desert. We are so desperate for rain, that I'm thinking of putting up a welcome sign. Unfortunately it's expected to soon make an abrupt right turn, and scoot by us to the east. Sigh... jilted again!
Sunday, July 10, 2005
A Walk In The Garden Today
Dienanthe caerulea; a cute little woodlander, with flowers kind of reminiscent of a hepatica.
Saturday, July 09, 2005
Hotting It Up
Liz and I went out on the town tonight and ate at an outdoor cafe. I ordered the buffalo chicken salad, but told the waitress the last time I was there I had ordered the same thing, and the chicken wasn't even spicy, so tell the cook to hot it up a little this time... big mistake... I'm still sweating, and I'm thinking about going out for ice cream to cool down my heartburn.
Bird Shower
It has been incredibly dry here; comparable to the dust bowl years of 1934-5. I normally don't water anything in the garden, but this year I've had to water newly planted azaleas and Japanese maples; it's either water or lose them. It's not uncommon in dry weather, when I'm watering to have a bird show up for a shower, but today was a record. As I was watering with the hose, a chickadee showed up, landing on a limb right in front of me, so I turned the hose to "mist" and gave him a shower. Almost immediately, a cardinal flew down and joined in... then a loud buzz announced the arrival of a hummingbird, and finally a goldfinch showed up. They all sat there on the dogwood tree, shaking their wings in the cool spray. After 10 minutes I got on with my watering; I think they would otherwise still be there showering. Next they'll want soap on a rope!
A Walk In The Garden Today
Daylily 'Spacecoast Peach Fringe'; the Spacecoast series of daylilies are from hybridizer John Kinnebrew in Florida, and I think are all evergreens, and should be susceptible to winter kill here, but so far I've had great luck with them, perhaps due to my southern exposure. They tend to have fantastic fringing, and are gorgeous on warm summer evenings.
Daylily 'Moses Fire'; I'm never completely sure whether I like double daylilies or not... too many of them look like clumps of wet toilet paper when they are over the hill, but this is a double I do like; it's a little more burnt orange than the picture shows, but nice.
Cruel Skies
Yesterday, all the birds were in an uproar; at first I thought maybe a fledgling was on the ground in the woods, but the bluejays, the cops of the trees, were just going crazy, and then I saw the problem... a red-shouldered hawk had shown up, and had a bird in its talons. The bluejays dove at it, and it dropped its prey (a dead cardinal), and took off with the jays chasing it through the woods. This morning the hawk was back, diving at the birds near the feeder; I didn't see whether it got anything, as it flew rapidly through the trees, and out over the pond, again with the jays on its tail. A squirrel that was on a limb near where the hawk passed, absolutely froze for a full ten minutes , flattening himself against the branch as much as he could. A sharp shinned hawk has been a frequent predator of the birds here, and we have a resident pair of red-tails, but this new raptor seems to have our birds the most upset that I've seen them; many of the birds have quit singing. It is interesting, though, that the jays and some of the other larger birds, like the robins, harass the larger red-shouldered hawk, but when the small sharpie shows up, everybody just scatters and hides. I assume the much smaller sharpie is faster and more maneuverable in the trees, so more dangerous to confront; I've seen him fly tight circles two feet off the ground around a small shrub, trying to flush birds out of it. Hopefully our new raptor will move on, or it will be a songless summer around here.
Friday, July 08, 2005
A Walk In The Garden Today
Hosta 'Blue Mouse Ears'; a tiny jewel of a blue-leaved hosta.
Lilies and Pewees
Our garden is bordered by a pond on two sides, but on the east side is a large, wooded ravine, mysterious and quiet, with a small stream trickling along its bottom. I've left this ravine untouched, for the woodland birds, and it's home to shy birds like the scarlet tanager, and various warblers. The back garden pathway that runs along this ravine is right now ablaze with dozens of large lilies in full bloom, with delicious perfume, so merits a visit every day. The path runs gently uphill, and the perfume flows down the path, so you're bathed in the sweet smell as you walk along. This back pathway also gives a good view these long summer days, of the eastern wood pewee that every year resides in the wooded ravine. He is in the flycatcher family, so likes to sit in the trees right at the edge of the woods, then dart out into the open garden to snatch insects, and return to his perch, all the while singing his somewhat sad "Pee-Ah-Wee" song, trailing off on a lower note. Walking up this pathway, smelling and admiring the lilies on one side, and hearing the shivery pewee's song in the shady ravine on the other side is a fine experience on a warm summer's evening.
Thursday, July 07, 2005
A Walk In The Garden Today
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Hot Air Put to Good Use
Well, we've been off on another road trip, which included hot air ballooning this time.
A Walk In The Garden Today
Friday, July 01, 2005
A Walk In The Garden Today
The trumpet lilies are all in full bloom, and with our dry weather, the flowers are gorgeous this year.
Helleborus X sternii; I had shown this plant earlier... this shows the really crisp, fresh foliage that it holds all summer.
Hosta 'Fantabulous' deserves its name; crisp cream and apple green foliage, and very unique flowers.
