Saturday Chores.........

The last of the blooms are coming in the house for us to enjoy.  It was the latest that they have ever bloomed.  I hoping the rain will replenish them and that they will come back strong next year. 

It is cold outside and the sound of the remaining cicadas is a low buzzing sound.  I will be interested to see if the warm air that it coming in from the south today will help revive them.  We have dead ones all over the property so I am guessing that we are almost through with them.  It will be another 17 years before this kind of insect will come forth again.  We will have the other kind of cicada coming out in the fall to make it vibrating pitched noise.  It is the sound of fall when you hear them buzzing loud and soft repeats in their call.  They look differently than these 17 year cycled one.  I watched a PBS show about edible foods and they had fried up a bunch of these cicadas to eat.  I don't think I could do that after seeing what they look like squished on the sidewalk.

Potentilla shrubs were the rage for a while in Iowa but our summers are really too hot and dry for them.  This shrub is in full bloom right now as we have had lots of rain.  It will retreat once we hit July.  It will stay green to a certain degree but the flowers won't be returning. I remember in the late 70's when people would have a free site plan for landscaping done for their house by the local nursery and the young landscape artist would line these shrubs up and down sidewalks and along drives.  They do come in different colors.  I remember seeing them in Maine and they have a lot of moisture out there.  The shrubs were a great looking bush and large.   Ours never develop to be very big.





 I am going to take my wheel barrow out and fill it with dead limbs from my privet bushes and also my hydrangea bushes.  I lost three privets with one coming up from the roots.  The hydrangeas that lined the north of house are regrouping now but there is half of it with dead sticks on it. I will try to whittle away at the redtwig dogwood as it keeps taking over a garden area.  I can cut it back a lot and it returns.  I may just move the plants around it and let it take the area. I mowed most everything yesterday and still have the orchard area to hit.  I will probably mow down all the wild violets now as they are through blooming and they are too thick to leave there.  It is hard to find fallen apples in the thickness of that kind of foliage.

I will be wearing my parka outside this morning again as it is too cold for short sleeves.  By noon it will be warm and the southern winds will get us up to 84 degrees F.  this afternoon.  It will also bring strong storms by late evening as the cold and the hot air mix.  Late Saturday evening into early morning Sunday we are to have storms.  Maybe I can get enough rain to water my tomatoes.   Have a good weekend everybody and thanks for stopping by today.