Sunny Sundays are Great.........

The bud of a sunflower is an interesting sight. The eventual opening of the bud is like an explosion of its green curtains revealing what is inside.   The rains have the ground so wet that three of my younger sunflowers were not standing anymore.  One is totally disconnected from its stem and the two others are now being held up by steel fence posts.  I have empty buckets that have almost 4 inches of rain in them collected from the past two rains.  I know that Friday night we were getting quite a quiet downpour with very little thunder and lightning. Our upstairs bedroom roof has a roaring sound as the heavy rains come down in the area.

Another butterfly fix for you to see today.  There were a couple of them out there again yesterday along with a painted lady butterfly but I didn't have the camera with me.  Rains have also caused some of my zinnias to lay on the ground.  I wove them in with the standing ones hoping that will keep the up vertical again.  I may have to get string out and tie them up with the ground soil being so wet.

I was asked the question how I was identifying the female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail.  The net told me that in most cases that the ones with the blue coloring are females.  I find that the ones that have a lot of blue on them like the ones in my Photo a Day header are a lot of blue on the inside bottom parts of the wings and then they also have those few blue spots on the back edge of the outside of the wing. It was funny that they said "most times" meaning that it isn't a definite thing that they are female.

The neighbor who gave me a start of this plant later told me that they can put out a bloom.  They remind me of the aloe vera plant and I thought that would be a fat chance that would happen.  Well, it did happen as you see there is a stem and bud showing on the plant. It did not like direct sun as that would burn it so I have it sitting under my grill shelf protecting from sun and too much rain.  I don't have a drain hole in the granite ware pot as I don't want to damage the pot.  I will bring it in soon so it won't have to worry about getting too much water on it. I am anxious to see that the bloom will look like once it is open.

I had mentioned that my daughter in law had lost her father late Thursday night.  They are in the Chicago area. We had not heard back from our son but we see on the net a memorial service was held for him Saturday morning and visitation was afterwards.  We had considered going out but thought outside visitors would be confusing for the family at this time especially for Andy and Patricia. It is  six hour drive for us.  Now that we see all of the memorials are done we will just have to call and also hope the flowers get to them.  Nothing will be on time but they will receive them as our gesture of love.

Our son originally had planned to come home for his 20 year class reunion and I am sure he was glad he dropped those plans.  Patricia is such a sweet daughter in law and we are so sad for her and AJ lost his grandfather.  I am such a distant grandfather but we will have to work on that.  It is a close family and I am sure they are all pulling together but loss is always so difficult.

The hardy geraniums are regrouping and the red and white look so good together when I look out our back door. The rains have really taken their toll on the orange petunias and the phlox have lost most of their petals now with them being washed away.  You can see pink phlox petals on the patio in the background.

Hopefully we will have a quiet Sunday after Sunday school and eating lunch in town.  It has been hot and very humid for the past few days and today will be another one.  It is bad out when I don't want to walk outside to shoot photos.

Thank you for coming by today and visiting my blog.