Thursday's Things.........

When I looked down I could see one more picture in the making.  I like how flowers on different stems are faced in different directions.

Larger than life blooms of a hardy geranium appear in large  splashes of red.  The hardy geraniums have returned after there beating by rain drops a week ago.  It takes awhile to get the whole plant looking good with damaged blooms next to the new blooms.

My pet swallowtail was too friendly yesterday as it got into my face and was too close for the camera.  It is such a hyper active insect and flaps its wings rapidly never stopping for a still shot.  It now has one part of its wing broken off from all of its busy movements.  The phlox were a fascination to this guy hitting all the little flowers for nectar like he was in a scanning mode. I would call this swallowtail a black one when you see it with its wings open. I share a photo below to show what the makings of a light colored swallowtail looks like.

I could not get my mind to remember the differences between these two so I dug back into my file to find the picture of a few days ago. Besides it being a clearer photo of a butterfly that just hung around in slow motion, you can see the outside markings are completely different. The white on this one is more of a cream color than the one above that has more of a yellow light color in its markings.

 The project of cutting down the overgrown lilacs continues.  The photo shows that I have removed most of the 25 foot branches from the 30 year old white lilac bush. This photo is not one of the end result but the larger pieces on top have been removed and now the tall one shown are also shortened or removed. None of this is a good looking sight and won't be until it is done.

Here is another new shot of the second bush being pruned back. Behind it is another partly lilac bush and also a very old honeysuckle bush growing side by side. Sunlight is not hitting the soil and I have sewn in some grass seed to get some green back in there.

 The surprising thing that I noticed yesterday is that within a week since I started trimming back things  the old branches immediately started new sprouts. That bush plans to survive no matter what I do to it. I have branches to cut up and clear and the whole area will look better when I get done.  I hit the project a couple hours a day just to get it done.  I have no deadline other than it was to get done this summer. I will show photos when the bushes have leafed back out and become better looking shrubs.

The weather continues to change around here and it sometimes cools off at night now.  There was a rainstorm happening last night north of us with strong lightening but it never came our way.  I will work out there again this morning and eventually can just move on to something else.

I appreciate your checking in today.  I hope it proves to be a good day for you.