Monarch Beauty Plus

 I see photos of the monarch migration that is traveling through our state.  We don'[t have hundreds of them in our area but it si nice to see two or three at a time building up their energy reserves from the zinnias. I was surprised by this one as  I walked to see how things were going in the garden. It almost landed on me as it flew in and landing on a flower right in front of me. 

 The sedum is attracting the butterflies but they are not there when I have a camera. The rains have weakened thei stems stability but they still look good. 

 I have a different variety of sedum in the back yard and all of it is laying on the ground. The color of this one is redder than the ones in the front yard. 

 

The yucca only put out one stem this year instead of five. The new growth gives me a good thought that it might do better next year. The plant is stunning and even if it never blooms it just puts out a good display. 

Plants can get mixed messages about the seasons and this one is about two months late in the bloom cycle. I need to get on my hands and knees and pull all the grass out of there.  I am thinking that I will get some mulch on the row of hosta that are along that garage wall. It will require me to pull a lot of grass but maybe they will grow bigger. 

 The "knock out" roses are not doing great but I can get a photo of three good ones on one part of the bush. I need to dead head them again but it hasn't happened yet. I was out in the front yard this moring cutting back peony bushes and while finishing up my one neighbor lady walked over to talk about her new iris bed that she had just put in. I had seen her over there working and I though not to bother her until she was done. We talked gardening for a while and then I took off to get rid of my my cuttings.  Later I looked up the street and I saw two people talking and I had to walk up. The former neighbor lady who moved to retirement apartments was up there visiting her former neighbor. At first I didn't quite know for sure that it was her but I thought I would walk up anyway. It was good to check in on her and the other person too. Our former neighbor was off to buy a new bigger couch and the other woman was worried abut her daughter driving to school by herself. On my way back down the hill the husband of the iris planting woman was walking up the sidewalk towards me. He looked like he needed to talk so I headed his way. I was starting to mow the front yard at the time but that was on hold for the talks. He had stuff on his mind and I was glad I could listen. He had a very sick son.  Finally I went to the mower and got the front yard mowed and the peony scraps put into bags. We can go days and never see anyone but today it was busy. 

Thanks for stopping by today. 

Natural Colors

 

 

I had to wait for most of the morning to finally get the grass dried out for mowing.  It still had a little bit of moisture but I did get it done. It was really needed. I will sneak in the front yard tomorrow morning before it rains again. We ventured out today and had to come back through so many traffic jams. Construction on interstates are challenging as they keep shrinking four lane traffic down to two lanes and during rush hour it just doesn't work. 

Thanks for stopping by today.  

Mentions on Monday

 The angel of the garden stands guard in the background, It was wet out there in the garden as I worked at clearing dead plants from the cottage garden. 

 The angel made it into the background of the photo again with this shot. As I worked out there I found the hems of my jeans wet about six inches up. I ended up with wet pants and wet socks. My shoes are old and they leak so I guess I need to buy better new shoes for the rainy season. 

 There is a second angel out there in the secret garden. I trimmed back the iris and also took out some weeds. I have an old fashion pink rose there that I brought to the new place form our old 1904 house foundation plantings. I thought that I need to trim it way back as it will just come back better than ever. Those hosta are growing better now that the tree in that corner of the lot is gone.

 Most all of the phlox are gone but this one is still blooming a bit. I took out piles of the phlox stems and know there will be a few more later on to cut. I can now fine the lily that I want to move out of that flower bed and put it in a better location. It doesn't like being crowded.

 I decided to show you the mess. I tried to take my partially full wheel barrow out to add more to it. It was so heavy and I realized that it was filled up with water from our many rains. I dumped it out without loosing the green waste still in it and it was a whole lot lighter to push around. 

 

 Another rain happened this afternoon.  We would like to see the sun shinning again. Thanks for stopping by today. 

No Sun

 

 

 

 

 It was cloudy all day. We had rain in the early morning but the rest of day was just gray. We didn't warm up and the humidity was high. It felt like fall but we didn't have sun with crisp air. We have one and a half fall months to go. I am hoping that tomorrow will be a better day. We will be cold again tomorrow though.We will see you tomorrow.

Friday's Finds

 The painted ladies are loving the sedum blooms. I rarely take shots of them with their wings open but they open their wings when feeding from the sedum.

 The rains are hard on the sedum. The moisture doesn't hurt the blooms, it is the soil that gets so sogggy that the stems don't want to stand up.

 I like the blue on the bottom wings of the Eastern tiger swallowtail.  I have only one of these that is hanging around but it seems to be so friendly.

 I bought three new angle fish. they are a different variety than the one that I already had. I was glad to see that they all get along. They are from the cichlid family and they can be aggressive and eat others as well as themselves. The koi angelfish is large because he is older. The zebra one will grow up in time. 

 Zebra ones are striking in their black and white markings. The three have survived the move so I am hoping they will live for a long time. I promise that I will get better pictures of these new three. 

 The rains are hard on the roses. I have to make the call to deadhead them and I will probably do it down the line. It seems to be like their season is over. 

 The table is full of houseplants. They are perfect there as the water from rain drips down on them from the deck above keeping them watered and healthy. We never eat down there so the table makes a great plant stand.  I have hosta planted in one of the pots and a spare iris in the red one. I will have to get them back into the ground before winter. 

 It is two years old and it is taking a long time to mature. I have pulled out all competitive plants around it to get it to grow larger. Maybe next season it will be large. I mowed some of my front yard after the grass dried out. I didn't get it all done but there may be a dry morning before it rains again. 

Thanks for stopping by today 

 

Butterlies and Blooms

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is the end of the day and I am sharing photos.  It was a good day and I was able to mow my back yard grass. The rains really have stopped as we got a third of an inch more  again last night. I had to  wait a long time to mow as our high humidity slowed down the drying time.  We are off for another appointment this week. We are going to go for a shopping frenzy after it to make the day seem more happy. I think we will be dogging sprinkles the whole day. We are getting use to it now. Thanks for stopping by today. 

Rainy Season

 I found this in the book pile in the store room and it set me back The boy that this belonged to, who had them read to him all of the time, is now 51 years old. I think the books are around but they got separated from the box.

 Also in the store room is this shelf of various items. I do throw a thing away once in a while when I deem it isn't important anymore. The top row is a bunch of planters that are ceramic. The panther on the bottom shelf is also a planter.

 

I suppose a vine could be grown in its cavity but I have never planted in it.  I rescued this form a home that was being closed down. I remember as a kid in the 1960s when people had these and they displayed them on their black and white television sets.

 This small sugar bowl was my mom's. I remember it when we lived in a very old house as a kid. I remember when it moved into our new house and she kept silver dollars in it with a piece of cotton on top. When the parents moved to town it was on display of course and the silver dollars were still in it when I closed down their house. I have seen this ceramic piece for sale on the net with a creamer that matched it. 

 I don't throw away antique things. Each of these has a history and a story. The five on the jug was my dad's and the five stands for the five gallons of liquid it could hold. He got the jug as a joke for his birthday many years ago. The woman who gave it to him bought it at an auction for a dollar. The smaller jug was given to me by a couple that I call "John and Iva", my source for so many antiques when I was a kid. They were step family that I knew very well.

 The two gallon pickling container was made by Ruckel's Stoneware. I found the company was in Illinois and it closed down in 1950.  It actually opened in 1896. 

 I could read this one on the other pickling jars. Their printing stencil on the items wasn't working well as the glaze didn't print in the middle of the name on either one. 

 It has rained for two days now. We had three and a half inches of rain in my gauge. I now know we have added maybe an inch more. It sounds like it will rain all week. That makes things so soggy. Thanks for stopping by today.