Monday's Mention

 

 Our newly hatched birds are this male and female cardinals. The fluffy feathers is a clue that says they are still growing out their feathers. I  would hop that they hatched more than two so we will be watching to see if there are more. 

 There are goldfinches out there but I am not getting any good shots yet from me. There were three of them out working my sunflower patches and I do see them. I just need to get my camera out and stand and wait for a shot. We saw a female finch on the seed sock this morning and it isn't as yellow as the males. 

 I had forgotten how the hummingbirds like the sunflowers. I was out checking the yard to see if it was dry enough for mowing and three different birds were humming around my head.  The flowers are d maturing and there are new blooms too. When the seed gets to be more mature the goldfinches will be really working the flowers. 

 We woke up to cool temps this morning and the grass was wet with dew. I had to wait to mow until late this morning. To keep busy I went ahead and dug up iris along the back fence. They are so wet that I will have to lay them out in the sun just to get the dirt off of them. With all the rain in the area it is a extremely wet. There really was originally a creek bed going through there but it has been tiled out to help stop the flooding. It is like an underground creek with grills along the way to catch water from the rainfall. We live on a re-engineered corn field hill with a low water line at the back of the house. 

The mowing is now done. The front yard that I mowed on Saturday was so tall that i had to fight it clogging continually. The back yard  was not so tall but it was a little bit slow moving to get it done.  I could have collected the grass but it would have been too much to store. A neighbor up the street was using a broom on his grass after he mowed it, to take off excess grass.   After two years of drought in the past it is a welcomed problem to have too much grass. 

Thanks for stopping by today.  

Steamy Saturday

 It is so humid out there in the morning but the morning glories don't mind. I thought hot sun was their thing but I guess not. The white spots of pollen look like sprinckles of salt. 

 I do think my tomatoes would do so much better with some sunshine. We won't get any today. The season has been strange. The weather guy, Jason, says we will have two drier days but then we will go back into rain again. 

I got my iris bed filled up yesterday with soil and there was a short rainfall yesterday afternoon that helped to settle it all in better. I mixed some sand with it as well as some leftover potting soil to make my raised bed soil be more desirable. It was great to work with this morning as I did plant in all the iris that needed to be put back into the soil.

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 Experienced gardeners will all tell me that I planted things too close. I know that, but I am going to thin things out as I see what actually will root down. I had five new iris from the Oregon company that I got scattered end to end. Some of these are cemetery iris that I may just pull once I see a good grouping does mature. I also had iris from along my stairs that were just not blooming and were in a watershed area of water coming down through during heavy rains.  When I dug them they were so wet. I was glad to move them out of there. I didn't get all of them planted and they are several laying on the concrete slab right now drying out. I will find a different place to plant them.

 Some of you know where we went to eat at last night by seeing the mural. It was Friday evening. We went early and by the time we left it was getting too crazy. Lots of kids everywhere and too many people to be able walk back and forth to the buffet tables. Pizza, fried chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy. It is the best. Lettuce was minimal and they put out lots of watermelon for the salad area where they usually have lots of lettuce. It is better to be safe than to be poisoned. 

 I had to mow a front yard that had gotten overgrown. It could have been mowed while raining but the mower would just clog up with wet grass. It was so long that I had to push it through at half the speed of normal. The front yard is smaller but it still took a lot of time to get it done. My neighbor's young grandson was out mowing earlier and I am not sure how he got it done. 

We are at 84 degrees F. right now and the sun is really shining through. The humidity is very high also. For a while this afternoon the whole neighborhood was roaring as many people were getting their yards mowed.  I mowed later and the neighbor boy across the street mowed at the same time. 

Thanks for stopping by today.  

 

 

Working with Dirt

 

 

 

 

 

Why not put an iris start in my favorite antique flower pot. My brother grows iris in pots in California  because he is too lazy to put them in the ground. I got my four bags of soil spread into my new iris bed. I added sand and some left over potting soil to give it more volume. Maybe tomorrow I will go buy two more bags to be sure my raised bed is really having a raised soil level. 

I am really anxious to plant all of my iris back into the ground. We got almost four inches of rain yesterday and this morning we had more rain. I could work outside as the rains did pass but I want all the soil to settle in a little and have it dry out. I would rather work with dry loose soil when I put iris into the ground.  We haven't see sunshine for the second day and I think maybe this afternoon we will finally see it.  I did get a new butterfly bush planted this morning. I hope it does well. I saw a monarch butterfly on it at the nursery so I thought that it was a sign that I should buy it.   Thanks for checking in today.

Glaring Sunlight

 A painted lady butterfly came to my zinnia patch for a photo shoot. I found in research that it is one mostly scattered over the world. It didn't spook from the camera as most butterflies do. 

 This shot makes it look like it is a part of the flower. It flitted from one flower to the other sometimes landing right close to my face.

 After a morning full of rainfall the skippers were welcoming all that hot sun in the afternoon. It did feel good to be out in bright sun. We traveled to and back in a rain storm this morning for an appointment. We got an inch and 65 hundreds of rain this morning. 

 This variety of tomato must be tasty for the chipmunks as both of them have been chewed on unfortunately. The munks did have the ability to eat on the as they were close to the ground. 

 The front raised bed is looking water weary as the rain does damage hardy geraniums. I don't have to water the bed though as it keeps raining.

 

The camera actually doesn't like the strong sunlight and it struggles to focus. I had my eyes dilated this morning and myself and the camera struggled not knowing what was a good shot. It helped to download the photos and work on the computer manipulating the values.  Yet, the computer screen is somewhat glaring to me yet this afternoon. Tomorrow with a good nights sleep my eyes should be back to normal. 

Thanks for checking in today.
 

Middle of the Week

Thinking I would find a monarch out there that I had seen earlier, I instead discovered this very hungry eastern tiger swallowtail. It stayed for so long time giving me a chance to take way too many photos,

I like planting zinnias specifically for the draw of butterflies but the hummingbirds are a good draw too.  I seee a lot of skippers during the summer but rarely get a shot of one of them. 

 I have been trimming back sunflower leaves to let the tomatoes get more sunshine. I think things are too crowded but I don't see me taking away anything that is growing there

 I found the marker of this tomato and it is called Champion. It seems to be my best producer right now. I think I planted my tomatoes too late but I will get a harves until frost if they stay growing at the same pace. 

They seem to be more solid and less watery substance.What is really great is that they taste so good.

We are having rain this morning, It isn't going to amount too much but it keeps me from mowing my backyard.  I have four large bags of garden soil to lift up and out of my car trunk. That I can do while I am waiting for the grass to dry. I can wheel barrow them down the hill one bag at a time. I do think we will be less hot today than yesterday.  The rain will be good for me to get my plastic geese washed down a bit.  You can see here the grass is very long. 

Thanks for stopping by today. 

Things of the Now

 

 

 

I need to return and pick this for a vase inside. The blooms come right when I thought they were never going to bloom anymore. 

 

 

 The work zone is at rest right now as I covered up the soil with black plastic to cook the roots of the grass. At 91 degrees F. and direct sun I am hoping that I can clear out the grass in a few days. I have iris waiting for their new garden area but it needs to cool down before I can work out there. I bought four bags of commercially bagged dirt to put in there once it is ready to go. I loaded the four bags today and tomorrow I will unload the dirt from the trunk of the car. I didn't mention the high humidity that was there at the very first in the morning. Working outside has to be difficult for road work crews and people who are shingling houses. 

I have a doctors appointment on Thursday so I will lose a day of work. I guess all in all my body will appreciate.the tie off. Thanks for stopping by today.  

 

Project Day

 

I worked in the garden again this morning clearing out an iris bed. They will be replanted in the same space but there will be grass totally removed and the growing space will be doubled. I have a set of five re-blooming iris ready to be planted but noting goes into the ground until all grass has been cleared. I will clear and apply new bags of soil from the hardware to fortify the clay soil that is there. It will grow in clay but I would like the black dirt to be the higher concentration of growing material. 

I worked in the high humidity and high temps until I could not stand it anymore. I cleared old iris, placed my landscape planks in position and cleaned and clipped the iris. I sat down in the shade with two buckets of water to clean and trim everything. I am going to leave them lay there until things are ready to go. I did find one rhizome that had grubs working on it so I will get out my grub granules for that for the rest of the iris all over the garden.  The planks are not  completely buried in place but they seem to be pretty right in and ready to go. 

Thanks for stopping b y today.