This vingette comes from a shady part of my yard.  The brilliant sunshine poured forth through an open spot in the thick canopy of maple leaves above and acted like a natural spotlight on the scene.  The scene was set and awaiting us when we pulled into the driveway after church this morning.

You can't plan shots like this.  (Well, I can't!)

Random musings on a sunny, Sunday morning: 

I haven't seen my trifocals for over a week now.  I wasn't too worried when they were first missing because I misplace them all the time.  I was pretty sure they were in the house somewhere and figured they'd turn up in the linen closet or under a chair or some other strange place but I'm beginning to think I've lost them.  I'm good at losing things.  If I lose my bifocals, I am sunk.

Mama Bird is busily feeding her babes.  Papa Bird is an ever present presence in the yard now.  One of them swooped me when I was weeding under the nesting tree yesterday.  I'm thinking it must have been Papa because Mama isn't particularly bothered by me.  Here she is this morning, sitting on her fuzzy gray chicks.  (I peeked in the nest while she was out pulling worms but by the time I came back with my camera, she was back on the nest) As you can tell by the movement of the camera, Papa wasn't nearly as tolerant of my intrusion into the privacy of his family. 

I (well, Tom) made a new bed for my shasta daisies yesterday.  They weren't thriving beside the sidewalk where they've been for the past two summers.  I think they don't like all the snow piled atop them during the winter.  Hopefully, they'll like the new digs better.

See these?  They're not weeds!  They are tiny lavendar plants.  I'm going to leave them alone for a while and then transplant them when they get a little bigger.

The spiderwort is just starting to bloom this morning. 

The girls like to sleep on the porch in the mornings.  It's like a green house with the sun streaming in the windows.

I forgot about this picture I took of the cloud formations on Friday evening.  Don't they look like cotton candy? 

We got a new super duper printer for my business yesterday so this afternoon we'll be re-arranging the whole office to accomodate this new piece of equipment.  It always makes me nervous to mess around with the computer cables and cords.  If you don't hear from me, you'll know why. . . 

I need to go get ready for church now!  Have a wonderful Lord's Day! 

May 8, 2007

same hosta 

May 8, 2008

OK, all you gardeners out there--I have a question for you.  Have you ever had a flowering plant that only produced seed heads with no petals?  This purple coneflower produced regular, petaled flowers last year, but this year about three-quarters of the plant is producing flowers with no petals.  The flowers that actually have petals are sort of deformed looking.

I've never had this happen before.  Have you?   

I planted this ivy bed last year at the back end of the garden, where it is too shady to grow much of anything.

 The ivy is now established and trying it's best to grow into an area of the garden where it is not wanted.  So, this morning I decided to add a little rock border--a visual boundary to let us know where to discourage the ivy from growing.

Ever since the boys were old enough to carry a rock home in their grubby little hands, we have collected rocks.  The rocks that you see here have been stored in the garage for four years, ever since I collected them out of our snowy backyard before we moved from our last house.  In the bottom of the bucket, I found the little  index card labels that Sam had made back in first or second grade to sort his rocks from John's.  It took me right back to the days when we would never pass an interesting rock by.  After all these years of togetherness, how could I engage the rocks in their task as border guard without inviting the signs to come along? 

 

So I laminated them.  Twice, for posterity.  And when I go to the garden to collect my warm, ripe tomatoes, I will look at the signs and smile.