milk snake double take

It's been a busy and beautiful week!

muliflora rose from the field

The peonies are in bloom this week and it's heavenly.

I fill the rooms with bouquets.  I keep telling myself to add some variety...purple salvia, yellow loosestrife, white chamomile...but all the the bouquets are simple, just peonies and mint.  I like the color contrast.

Sometimes I'll put a lone bud on a shelf and watch it get bigger and looser, day by day.  

"The yellows" are starting to come in...the loosestrife...

The sedum is blooming yellow, too.

Lots of color...

It's hard to select photos at this time of year.  Every day, I bring my camera when I go out and I take hundreds of photos...anything that interests me.  Not just plants, but lots of animals.  Sometimes I'll get a glimpse of turkeys in the barnyard...

...a chog by the barn...

Deer watching from across the pond...

Todd set a loose birdhouse on one of our fence posts two weeks ago, and it was quickly claimed by a bluebird.  

I peeked in when she was away once...we're going to have babies!!

Todd unearthed this Eastern milk snake while pitching compost this week.  What a beauty!!

Farmers used to call them 'milk snakes' because they were seen so much around barns that farmers thought the snakes were slipping in to steal milk from the cows at night.  Actually, they prey on familiar barn pests...mice and voles.  They're great to have around!

So, so many more things that will have to wait for another post.  We're both busy with work and getting the garden ready.  We had the back left field plowed last week...

...and ordered a drip irrigation system and garden fabric...WITH holes for seeds/plants.  It's more expensive, but I'm done fighting the weeks and ticks in that garden, and it's just too much to water by hand when I have four other garden beds to deal with.  Already this early summer we're two weeks without rain and no rain in sight, which means up early and watering at least 30 minutes before work to keep things alive.  Todd has been busy measuring and pounding stakes...

Each row has to be measured for the fabric we bought, and the paths stomped down.  It's daunting...by the time everything is laid out, it will be ready for over 2,000 seeds/seedlings!  Quite a bit for a home garden but I love being surrounded by flowers and I'm getting such a late start (most of these flowers should've been started inside a month ago) that I probably won't even see blooms until late July.  No matter...I'll enjoy the growing things no matter what.  

Have a great week!

a yummy mummy...

 A lot of help in the garden this week.

It's a busy, busy time.  First, we had a load of compost/mulch brought in.

Before plowing, the landscape fabric paths...now buried under multiple inches of dirt and plants with heavy, matted roots...had to be pulled up.  Tough, tough job.  

I'm so prone to migraines now that I don't dare do anything where I'm bending over with the blood rushing to my head, so poor Todd, still queasy from his tick bite meds, had to do the pulling...sometimes gagging from the nausea, but carrying on cheerfully.  He's a saint!!  💗

He also put up the cattle panels for my sweet peas...

...and laid the paths in the garden (more upside-down head work that I can no longer do).

I was able to power-wash the front porch (although Todd stained it)...

...and we're slowly getting the outdoor furniture and plants in place.  This half is mostly done and still working on the other side.

We aren't the only ones who've been active around here.  Every morning, I hear turkeys gobbling, and sometimes see them in the far fields...

The goz occasionally come back, even though we haven't gotten around to de-algae-ing our front pond yet.

Our chog has had babies!!

I hear the groundhog alarm whistle if I have to retrieve anything from the white barn, and I can watch them forage from my office window.  

They are very curious and sometimes I can see their little noses when I'm by their nest, poking and sniffing.

Hummingbirds are back!

I love the return of insects, too.  This teeny tiny spider (okay, an arachnid and not an insect, but still) on an opening peony, smaller than a pinkie nail (upper right side of bud)...

These guys are aphids who specifically attack dandelions, making them my very special garden friends, as I hate grubbing up dandelions over and over again.

Speaking of aphids, I originally thought the insect on this rose bud was a spider, with a mysterious hole in his abdomen.  When I looked closer, I saw antennae.

I did some research and discovered that this is a mummy aphid.  It was parasitized by an Aphidius wasp, who laid its egg via a sting about a week ago.  The larva hatched, ate, and grew.  The aphid swelled, then died as the now fully-formed wasp chewed an escape hole in its abdomen.  Pretty big drama going on right outside our front door!  

The kittens do a good job in watching for any other nature-related dramas near the house...sort of.

Have a great week!

  

ticked and sicked

 I've started my seasonal baking for early summer...and what's better than homemade strawberry shortcake?!?  Recipe by Stella Parks, found in her amazing Bravetart cookbook.

I love highlighting the arrival of a new season.  And what's more appropriate for mid-May than some home-grown veggies, nearly ready for the garden?  They are so cheerful!

This year, I'm growing watermelon, zucchini, cantaloupe, 13 kinds of tomatoes, jalapenos, corn (!!), bell peppers, and lots of herbs...in addition to flowers and, of course, a ton of pumpkins.  I'm starting them off on heat pads, under lights, and then potting them up as they get bigger.  It will be time to plow the back field soon!

It's been slow going here.  Todd was sick with a terrible cold for over a week, and then promptly got bitten by a tick...the bite became infected...he had to start antibiotics...and they make him nauseous.  So I've had to do more of the "heavy lifting" work in the garden, and subsequently pulled a muscle in my shoulder and neck...barely able to turn my head for days.  I've had to limit myself to a daily single wheelbarrow of compost.  But I've been focusing on the garden directly behind the house, and I'm so pleased!

It's really coming to life.  Except for the tiny seedlings, ALL of these are perennials.  It's quite by accident that this bed turned out so well.  Long ago, I read that you should plant your garden by how the foliage looks, not the flower, because blooms are short-lived but the foliage lasts all season.  Vary your design and clump, clump, clumps of the same plants in scattered groups.  I did this quite by accident.  Too much of something somewhere, I'd dig it up and plop it wherever there was space without much thought.  Somehow, it worked.

A different view...

The paths aren't laid, but hopefully this week!

Ferny, spiky, rounded leaf...silvery, chartreuse, deep green...somehow, I ended up with a pleasing variety that comes up reliably year after year.

Coral bells, spirea, lamb's ear, yarrow, and cemetery moss...all foliage, all different shapes, sizes, and colors, but somehow it just...works.  

The delight is that as much as I love it now, in another month it will burst into bloom and be another garden entirely!  The front beds, too, have come alive on their own.  All perennials...all just doing their thing without any help from me...other than weeding and mulching, of course.

Just a few flowers right now...the cranesbill (purple flowers above), some columbines...

...and even anemones!  Yes, the anemones that I forgot about for an entire year but decided to soak and plant anyway are bursting to life.

It's nice to work in the garden with my usual pal, Claudia, while the kittens watch from their perch.

I mean, if they've got the time to watch.  Sometimes they're preoccupied with other things...

What a delightful time of year, ticks notwithstanding.  

Have a great week!