woolythyme

weeding walkabout....

 

That giant, viney weed prompted a little walk-about late yesterday.  It was a blight on the view out the window next to my computer.  It would have been a much more fruitful weeding outing if I had left the camera in the house.

That vine is gone, although I can see three more this morning that I swear weren't there yesterday afternoon.  And the weeds in front of the hive are history. I'm fascinated by these honeybees.  I don't know much about them; this is the second year I'm 'fostering' them (which means I get to look at them but not do any of the work to take care of them), and I love them more every day.  They are incredibly docile.  I merrily weeded in front of the hive....inches from them, and they totally ignored me.  Busy doing their buzzy bee business.

The last two photos, though.  WHOA.  Bumblebees are a totally different animal.  The vitex (chaste tree) is in full bloom and covered by bumbles.  Later in the season they will compete with butterflies, but at the moment they seem to have the tree to themselves.  And they are NOT WILLING TO SHARE THEIR SPACE!  AT ALL.  I s-l-o-w-l-y moved in inch by inch for a couple shots and three times ended up with a swarm (to me 10-12 bees buzzing in my face constitutes a swarm) trying their best to run me off.

They won.  Maybe I won.  I got away without getting stung, and made a bee-line (heehee) to the house.  

To find this little guy clinging to my night blooming cereus (which hasn't bloomed in two years....it's overdue) right outside the kitchen door.  Mom and Dad no where in sight.  

 

But he had a guardian angel watching over him.

It's OK to breathe now....

What?  You weren't holding your breath...wondering what made the 'cut' for the flower show?  IMHO not a 'winner' among them, but they are packaged up and ready to be dropped off this morning.

I had an old wire bottle carrier which may or may not get them to show unscathed.  

In the back is Osmunda regalis.  Royal fern, aka flowering fern.  It's a very tall, stately deciduous fern that sports brown fertile fronds that give the appearance of flowers. It's too early for those fronds to be the beautiful coppery color that they'll be in a couple weeks.  Points off, I'm sure.

Allium is going, leaving only two in the garden, although this morning I saw a late something that might shoot up into another glorious bloom.  I love alliums and I absolutely hated cutting this one.  Please forgive me, Alli.

Clematis gets to go after all.  I now have the most beautiful, tangled mess mass of blooms on the vine.  She's going in an 'unapproved' container....just because she wants to.  Love letting her be a rebel.

And finally, behind her is Deutzia.  There is an unjudged category this year called plant with a story.  I thought you might like to read Deutzia's entry:

 

Hello.

My name is Deutzia.

This flower show used to be the highlight of my life.  Literally.  In 2004 when I was hardly out of my youth, I won a lovely blue ribbon.  That was the year my owner discovered my name.  Can you believe, she didn't even know who I was?!?...only that I was pretty.

Two years later, I went from 'pretty' to "SPECTACULAR', if I do say so myself.  2006.  What a year!!!  Everyone thought I was magnificent.  I won a blue ribbon again, but this time I was also the 'Best in Show'.  THE BEST!  What joy!!!  I could have danced all night.

But time marches on.  Terrible winters, the infamous ice storm of '09, old age...who knows?  I sort of had a stroke and half of me died.  I couldn't flower any more.  My owner just couldn't desert me, though.  She tried this and that...but nothing seemed to make me feel better.  Late last summer, I knew she was desperate.  She amputated my right half.

And you know?  I felt a bit better.  Oh, no.  Not like the old days for sure, but slightly better.  I shot out new growth like I haven't done in years, and for an old girl, I'm looking 'not bad'.

So here I am today.  A little white-haired old lady, who still remembers fondly my garden show days when I was 'Pretty in Pink'.

                                        Deutzia---2006

garden show dilemma.....

My garden club is having a little flower show next week.  There are three areas....floral arrangement, photography, and horticulture.  Each area has divisions and you choose what to submit among several 'classes' in each division.  

Fower arranging.  Leave me out.  My idea of 'arranging' flowers is gathering a big bunch of posies and plopping them in a vase.

There are some people in the club who absolutely excel at this art....and I love seeing what they do.  I always learn something. This year, this area is just for fun and will not be judged.  I should have signed up, but I didn't.  

 

Photography.  I love photography and I love trying to make something fit a category.  The club also has some amazing photographers (even a 'professional' among the mix), so seeing how others interpret the classes is enlightening and educational.  I'm in awe over what some people can do with a cell phone, too!! since I can't use mine at all!  My favorite flower photography is black and white....not a category.  That's OK.  I love to participate; I hate to compete.  This area would have been much more fun if it wasn't being judged.  

The real dilemma for me comes with the horticulture.  Everyone is required to participate with three entries.  I've been scoping out my yard.

My viburnum has never been prettier.

And then, it stormed yesterday and all the blooms fell to the ground.  Drat.

This is a deutzia.  This photo is from 6 years ago when a branch of it won 'Best in Show'!  (I really felt like I had a green thumb that year....even though when I entered it, I didn't know what kind of a shrub it was! Still not sure if it's a shrub or a tree?!?  Note to self:  Look that up!!!!)

A lot can happen in six years.  It got sick.  Half of it died.  We severely pruned it with hopes of saving it.  Last year, not a bloom on it.  This year what blooms it has look as if they are going to be white!?!  What's with that?

Allium decided to send out a timely bloom.  Actually the garden has three lovely purple balls....only three....and they certainly aren't the extra large balls you associate with allium.  I really don't want to sacrifice one of them for this thing, but I might have to.

This is the third year for Clematis in the garden.  Year one----nothing.  Year two----nearly nothing.  I was thrilled to see this pretty bloom the other day.

After all the rain, it's covered with blooms!!  But how in the heck do you display a vine like this in a bottle?  

Hello little strawberry flower.  (The ant will have to go.)  I don't think there is a category for food.  Maybe I could slide it in blooming perennials.  That would save 'allium' from the shears.  Dilemma.  Dilemma.

Irises and peonies are prolifically blooming all over town, but not in my yard. I barely have buds.  Rosebuds.  Yep.   Flowers? No. How long does it take a rose to go from bud to beautiful? More than three days? 

Sigh.

 

Stay tuned. 

A Monday Moment....

a moment from the week...through the lens of my camera

 

spring springing::new smells smelling::bees buzzing::sun peeking::spring (almost!)

lavender festival fun....

a lavender festival....

 

my camera and I chased bees....

 

a perfect low-humidity, sunny (if a bit too windy for the camera!), road-trip-kinda day....

we had lavender tea, cut bundles of lavender, bought tomatoes at a roadside stand, hunted antique treasures, lunched at a funky little seafood food truck in a random parking lot...

and my friend drove....

which meant I came home with a finished norwegian fir cardigan!

what a day!

teaching an old dog new tricks...

Finally.  I think fall might be close.  I've been watching a bunch of sunflowers for some of my photography class assignments.

 

We've gone from 'perky'...

 

to incredibly sad--even the bees seem to have rejected this one 

(Oops.  Bad image.  See that right hand edge? I almost missed it. Bad, bad, bad....crop, crop. crop.)

 

Better.

 

 

I can't wait to reshoot this stage...

I've already learned so much...not that I'll ever be a really good photographer.  Better is all I strive for.  

I'm looking for the 'shot' that transcends the ordinary.  The unusual point of view.  The story that unfolds in a single image. YIKES.  This is hard.  There is so much more to learn. (I have the attention span of a gnat which makes it even harder.)

So what have I been doing all week?  Deleting thousands of images from my computer that I used to think were pretty good.

 

This class is ruining my blog.

rain, rain....

• A trip to Memphis to visit our 'sister church'....same architect, same design---for the most part, same footprint, only our church is the baby sister.  It rained on us.

We came home with so many ideas and plans and hopes and dreams...but top priority will most likely be the gardens and ceiling tiles.  The rain certainly didn't dampen our enthusiasm!

 

• Garden Clubs of Kentucky recognized and dedicated the Monarch Watch Certified butterfly garden I've been involved with at Whitehaven; the only Monarchs to appear were eaten immediately!!  but this swallowtail made sure everyone knew we had a 'working' butterfly garden.

The dedication ended, we packed up our tables and goodies....and it rained.

 

• This was Pollinator Weekend at the Lake, so I had to make a quick trip up there to visit Alicia, owner of Ironweed Nursery where we bought the plants for the butterfly garden. She only deals in native plants; the way they took off and filled in our garden in only a year--it was actually a year to the day since we planted our baby plants!!!--- has made me a real convert, so of course, I had to buy a few for my garden.

(That was her table display....I wanted to buy that many, but didn't.  How could I have gotten them all to the car?  It was pouring!!)

 

• Between raindrops, I ran out to Mt. Kenton cemetery for my first photo assignment in the photography class I'm taking.  Something stationary.  Using a prime lens.  Camera set on automatic.  Definitely a case of a little tiny bit of knowledge making this assignment frustratingly difficult.  I always shoot in manual mode.  'Auto' stinks.  BUT...I've lived in this town almost 35 years and had never visited Alben Barkley's grave.  (He was vice president under Truman) I must admit, I was a bit disappointed; I thought the monument would be fancier and larger (I came equipped with an 8 foot ladder!! which I obviously didn't need!) But, I got to check off that local tourist stop and enjoy a few minutes of peace and solitude in a very lovely setting.  

 

And then it rained some more.  

 

And I was totally fine with that...

I baked my favorite blueberry coffee cake for Sunday School Rally Day this morning,

 

and then...

Freddy and I cozied up on the sofa and worked on yet another...sock yarn blanket.

I love rainy weekends.

rain, nests, and new sweater...must be spring

The rain finally stopped, but it's hard to complain about its effect here after watching only a few minutes of national news.  My heart goes out to our southern friends dealing with the devastation of flooding.  My world turned upside down last year when we had about 18" of standing water in the scary basement (during which time it was referred to as the SCARY basement).  This time, fearing the worst, we found ourselves simply wet, not wading.  All is good.

To celebrate...

a few flowers.  I'd still need hip-boots to tackle the backyard where there are some daffodils blooming.  My Blenko vase is waiting for a bouquet.

The birds are starting to nest...

making questionable decisions again this year.  The term 'bird-brained' I guess was coined for a reason.  You CANNOT tell me bitty bird is comfortable in her new spring abode, but man, does she get feisty every time I pass by (which I have to...to get to my car).  It's hers and she's going to protect it, even if her babes will never figure out how to get out.

And then,

there is Boxy, growing rather steadily.  She should be finished just in time to put away for our long stretch of heat and humidity.  

 

Yep.  It must be spring. 

serendipitous? grateful?...or simply self-preservation?

The sunflowers have burst into bloom!  Nothing more beautiful and more 'summery' than sunflowers.  I love them.  

But I didn't plant them.

I have a whole pot FULL of sunflowers.  At the moment, over twenty buds or blooms.

Birds?  Squirrels? Who should I thank?  Do you think they just happened to dump some seeds in the pot? Or maybe they planted me a little 'thank you' gift for their winter food?

Chances are good, though, that they are just ensuring that they will have a meal next season.

 

They know they can't rely on what I planted...

detour home....

 

Heritage Gardens in Sandwich, Mass is a must stop.  A picture perfect day certainly didn't hurt the visit, although it wasn't quite as serene as it looks....

an outdoor kiddie concert drew hundreds of preschoolers.

Luckily, they had no interest in...

The gardens were more than worth the price of admission, but this special exhibit simply put the whole day over the top.  I'm sort of a Wyeth...Andrew, that is...groupie.  (Can't really warm up to N.C. or Jamie so much.)  We saw a similar exhibit of the three generations of Wyeths in Rockland, ME a few years ago.  This one was smaller, but loved it just the same. And the best part was that we had no idea until we rounded the special exhibit hall that it was even here.  Happy day.

 

The permanent collection museum even had...

sheep (weathervane)...

and

a knitter.  

 

We were then off to Plimoth Plantation and the Mayflower II, where we spent half the time but twice the admission price.

 

 and the best for last....

look at his hand knit stockings (which he insisted were NOT hot, but protected him from the scorching sun) and the garter-stitch garters that are holding them up.  Garter stitch...extremely elastic and perfect for garters!  Is this where the name came from?  Never gave it a lick of thought before, and on a quick flip through a couple knitting history books I have, couldn't find reference to it.  Anyone know?

This rated a souvenir.