Gosh, so many good pictures to share with you all today!
We have had a half inch of much-needed rain, and a scant quarter inch today... and our skies are turning blue as I type this. It has been unseasonably cool these last two days, but we are going back up into more normal temps, and back to the high 80's by next weekend.
My friend Lorie and her daughter Tiffany visited the Botanical Gardens in Pittsburgh this week... my gosh, what beauty... I wish I could just up and run down to Powell Gardens, 70 miles from me on the Missouri side, and walk amongst their beautiful settings.
Phipps Gardens display until June 25 is the iconic costumes of native son Billy Porter... my gosh, it was astounding.
Every time I leave, I have to open the gate and close it, in case the sheep get out of the pasture and into the yard. The red gate is the old one that was here when we moved in... Keith built a lay-by so we could get off the road to open the gate... that gate is blue. Between the red gate and the fence, Milkweed has grown up... if you could smell it as I come through... it is heavenly.
I have another stand of it in the yard, near the lilac bush.
This is the time of the "June Candles"... the yucca is blooming.
I have a lot of it in front of my house, along the road.
This huge one is in my fenceline, and it looks like a ghost out there at night, seriously!
I tried to show how it looks... if you look out in the dark, it's creepy.
There it is in daylight.
Looking down my road this morning, you can see how green everything is.
There is a person walking, way down there on the left.
Ben took down the honeysuckle bush that was growing through the fence of the big hen yard. Wanda always slept under it.
Now she is sleeping under the steps/side deck of the hen house.
The cochin chicks lost the two huge-ish trees growing through the fence of their small yard... I left these two saplings for the time being for shade for them, but I hung a big tarp, and... I moved a really big dog house in there for them. I think they are afraid to go in it. It is just meant for day shelter, they are still coming in every night to be in their pen in the hen house.
I caught just the head of the coyote bobbing at the bottom of the pasture last night, I had not seen her in two weeks. I noticed Molly looking down there, then I realized the chickens were... then the sheep's heads came up, and that's when I saw her. She is not coming daily, OR... if she is... I have not seen her.
Since Zoey is gone, I have not heard them at night either... Zoey took us out at least three times a night over the year and a half that she lived here. I'm not out at night any more.
This is the last of the raised beds that Keith built. We used to put peas and cucumbers in them, there were cattle panels attached and they grew up the panels. Last year, I had Ben take the panels down.
This bed has sat derelict with about ten bags of dirt laying on top of it, so last Wednesday in punishing heat, Ben cultivated it, and pulled out the weeds... turned it over, and spread the old dirt from the bags on it. Then I went and got eight more bags and lugged them onto the bed and poured them out, raking it all. It has pumpkins planted in the middle, and several different kinds of sunflowers on either side. I don't know if you know how sunflower roots tear up your beds (the clumps are big), but I love them and wanted to grow some somewhere where they wouldn't bother anything else.
The rain watered them in well.
Hollyhocks and lillies and bonus blue jay
My planters on the patio planted with the Bird and Butterfly mix are HUGE... they should be blooming any time now.
Bob sleeps by the door. He came in this morning, looked around, rubbed against Bullseye, but as soon as I began to close the door, he scooted out.
He will not leave me alone if I sit down on the porch, he has to be on my lap loving all over me and pushing his head into my chin. He is welcome to come in, he just is not ready. I hope he gets ready before winter!
If you can enlargen this, you will see something is going on with this tree in my north fenceline. It is dropping all its leaves already, and you can see the clumps of dead leaves. I am not sure what it is.
THESE are walnut leaves... every year the walnuts are the last to leaf out (April), and the first to drop their leaves... usually July 1st, but they are way ahead this year.
We have had rain, not lots... but we have had it.
I lost beautiful Buddy on May 5th, and how I miss him.
I am still vacuuming him up! I have wood floors, but two runners and two room rugs.
I have vacuumed many times since losing him... how can I STILL BE GETTING HIS HAIR???
This is not a very good picture... I had just come home from the commissary and set these bags down on the table. My friend Pauline, a long time reader of this blog, made these wonderful bags (and another, not pictured) for me. I use them every single week, they are remarkably strong.
Thank you so much, Pauline !
Oh yes, the sheep are still here.
When I got there with the cutters to free her, she gave a mighty heave and backed herself out.
A more bucolic view
Everyone be careful out there !
