Mustard Meadow

In a number of hayfields around the area, you see a profusion of mustard flowers. My husband said the mustard came in with alfalfa seed several years ago; thus the great masses of yellow.

I think it looks quite lovely but it doesn't make for very good hay. This field needs to be reseeded.

Spring Bustin' Out All Over

Because You Can Never Get Enough Yellow

Where Are You, Spring?

We had snow yesterday, with several inches on the ground before it suddenly warmed up and melted some of it. I refuse to post any more snow photos, though I took some. Maybe I will post them on a 100 degree day in August.

As for now, I am ignoring winter and posting these lovely flower photos that I took on Monday!

Early Signs of Spring

Daffodils coming up



Iris on the rise.



Woodpeckers knocking on the door.

August Wildflowers

Queen Anne's Lace

I thought at first this was an anemone or a wood sorrel, but it has six petals, not five like those flowers. After searching through two different guide books, I think this must be a hepatica, a type of buttercup, except it is growing out of season. This is usually a spring flower, but we've had such strange weather I suppose anything is possible. If you have a better name for this wildflower, please share. I like to get the names correct.

Bull thistle. We try to keep this off the farm, as it is hard on the cattle, as they get the thorns in their feet. It grows well by the side of the road.

Goldenrod. This, along with ragweed, is the reason I generally can't be outside from now until we have a heavy frost.

On My Mind

Maybe I never loved you ... quite as often as I should have.

 

Little things I should have said and done . . .

 

I just never took the time.

 

But you were always on my mind.

 

You were always on my mind.

 

 

 

I learned this morning that one of my husband's cousins passed away. I did not know her as well as I might have liked. You always think there is enough time to do that, to get to know someone better.

 

But time is ephemeral and it slips through our clasped hands so quickly that we don't realize it. We don't love enough, really. We're all so busy.

 

Tell your friends and family that you love them. You may not get a second chance.

 



A Day in the Life of a Rose

Thursday morning I noticed that one of my roses was readying to open. The sky, too, was going to open up later in the day. I decided to take pictures of the rose until the rains came.

First thing in the morning.



Just a little later.



Blooming out mid-morning.



Reaching for the sun.



Full bloom a little after noon.



Around 4 p.m., after the wind and rain.



This morning (Saturday). The rose had tinged pink.

A Thing of Beauty

This is an orange-red rose that my friend gave me about a dozen years ago. It always blooms right around my birthday.

I have always considered this rose a fulfillment of a promise my mother made me just before she died. She said that if there was an afterlife, she would send me something orange. It was our secret. The following year my friend gave me this rose for my birthday, and it bloomed out orange. It has grown a little darker in color over the years but it retains its orangy beginnings.

Iris

 

 

First Rosebud 2013

Columbine 2013

The columbine in my yard is in full bloom.

 

The light purples and pinks are new this year.

 

 

 

Originally I had these dark purples and yellows. Evidence, I think,

 

 

 

that though the norticulturists breed for certain colors

 

 

eventually they revert back to their original beauty.

 

 

Mankind can only improve on Mother Nature so much ... and our improvements are not always permanent.

Down by the Road

Daisies in the hayfield.

 

Some kind of phlox.

 

Daisies up close and personal.

 

Buttercups.

He Called It "Pruning"

I planted my forsythia, which runs along the side of the driveway, about 25 years ago. 

Early on, it was four separate bushes. But over time, they grew into a single hedge.

My husband stopped trimming it back because, according to him, the overgrowth would keep the snow from drifting into the driveway.

Last year, the hedge had overgrown so much that the deer found it a wonderful place to live. They moved in, complete with fawns, and proceeded to do their business in the area. In hot weather, it smelled like a zoo outside when you went out the back door.

So I told my husband the forsythia should be pruned back this year, as soon as the blooms were off, so that the deer would live elsewhere.

He agreed. And while I was out one day, he began to work . . .

He took a chainsaw too it. Yeah. He called this "pruned."