Day to Day 5-24

We've just been busy on Spring projects.  Larry was building shelves in the shed and dropped a sheet of plywood on his big toe.  I took pictures but I won't gross you out with them...he did it first thing and never stopped to check it or put ice on it until late afternoon, such a man.  I still feel nauseous thinking about it...fool, all day working, walking...excruciating pain...enough...on to prettier things.


I've just been working in the yard mostly and taking care of stuff in the house and of course taking pictures.  The garden is so colorful and fragrant...yum.

I got all my babies potted up one day.  Five fuchsias
and ten japanese maple seedlings that I dug up out of Michelle's yard.

Some cool solar eclipse shadows.

Who knew that chrysanthemums bloomed in the Spring?

My Hummingbird Friend 5-19

It was an odd thing to have happened once but it has happened again and in a different location.  You may remember a few summers ago at our house in Fallon, NV a hummingbird sat in our garden and allowed me to touch her.  I posted a picture of her and Larry actually saw me touch her, but no pictures of the touching.


Here at our current home I've had another female hover near me as if communicating and a couple of weeks ago while I was watering she acted like she wanted to play in the water.  She had sat up in a tree and I sprayed the tree thinking she would drink from the dripping leaves, but she flew out and landed on the wire fence.  So I slowly moved the water towards her and she didn't move, so I sprayed her with the water and she commenced bathing...fluffing and ruffling and having a grand time in the spray for a few minutes.  When she was done she flew out of the water and landed a few feet over back on the wire fence.  I got right below her and she didn't care, I raised my hand up as far as I could reach, only about six inches from her, she still didn't mind and continued with her preening.  That alone was a fun experience.


Today I had pulled up a couple of huge batches of violas and tossed them outside the garden fence for the deer.  I was working right near the fence and what I thought was a big bug flew under my arm and landed in that viola batch...it was a hummingbird, female again.  She didn't hover, she landed in the flowers and started harvesting nectar,crawling around through the flowers.  She flew into the garden and started doing pollen collecting again in the same manner on more of the violas.  She didn't seem to care that I was near and she let me touch her many times, stroking her head and back.  So I thought I would scoop her up in my hands to see what she would do.  She looked at me like...hey I'm busy here, but when I put her back down on the flowers, she just continued on with her business and didn't zoom away as I expected!

Well by now I was wishing I had my camera...what an opportunity!  Her behavior continued so I chanced running into the house for the camera.  These pictures are NOT with a zoom lens, I was just inches from her.  I just had to share them all!


I decided to see if she would let me hold her again...I gave Larry the camera and scooped her up...he got one really good picture!  She continued all around the garden crawling through the violas like a big bug, hovering and chirping every once in awhile and eventually landed on the fence.  She just sat there while I talked to her and YES stroked her little breast.  It was a crazy, crazy experience.  She eventually went back to pollen gathering and I went on with whatever I ended up doing.

Our blooming garden 5-18

We arrived home Tuesday evening to an explosion of color in our garden!  The next morning the first thing I did was pick a bouquet of roses.  It is so pretty and colorful and I still have many blank places to fill yet for the year.  I wish you could all smell it.

Back from Oregon 5-17

Seth

The clematis in Michelle's yard

Aunt Millie & Uncle Marty's stunning azalea bed

We arrived home to all the roses in bloom!

Time is getting away from me again.  We've been to Oregon and back since I've last posted here.  We drove up to Michelle's on the 9th and we got back home Tuesday evening.  We had a nice visit with the kids.  Michelle and I went shopping together on Mother's Day...great fun.  We had sunny warm weather most the time we were there and the yards all over Oregon are so colorful with blooming azaleas and rhododendrons.  On our way home on Tuesday we stopped at my Aunt Millie's and their yard has every color you can think of...so pretty.  This stupid blog is acting weird.  I'm too tired to try and
fix it or start over.  I'll post pictures of our stunning blooming garden later.

Today's wildlife story 5-8

Nature is a puzzle...we were outside and I started hearing a frantic peeping sound and down the hill comes running a gosling. Near as I can figure....it and parents had wandered away from a pond up and over from us. I did hear the other neighbors german shepherd bark and then a pair of Canadian Geese flew low through our yard and away. Oddly the baby was heading in the same general direction the parents had flown and it was doing it several minutes after the fly over by the parents. Larry thought it might be heading down the street to another pond because it appeared to be on a mission...and sure enough it turned to the pond. Amazing! Did it smell the water perhaps? I even had my camera slung over my shoulder...it would have been a great picture if I had got the picture of it running towards me down the hill. I just get so wrapped up in watching.  I don't know if they hooked up or not, I didn't run down the street to see if the babe actually went to  the pond and who knows where the parents ended up.

baby goose running down the street

Larry freed a lizard from under the house...it was sitting in one of the vent covers...at first Larry thought it was dead, but it was saying let me out...let me out.  In spite of Larry not being fond of lizards he took off the cover and the lizard jumped down to freedom...I love lizards.


Before going to pilates class this morning we had to give the car a rinse.  It looked like some ugly dust covered abandoned junk under the heavy coating of pine pollen.  We are getting coated now with pollen from the Ponderosa pines...yuck.

insulated and sheet rocked, today Larry finished
all the nailing 

work, work, work 5-7

Yesterday we were up and at'em before breakfast.  Off to the HD for a pile of sheetrock and insulation for the shed.  That sheetrock is not light...we loaded it onto the cart and then we hefted it from the cart to the truck.  The truck was weighed down for sure.  I suited up to assist with the ceiling installation of the insulation and the sheetrock.  Larry finished the rocking this evening...all the pieces are up and just has a bunch more nails to put in and the wiring to finish and we can start moving stuff into the shed.  It makes such a huge difference to have the shed insulated...it doesn't get nearly as hot as the air temp.  I have to get some finished pics tomorrow.

Today while Larry was working in the shed I did an hour of mowing weeds...had to be done, but with the warm up of the weather this week hopefully they'll quit growing.  The heat has made the flowers start popping.  Roses, clematis and dutch iris all opened today.  More weed pulling and I had to spray the roses for blackspot this evening...the systemic stuff isn't doing the trick for some reason.

All pretty with its paint job.

Readied for insulation and sheetrock

Not a good look, but beats inhaling glass

top view of an iris

Stunning white clematis.

More Iris pics 5-5

We just puttered around today.  Larry whacked some weeds, I pulled some weeds and between doing miscellaneous things all day we read or walked.  I love the early morning light for taking pictures and a new iris opened this morning and I can not help myself...must....take....pictures!