Just Lots of Pictures

Showing off that Uncle Tim's Christmas present fits.

Caroline "helping" to stack 4 of the 10 cords of firewood for this year.

Red Hot Poker Plant in bloom.

Blurry picture...this pup stands about as still as the 3 year old.

Caroline's oldest friend, Z man; they are "pulling" funny faces.

Mom does this pose look familiar?

Mountain Laurel - one of my favorite up here, I like the angularness of the blooms in contrast to the rounded edges of the dark green leaves.
Fox glove forest.
Father's Day with Z man, Z's dad, Caroline, and her dad fishing.

I Got The Hint

Lots of stuff happening in the gardens currently, to be posted later. At the point of time these pictures were taken, not much was happening yet.

Daddy made his "little princess" a crown. Tater and Lili were there for the acceptance ceremony.
Amid the grand fanfare, the newly crowned princess couldn't help but throw her arms up with a big "Hooray"
Come to find out my poppy isn't very unusual at all; just to me, not having grown them before. But I thought this was a decent picture with the dew still lingering.
I love the way Mother Nature puts so many different types of beauty into her creations.
I was in the kitchen doing dishes and talking to my mom, when I heard great squeals of laughter coming from the yard below the deck. I knew Caroline was playing in her little sandbox and had to go see what her latest creation was that had tickled her so. This is what I saw when I looked over the railing. Tater's curiosity couldn't be contained any longer and he jumped into the sandcastle making process to "help"

Caroline's Poppy

I had Caroline stand next to her poppy to give you an idea of it's size. Caroline is almost 40 inches tall.
Again her little hand for size relation.
I looks like crinkled tissue paper. I can't wait til it completely unfurls.

Some of the First Blooms

Sweet William getting ready.

Icelandic Poppy-a pleasant surprise as I didn't know what color it would be.

Baby wrens already have feathers. It won't be long before they are flying about helping to get rid of bugs.

Wegeila, that I transplanted as a stick from the back yard last year, getting ready to bloom.

Lady slipper.

Memorial Day Weekend

Caroline FINALLY gets to go fishing and had a blast. Uncle Dave was kind enough to take Daddy and Caroline out and rowed them around for about 4 hours. Thanks Uncle Dave!!! Caroline caught 3 pumpkin seed fish, but she'll tell you it was 4 (already telling fish tales, I guess it's just a natural thing when you fish)

Practicing Casting

First Cast

Waiting

Cousin on the Big Rock. It was her first time fishing too.


Back on shore - refused to stop fishing and get out of the boat.

Caroline still in the front of that boat. Uncle Dave giving Johnny fishing lessons.

At Auntie Cheryl and Uncle Dave's on the new porch eating corn on the cob in her undies after a hard day of fishing. Can life get any better?

Still not willing to give up the fishing rod, had to go practice casting.

On the way home, still has the fishing rod.

Why I've Been MIA

The "oasis" this year is coming back quite nicely.

All different kinds of hens and chicks with stonecrop and Icelandic poppies. Everything in this little garden being watched diligently by the wonderful Angel Cheryl surprised me with and Sir Gopher Tortoise.

Oriental poppy that Caroline planted last year. It is AMAZING and has 7 buds at last count.

I have recently found that Mr. Tater is a hoarder. I'm wrestling with putting him into therapy for the disorder. Seriously though, he came through the stitches and the cone thing fine with no trauma to his emotional state.

A little surprise in the fold of a big blue tarp. These little guys are some sort of wren. I remember at the park in spring time any vehicle standing still for more than a day would have the beginnings of a Carolina Wren's nest in the strangest places. For example, I found one on the trailer hitch on the ATV used on our beach patrol. Now, this particular vehicle was used daily and in the maybe 8 hours it didn't run the beaches, a wren had made a nest. Another time, a couple of different wren's were making nests in the glove compartment of some of our "Gators" (another ATV type vehicle, but with a flat bed in back used to haul stuff )
The side yard that I finished clearing the brambles from this year.
The day lily area that has turned out the be one of my favorite spots in the yard. It's a shame it is so close to the road. Still a work in progress though.

Reconnecting

I have been reconnecting with Mother Earth. Just doing the usual garden clean outs and expanding others. No pictures just really dirty hands, knees, and backside. Oh how nice it is to dig around a weed to get all the roots and find a bunch of earth worms wriggling about in the soil. All the plants, planted later in the season last year, are coming back and seem to be doing well. The mandavilla I was wintering over was moved out of doors yesterday; she doesn't look so good though, but I'll give it a bit more time. I also have found myself just sitting in my front yard gazing at the house and thinking about the ultimate plan for the yard. It has come to me and I've sketched it out on an online gardening site that lets you plan your landscape; the next task is to get the hubby on board with the actual foundation plantings I would like to do. This will most likely be a several year plan to implement, but I think well worth it. The hard part to remember is to stick with the plan; I find myself searching for solace at the plant places and just drooling over all the possibilities. I have to rein myself in and just buy the one or two filler plants I need to get through this year and get back to thinking about the weed clothe I need to put down, the woodland ferns I need to get rid of out of one of the gardens, and the reclaiming of the runoff/spring ditch stream along one edge of our property.

Meanwhile, Caroline pretty much still enjoys puttering around the gardens with me, and when she gets too bored with the whole thing she goes off and makes some "leaf soup" or plays with the dogs (until the pup gets too excited and starts really nipping at her)