I will almost certainly come to regret this

I have a strong fondness for Queen Anne's Lace. It's mostly considered a weed, growing wild along roadsides and ditches. It's this roadside habit, however, that makes me love it so. It makes me think of hot summer days and driving to Door County to spend the day at the beach. It makes me think of blue skies and sweet-smelling fields and lazy days with nothing to do but soak up the sun.

I love all of those tough little roadside plants-- Queen Anne's Lace, hawkweed, chicory, daylillies, even bindweed--for being tenacious enough to grow where they can. I love them for being beautiful in a ragged and overlooked way.

So when I saw some Queen Anne's Lace growing in my neighbor's yard a few years ago, I snagged a dried flower head and threw the seeds into one of my flower beds. It's a kind of ordinary bed--full of ferns and daylilies and now QAL--things that are tough and strong and survive (or even thrive) without much attention. And I'm glad to have them there.

In the details

These are photos of peony blossoms after the petals have fallen off. I'm just fascinated by the pattern of the central disk. It looks like really elaborate fretwork or a plaster medallion to me. Isn't it funny that you can find beauty in the oddest places?

Spring flowers

Spring photos

Spring has sprung

and instead of being grateful for it, I'm thinking about how last year, it wasn't until the first part of May that we had things greening up. Now, last year was awfully cold and damp. So were things just late last year? Or early this year? Is it global warming? If I hack off all my neighbor's vines that threaten to take over my yard, do you think they'll notice? Is there any way to kill lemon balm without killing everything else around it? That stuff should come with a warning--DO NOT PLANT IN THE GROUND!! IT WILL TAKE OVER!!!

Or I could just relax and enjoy the season.

Nature's bounty

The last of this summer's tomatoes



One of my co-workers has a friend who keeps honeybees. She asked me if I would like some honey...sure!



Isn't that pretty? And so, so delicious!

New camera!

At Last

Spring finally announced its presence with authority this week, and I, for one, couldn't be happier. May is one of my favorite months, when the long, cold fingers of winter have finally loosened their grip, the sky is blue, the sun is bright, the birds are singing, and you can practically hear the buds bursting forth.

May also means a lot of outside work for me--cleaning the driveway of maple flowers, cleaning the gutters of maple flowers, cleaning the driveway (again) of maple flowers, pulling maple seedlings, weeding, digging, fertilizing, trimming, mowing, hauling outdoor stuff out of storage, and did I mention cleaning up after the maple trees?

I've also done several inspection tours of the garden this year, checking for bare spots, looking for what survived this year and what didn't, where things need to be dug up and moved, and so on. As long and cold as the winter was this year, it was a good one for the garden, because all that snow kept things insulated, and we didn't have the thaw-and-freeze cycles that have killed so many plants in years past. I'm always surprised at what makes it through and what doesn't. This year, I had a clump of Italian parsley that somehow survived, and it looks like the cilantro has reseeded itself quite nicely. The Oriental poppies I had left for dead have come back healthy and HUGE. The verbena didn't make it, but that was a long shot. I had given up on the swamp milkweed, but I just noticed yesterday that there are little green shoots starting to poke up.

So, I predict several trips to the garden center over the next couple of weekends to collect mulch, peat moss, new pots to replace ones that broke, and many visits to the plant section to linger over all the choices--do I want to try tomatillos again this year? How many flats of impatiens? Shall I do all white again or go for a mix? Any good tomato varieties? How about herbs? How's the perennial selection? Decisions, decisions...

In other good news, my committee work is almost wrapped up, which means I can start choosing my own reading again. You have no idea how excited I am about this. I have a long, long list of books, books that have waited patiently for me while I slogged through my assigned titles. So many happy hours of reading pleasure to look forward to! I can't wait!

The iceman, he's on his way

This weekend, it was time to face reality and realize that winter is coming soon. I pulled out all the tomato plants and raked the lawn (for the third time). The weather was gray and cold and damp, a true November day. We even had a little snow, although it didn't last. Just enough to for Old Man Winter to whisper in your ear, "See you soon!"

I even spent a little time in the kitchen, making a split pea soup that seemed right for the season. I also attempted something called a galette, but I won't embarrass myself by describing how I goofed up with it.

And somehow, in the surest sign yet that the days of playing outside are over, Alice finally popped her bouncy ball. Here she is having one final tender moment with it:

I {heart} tomatoes

Funky pods

My backyard garden is pretty small, and after 10 years, it's getting full, so I haven't been adding lots of new plants like I used to. One new perennial I did add this year was swamp milkweed, which is apparently different from regular milkweed. It seemed to do pretty well over the summer; it grew to about 3 ft tall, and one of the plants had pretty purply-pink flowers on it.

After the flowers had faded, I thought about deadheading it, but then I got distracted by other things. So just the other day I was looking at the plant and noticed these really funky-looking seed pods. I wonder if, when they dry out, they'll split open and be full of kapok, like regular milkweed? It will be interesting to see.

And "Funky Pods" would be an excellent name for a rock band.

Wild wildlife

It's been a week of nonstop wildlife in my little backyard. Let's recap, shall we?

Wednesday evening, the pets and I were enjoying the lovely cool evening air in the backyard. Everyone was just kind of grooving out to his or her own thing, and other than making sure Pal didn't escape through the fence, I wasn't closely supervising the recreation action going on. Midge was camped out in the daylilies, a spot she likes. She'll sit there like a statue, watching the birds flit back and forth. It's been especially entertaining lately, with Mr. and Mrs. Wren using the cinquefoil growing along the top of the fence as the perfect perch from which to scold me.

All of a sudden, I heard rather shrill squeaking. I whipped around, noticing that Midge had a mouse in her mouth. "DROP IT!" I commanded in my best Cat Whisperer voice. And like any good well-trained cat, she completely ignored me. She leapt over the daylilies into the middle of the yard, where she proceeded to stand still, looking around without a clue. "Now what are you going to do, huh?" I asked nonchalantly. She then dropped the poor wee mousie, who lay shuddering on the grass.

Except that it wasn't a poor wee mousie at all. It was a poor wee SHREW. I can't believe I have enough actual field experience to tell the difference, but yep, it was a shrew. I nudged it with my sandal to see if it was still alive. It was, so I stood guard over it while all the pets milled about, looking for the object of all this excitement. The shrew roused itself and began to burrow down into the grass roots, where it just about disappeared. Like a good traffic cop (okay folks, move along, nothing to see here), I herded everybody back into the house.

**

On Friday night, you guessed it, we were all back outside, taking the air after dinner. This time, Pal, old kitty that he is, had his day in the sun. Again, with the indignant squeaking. Another shrew? The same shrew? How stupid can one shrew be? Pal leapt out from behind the lilac bush and dashed through the tomato plants, depositing something very tiny into the bee balm. I saw a tiny bundle of feathers trying very very hard to burrow its way into the corner of the fence (as in, if I can't see you, you can't see me). I picked it up, a tiny little baby bird, still alive. I didn't want to smush it, so I held it as lightly as I could. Alas, it wasn't tight enough, as wee baby bird, hopped out of my hand and back into the bee balm. Trying to keep my wits, and not wanting to fight Pal for the bird, I ushered everybody back in the house. I went back out and found the baby bird back in the same corner. It looked unharmed, but it was probably scared out of its wits. I managed to picked it up with a tighter grip this time. Looking at it closely, I could see that it was probably one of the baby wrens that had been in the nest box in the backyard. They had fledged! And this thing was obviously still figuring out how to navigate in the big wide world, and had had the misfortune to run into my cat.

So I carried Baby Wren back to the nest box, and she gladly dove back in. I figured that would give her a safe place to rest and get her strength back. The parents must not stick around to feed the babies, because no one has scolded or chattered at me all weekend.

**

Yesterday, we saw a little baby bunny in the side yard. I'm saying it's Button, even if it's not.

**

And today, I discovered that yellow jackets are trying to build a nest between my back door and the storm door. Grrr.

I've had enough backyard wildlife for awhile.

Little baby bunny update

Button the bunny (as in "cute as a...") hung around the backyard for quite a long time. She liked to scurry between the daisies and the hostas as I moved around the yard. Button must have felt at home, because she never seemed to scoot out through the gap in the fence, the way other visiting bunnies did.

Unfortunately, Pal got a hold of her one afternoon. She was hiding in the daisies, and Pal was very patiently watching her. He leaped, and she wasn't quick enough getting away. He managed to grab a hold of her, and she just screamed and screamed.

The good news is, she did finally manage to get away. We saw her a day or two later, zipping around in the day lilies. And better for her, too, I think she's moved out of the backyard. I miss seeing her, but I think she's probably safer away from Pal and Midge.

**

The wrens have started on their second family too. The babies have hatched, and when they're not scolding me, the parents are busy bringing food back to the nest. I think there are at least two babies, although I haven't been able to see clearly into the nest box. I was out of town when the last brood fledged, so I'm hoping I might see them this time. However, I also don't want the pets to get after them. We'll have to keep a sharp eye out.

**

Word of the Day

crepuscular: of, relating to, or resembling twilight

Little baby bunny

Yesterday, the pets and I spent some time lounging in the back yard. After awhile, the girls let me know that they had had enough of the Great Outdoors, so I put them back inside. I stayed outside, working in the garden--deadheading flowers, cutting back plants. I was staking up some some yarrow plants that had flopped over in the rain when I noticed something on the ground. Can you see it?

It was a little baby bunny, all tucked up at the bottom of the yarrow. She stayed absolutely stock still the whole time I was working there. If her little nose hadn't twitched, you would have thought she was frozen. I am absolutely amazed that the dogs hadn't sniffed her out. She was still pretty tiny, about the size of my fist, so maybe she didn't have much of a scent. Her "freeze" instinct certainly served her well!

I checked on her throughout the day; by early evening she had moved on.

Peonies

Because some days, a person just needs peonies.

Garden bliss

I'm so pleased with how my garden is doing this spring.  I'm especially happy that the foxgloves are doing so well.  Even though this was a long, hard winter, I think all the extra snow was good for my perennials--I don't think I lost any plants this year.