Cop Car's Beat

Catching up on photos

In the past few weeks I've taken photos that have not made it to posting. This is to remedy the situation (not that you could not live without them!)

In Pillows and Rugosas Have Nothing to do With Each Other, daughter Bogie posted a photo of some decorative pillows that I made and sent to her. Here is a photo of our guest bed that shows, not only the blue pillows that were shipped to Bogie, but the red/orange/yellow pillows that were taken to elder daughter Dudette, last Sunday. In case I failed to tell you, Bogie, the covers are removable and washable. In fact, each of the small pillows has a utility pillow case under the decorative one.

P.S. The framed photo above the bed was taken by Fred First of Fragments from Floyd. (See Photographic Meme for more information on the photo.)

Here are a couple of photos of the mallard duck nest that is against our house - after it had served its purpose and been abandoned. In the closeup view, tufts of dark down are visible among the dried leaves.

This morning, I picked two bouquets: asparagus spears and white lilacs. (I consumed a couple of spears while going about my yard work and a few more at lunch.)

My mother would be proud!

Buffy should expect - Beautiful ICE!

Buffy wrote, in a comment on Bogie's blog, "We tend to get the same severe weather that moves east from Cop Car's area." Thus, I want to show her what she is expecting.

Driving home, this afternoon, was like driving through a fairy land - still, at 3:00pm, the vegetation was coated with a layer of ice. Some of the trees/shrubs have purple buds, some have full-blown white florettes, and others have various colors. The layer of ice (which I could not see this morning because the sun had not yet arisen when I left home) gave everything a pastel look - a look that Monet would have struggled to convey. The wonder is that so much of the ice made it through the day. The ground is warm and the ambient air temperature has been around 28 degrees all day.

I'll let Bogie tell the story of the last two photos.

Still dancing

One of the joys of the snow ice cream that I had yesterday, was the joy of flavoring it with the rum vanilla that Bogie had sent us several weeks ago. Most of the "haul" that we received from her is in the photo posted at Goodies from Bogie. (I write "most" because Bogie alerted me to search the packing materials in the box, again. Thereupon, I discovered that I had missed finding two of the bottles of vanilla that she had made and sent us!) Scrumptious!

The snow had stopped in late afternoon, yesterday, but took up again in the evening. During the night, the snow (and a bit of lightning and thunder) continued to fall. Below are photos to be contrasted with those of the last posting.

From the front porch:

Photos from the back door:

The following photos are included because I find the scenes so pretty. (You may close your eyes if you don't wish to see them!) Please note the budding-state of the tree in the first photo.

The final photo is of a gorgeous tree that belongs to a good neighbor. I love the sight of it in any season, any weather, any light.

 

At least posting a couple of photos

A few weeks ago, in Week in review, I wrote of planting some additional mums at the front of our house - white ones to set off the colorful mums that were planted a couple of years ago. Had I known that the colorful mums wouldn't show up well (mostly, because there are only a few minutes each day during which sunlight plays on them), I would have put larger white mum plants behind the then-small colorful mum plants to assure the whites would be large enough to show. (I'm hoping that I can entice the whites to grow rapidly in proceeding years!) Here's a photo (below).

For the past two or three weeks, instead of feasting at the long, tubular peanut feeders out by our woods, a female red-bellied woodpecker has been frequenting the smaller feeders that are just outside the living room windows. At times, she merely sits atop one of the feeder support poles or an arm of a pole, poising like a statue. At other times, she makes repeated flights up to the top of the largest window pane to flog her reflection (I'm assuming!) Here she is (photo, below) making like a statue. Contrary to the way it looks, she isn't issuing a call or gobbling down a peanut. She sits, much of the time, with her bill partially open.

BTW: The white plastic bucket that is in the grass behind the bird is water for the deer and other critters.

Remembering ME Hall

From a posting of four years ago [with added asides]:

This year, recalling how drought tolerant they were, I planted two planters with California
poppy seeds.  The first bloom appeared, Thursday.  Here 'tis (to the right).

My Grandmother H [Mary Etta Hall who always signed "M.E. Hall"]* always had a bed of rose moss [Portulaca grandiflora].  For some reason, I didn't think it [could be grown here] until, two or three years ago, I planted a couple of planters with rose moss seed.  They not only reseeded within the planters, but have come up as volunteers across the double driveway from the planters and in our strawberry & cherry bed (strawberries fill 1/2 of the bed while a cherry tree and some cherry bushes fill the other 1/2.).  This (to the left) is a photo of a golden one--nearly the color of the California poppies--that grows in the edge of the cherry bed, overhanging the apron to the garage.

 

 

 

From today, more photos of volunteer rose moss plant blossoms:

      

Rose moss, as you can tell by looking at the leaves and stems, is a succulent - a distant relative to the ice plant (below).

       
  
*Because Xtreme English signs herself as "M.E." at times, she and I have traded private communications on this. I always think of my grandmother when I see XE's comments.

Take it away!

If you haven't heard me grumbling and gnashing my teeth for the past couple of years, your ears have been plugged and your eyes covered. This heat crap has got to go! *grumble, grumble* It was too darned hot/humid for me to take a walk, today, as it never got below 80 degrees. I thought about going swimming; but, it's been so long since I've put in my laps that I'm out of that habit. The thought of driving 10 miles (one way) in order to use the pool wearies me. Yesterday morning and this morning I've spent considerable time watering things. In addition, my volunteer endeavors have kept me plenty busy this year, and my blog friends have kept up their posting (yes, that means you!) or I would probably be in a deep funk by now.

Hunky Husband takes care of the lawn. We have an irrigation system that is set to water the grass every two days in this heat/drought - about 30 minutes per station which probably equates to 1/3 - 1/2 inch of water. The plantings, I care for - weeding, mulching, watering.

Most of the plantings are bushes (coniferous and deciduous) or ground cover (mostly sedums and, thanks to Bogie, creeping phlox); but, there are food-bearing plants, too (strawberries, dill, fennel, coriander, tomatoes, peppers, onions, Rosemary, thyme - no parsley). The food-bearing plants get coddled. I try to water them at least 1/2" per week (I'm picking the blossoms off of the strawberries to conserve their energies, having lost about 1/4 of our plants to the drought last fall.) Other plants don't get that much water.

Established plants get about 1" of water every third or fourth week, while the things planted within the past year (I try to remember so that they) get two or three gallons, each, every week or 10 days. As you might guess - the amount of water that anything under my care gets is dependent upon my thinking about it. My plants must have a will to live!

Here are a couple of the trees that I transplanted a couple of months ago. I think they are both black walnuts; but, the one on the left (which I planted in the partial shade of chard plants that have gone to seed) looks really peculiar - and - most of it has died back. We shall see. The other tree, on the right, I transplanted into a nice spot in the woods.

 

There are also three other black walnut and oak trees that I've transplanted into the woods, of which there are no photos.

Next are the only two bushes that are less than a year old. On the left is a little euonymous that I planted last fall. On the right is a purple leaf sand plum that I set out in March 2012. The bright green, thriving little plant to the left of the sand plum is a sprout (one among millions - well - tens) from the neighbor's bugle vine that has been attempting to take over the world for the past 10 years. You can tell by the darkness of the mulch around the bushes (and around the above trees) that they were watered this morning.

 

Lastly, below are a couple of shots of ice plant - the one on the right showing the beautiful California Poppies growing nearby. The ice plants were planted in March or April while the poppies sprouted from seeds that I don't recall planting. I must have spread the seeds last fall. Actually, I don't water the one on the left since the neighbor's (different neighbor) newly installed irrigation system oversprays it.

 

Ice plant blossoms close, at night. For a view of one that is blooming (it was planted a year ago, so doesn't get watered as "frequently"), please see Obligatory Fall Photos from late last October. Forty or fifty years ago, no one would have thought of planting ice plant in this part of the world; but, as they are succulents, they are well suited to the hot, dry weather we've been having for the past couple of decades.

While I'm at it, I'll tell you that our bluebird nesting box (which I had not checked for at least two weeks) has a nest with five bluebird eggs in it. We had earlier been disappointed that the bluebirds did not choose to use the bluebird nesting box this spring. I will keep watch, but I don't believe the eggs are being tended. I did not even hear a bluebird this morning. Not a good sign. The Carolina wrens have not (wisely, I believe) chosen to establish another clutch of eggs in the nest on our front porch.

I don't know where our family of Carolina wrens went, but I don't catch sight of them - although - I do hear adults scolding at times. We do enjoy watching the families of Carolina chickadees, tufted titmice, and turkeys that fledged this spring. The turkey family started out with nine chicks; but, it has been stable at seven for two or three weeks, now. The "chicks" are nearly adult size.

 

 

Early tomato harvest

Although I don't keep records of such things, this is probably the earliest I've ever harvested tomatoes. The tomatoes that I picked this morning are shown in the photo, below. Most are not 100% ripe; but, squirrels and field mice love to eat my produce, so I bring them in a bit early. The large, beefsteak-type tomato weighs 1 pound 5.5 ounces. I only planted two tomatoes this year - in mid-March, as I recall. you can tell that the second plant produces Roma-type tomatoes.

The year of the butterflies

In recent years I have often lamented the (near) absence of butterflies. Not this year. This is the year of the butterfly. When we move anywhere around the plantings in our yard, clouds of butterflies flock and swirl about us - I kid you not. First, a week or so ago, I noticed prodigious numbers of butterflies on our sage bush blossoms - at least four species (not that I could identify them you understand). For the past couple of days I've noted that the butterflies are mobbing on our in-bloom cilantro and on our masses of sedum in bloom - including at least a fifth species of butterfly. Unfortunately, I have neither the abilities nor the equipment to capture those flitting critters. Following are the best that I could manage (the winds don't help, either, with everything waving about in-and-out-of focus!)

The first five photos feature butterflies on sedum.

        
 

     

                                     

Turning to the sage bush: I guessed that there were about 100 butterflies on the bush when I snapped the left hand photo. If you tell me that you only see a couple - even after blowing up the photo by clicking on it - I won't think that you are calling me a liar. I can't see them, either. But...look at the right hand photo. It is a small area of the left hand photo, chosen at random to enlarge. Now...I can see at least four small butterflies (or they may be moths instead of skipper-type butterflies) and I am confident that there are more critters there than I can detect in the photo.

   

Now, I'll get back to what I really got the camera out to show you. First, below, is a photo of our first mum plant to bloom this year. Yes, I know one should pick off buds until July 4th in order to increase and stave off blooming until the fall; but, they showed color so freakishly early that I decided to let the mums go ahead and bloom. Perhaps they will bloom again, later in the year.

The right-hand photo shows the blanket roses that I put out about 10 years ago - without realizing that they would be growing in the shade once the chokeberry and vibernum bushes grew.

     
 

Getting back to normal

Swimming I did go, this morning; although, I only swam about 2/3 of the time normally devoted to the activity. No sense overdoing it since I had not swum since 4/13/2012.

Pulling the weeds that got a head start on me will take some catching-up time. I picked one pint of strawberries night-before-last and another last night; so, Hunky Husband would be feasting - if he would remember that they are in the refrigerator, on his tray. He's pretty tired, so I shan't give him grief over his forgetting them.

The irises have bloomed bountifully. I took a couple of stems into the client shelter and a bouquet into the office. Everyone seemed to enjoy them.

I'll shut up now and post photos of our yard. Most of the photos are of irises - and they speak for themselves.

 
 

                           

The irises (above photo) are in our yard, but they crept over from the neighbor's yard. The window to the right in the photo is the neighbor's basement window. One of these days, I'll probably replace the concrete blocks with blocks that are better looking. No sense using good blocks until I'm sure that they are where I want them. (After five or ten years, they are probably well placed.)

          

These two irises  (above photo) came from WalMart. The sage was dug up, last fall, from the large bunch of sage that is beside our back steps (photo below). This is the sage clump that Bogie was kind enough to identify for me. I had thought/misremembered that it was basil of some sort!

  

Ooooh! I nearly forgot a couple of photos that show evidence of good things to come. The photo on the left (below) shows bountiful blooms on our two dwarf pyracantha while the photo on the right shows fruit to come on our Northstar cherry tree. With any luck, the berries on our pyracantha will, this year, rival those of Bogie's pyracantha last year (see Firethorn).

  

If you care to know what Hunky Husband and I have been up to since 4/13/2012, I've posted on Volunteer Endeavors.

First of season iris

Meanwhile, we wait out the storm threats.