Cop Car's Beat

Summary of the week - July 23

SATURDAY, July 17

Edging of street curb

I finished manually edging the street curb, this morning. The photos show the edged curb and the last load of sod that I removed in the edging process.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SUNDAY, July 18

Flowers for free

On the 11th, Bogie posted More Rain!, including photos of a few flowers that were blooming without her having planted them. She reminded me of a mystery plant that came up under a small mulberry tree that I had saved when having the trees surrounding it removed. I finally thought to take a photo, today. If you can identify the flower, please do so in a comment. I'm calling it a "wild tiger lily" because I don't know what else to call it. For the past three years, I've watched us (carelessly) mow down a couple of irises that I had laid at the base of the tree; thus, I've no idea how long this lily has been there. It has an interesting leaf habit that climbs the blossom stem. The third photo, below, shows what remains of the iris plants for comparison of the leaf configuration to that of the lily. The iris hasn't bloomed for having been mowed down so many times and I no longer recall what sort of iris it is - if I ever knew. I may have picked it up out of my trash heap of irises that were discarded when we sodded along what is now our neighbor's fence line.

 

 

Milkweed

While showing Hunky Husband the free lilies, I took him by my miniature meadow in order to check out the milkweed plants. They are doing well. There was a caterpillar on one of the plants (and a nibbled leaf edge); but, as I read online, "That ain't no Monarch!"

 

 

Addition of 7/19/2021: No caterpillar, no cocoon, no chrysalis, no further nibbling of leaves. Perhaps a bluebird ate the caterpillar.

 

MONDAY, July 19

 

Tomato harvest

After giving our four Ninebark bushes a haircut this morning, I harvested tomatoes. The bowl on the left contains tomatoes from a couple of volunteer vines that came up between the garage and the crepe myrtle bushes, this spring, while the bowl on the right contains tomatoes off of a Jet Star vine that I bought and planted. Because of the wonky weather that we had in March-May, our purchased vines had no ripe tomatoes for July 4th - which is the rule of thumb for gauging success of growing tomatoes, around here. The Jet Star and one of the larger tomato varieties ripened up one or two fruits - one week later.

 

For a while, the volunteer tomato plants out-produced our purchased plants. There is still one purchased plant that hasn't set on fruit but has abundant blossoms. (I picked some of the tomatoes a bit under-ripe so as not to give our expected high temperatures this afternoon, and the critters, a chance to spoil them. The temperatures are to crescendo to about 106 degrees Fahrenheit within the next two weeks, making our temperatures more in keeping with expectations for July.)

 

 

Update of 7/24/2021: The one vine that I wrote had not yet set fruit is the Bella Roma and closer inspection, this morning, showed  one walnut-sized and two marble-sized green fruit have actually set on.

 

Tuesday, July 20

 

By 7:15am, I had taken my walk and bought groceries. By 8am, a batch of chocolate chip/pecan cookies had been baked - made necessary by HH's having finished off the sandwich cookies that he likes and by the little WalMart's not having any for sale, this morning.

 

Thursday, July 22

 

Fortunately, I accomplished all necessary outdoor activities before 9am, today - my walk, some yard work, and a quick trip to the little WalMart to purchase more wide-mouth jar flats (for jars of chili that I had ready to put up in jars for Elder Brother). The trip to WalMart was a bust. They had nothing but jars left for sale in the canning supplies area. It seems that canning supplies are in short supply due to COVID-19 shutdowns.

 

I had to re-use some of the flats that I had on hand. I've historically re-used flats when the food is for Hunky Husband and me; because, except for the rare jar of jam, I keep such canned goods in the downstairs refrigerator or freezer. I like to use new flats when someone else is getting the canned goods - even when, as for the chili, the person will similarly store the jars in the cold. EB may choose not to take the chili if that is his preference; but, with careful packing, he should be able to get them to his home at a low enough temperature. I did assure that each jar actually sealed. *ping*

 

The photo, below, shows a loose set of wide-mouth flat and ring, one pint of the chili, and one unopened box of standard-mouth flats. The standard-mouth flats will probably still be in the cabinet when I die. I pretty much have used the wide-mouth jars since an epiphany many years ago in which I realized it is easier for one with tremors to hit a larger target. (My circular error probable, CEP, isn't that small.)

 

 

The reason I was glad to get outdoor activities accomplished early was that the authorities started issuing air quality advisories (stay indoors) at about 10am. The smoke from the wildfires in Northern California wasn't pea soup thick; but, it has been hazy out there.

 

A piece about canning jar flat shortage, Where have all the canning lids gone?, was posted last August. I hadn't noticed, before, because I had plenty of the flats on hand until now. (I've used at least three dozen new flats since August.)

 

Milkweed

While showing Hunky Husband the free lilies, I took him by my miniature meadow in order to check out the milkweed plants. They are doing well. There was a caterpillar on one of the plants (and a nibbled leaf edge); but, as I read online, "That ain't no Monarch!"

 

 

Addition of 7/19/2021: No caterpillar, no cocoon, no chrysalis, no further nibbling of leaves. Perhaps a bluebird ate the caterpillar.

 

MONDAY, July 19

 

Tomato harvest

After giving our four Ninebark bushes a haircut this morning, I harvested tomatoes. The bowl on the left contains tomatoes from a couple of volunteer vines that came up between the garage and the crepe myrtle bushes, this spring, while the bowl on the right contains tomatoes off of a Jet Star vine that I bought and planted. Because of the wonky weather that we had in March-May, our purchased vines had no ripe tomatoes for July 4th - which is the rule of thumb for gauging success of growing tomatoes, around here. The Jet Star and one of the larger tomato varieties ripened up one or two fruits - one week later.

 

For a while, the volunteer tomato plants out-produced our purchased plants. There is still one purchased plant that hasn't set on fruit but has abundant blossoms. (I picked some of the tomatoes a bit under-ripe so as not to give our expected high temperatures this afternoon, and the critters, a chance to spoil them. The temperatures are to crescendo to about 106 degrees Fahrenheit within the next two weeks, making our temperatures more in keeping with expectations for July.)

 

 

Update of 7/24/2021: The one vine that I wrote had not yet set fruit is the Bella Roma and closer inspection, this morning, showed  one walnut-sized and two marble-sized green fruit have actually set on.

 

Tuesday, July 20

 

By 7:15am, I had taken my walk and bought groceries. By 8am, a batch of chocolate chip/pecan cookies had been baked - made necessary by HH's having finished off the sandwich cookies that he likes and by the little WalMart's not having any for sale, this morning.

 

Thursday, July 22

 

Fortunately, I accomplished all necessary outdoor activities before 9am, today - my walk, some yard work, and a quick trip to the little WalMart to purchase more wide-mouth jar flats (for jars of chili that I had ready to put up in jars for Elder Brother). The trip to WalMart was a bust. They had nothing but jars left for sale in the canning supplies area. It seems that canning supplies are in short supply due to COVID-19 shutdowns.

 

I had to re-use some of the flats that I had on hand. I've historically re-used flats when the food is for Hunky Husband and me; because, except for the rare jar of jam, I keep such canned goods in the downstairs refrigerator or freezer. I like to use new flats when someone else is getting the canned goods - even when, as for the chili, the person will similarly store the jars in the cold. EB may choose not to take the chili if that is his preference; but, with careful packing, he should be able to get them to his home at a low enough temperature. I did assure that each jar actually sealed. *ping*

 

The photo, below, shows a loose set of wide-mouth flat and ring, one pint of the chili, and one unopened box of standard-mouth flats. The standard-mouth flats will probably still be in the cabinet when I die. I pretty much have used the wide-mouth jars since an epiphany many years ago in which I realized it is easier for one with tremors to hit a larger target. (My circular error probable, CEP, isn't that small.)

 

 

The reason I was glad to get outdoor activities accomplished early was that the authorities started issuing air quality advisories (stay indoors) at about 10am. The smoke from the wildfires in Northern California wasn't pea soup thick; but, it has been hazy out there.

 

A piece about canning jar flat shortage, Where have all the canning lids gone?, was posted last August. I hadn't noticed, before, because I had plenty of the flats on hand until now. (I've used at least three dozen new flats since August.)

Summary of the week - July 16

Inside Work

This week, I was able to finish cleaning the second one-third of our built-in china cabinet (in-progress photo, below).

Notice the rope hanging at the right-hand edge of the above photo. It is one support of the three-tiered macramé/glass table that has hung in the corner of the dining room for the past 10 years or so. It had previously hung in the living room in the corner next to the piano; but, during the early years in this house, I had discovered that when I watered the over-wintering house plants that were on that table, the water found a way to drip into the carpeting. It's much easier to clean the mess off of vinyl roll goods floor covering.

Cecil ("our" handyman) un-hung that table (and the table in the opposite front corner of the room) to give us more space in the dining room. We do not frequently have enough family over to require extending the dining table to it's full length with leaves (I gave up being the primary entertainer in our family when I was in my late 70s); but, when we need to seat 10 people, accommodations will be more comfortable. Below are photos of the two vacant corners. (The first photo includes the collapsed table below where it had hung.) BTW: Each of the macramé tables, purchased at an artworks shop in Old Town Albuquerque in the 1980s, hung from a healthy chain and hooks driven into the beam that shows at the top of the second photo.

 

Cecil teased me about the size/strength of the hardware that I used, and for my having used two hooks from which to hang each table. You will note in the photo, below, that I had spray painted the parts to make them blend with the walls (off-white chain) and beam (chocolate brown hooks). I still felt competent to teeter at the top of an 8-foot step ladder in those days. I let Cecil do it, this time.

Cecil's primary purpose of being here was to repair one of the bi-fold doors on the guest bedroom closet. The door had come off its pivots the last time Elder Brother visited us. Since EB is even more anal retentive than is Hunky Husband, it really bothered him that the door "broke" on him - despite my assuring him that the door had been giving me troubles for several years (that bedroom was mine until I moved to the basement.) The pivot point on the bottom had actually been pushed up inside the hollow door. Cecil took the door home with him to see what approach(es) he could come up with and returned it two days later - with, in his words, Plan A. So far, we haven't had to go to Plan B as the door, after Cecil put much elbow grease into adjusting the hardware properly, seems to be working well. (The cranky door is the one on the left in the photo, below.) 

Outside Work

A couple of months ago, one of my postings included a photo a a new string trimmer that I had bought. Since then, I've casually mentioned edging the front sidewalk, the driveway, the street curbing, and our patio. It wasn't until a few days ago that HH pointed out to me that, despite my efforts, the edging of the street curbing did not look all that great. Casting a critical eye on it, I had to agree. Thus, this week, I dug out my manual edger, my Weasel Edge-Chopper, and have been working at establishing neat edgings that I shall then maintain using the string trimmer.

The photo, below, shows a section of the street curb edging. The dark area next to the grass is where the grass had grown out over the concrete - that I had failed to note in edging with the trimmer. I removed about 40 feet of 4-inch-wide sod from along the curbing. I've not quite finished all of the manual edging, but the bit of street curbing that is left to be done has grass that has only overgrown the concrete by about one inch.

While pulling weeds in front, I noted that the one ice plant that has thrived for the past few years is in full bloom (below). The 1/2-inch of rain that we received yesterday made the weeds grow by about six inches in all directions.

When I stepped outside to work, this morning, I was greeted by an unusual sight - an Annual Cicada that had just emerged from its shell. It is on a dill weed that is growing in the rose garden.

Added about 24 hours later - in response to Stu's having asked about the size of cicadas. The photo, below, is out of focus, but will give the idea of size on this particular cicada. I'm judging this cicada's length, nose-to-wingtip, to be about three inches - perhaps a little larger than "normal" in my experience. More information may be found at Common cicadas of Kansas, but in my limited browsing, I didn't see mention of sizes of the numerous varieties listed/shown. BTW: There are nearly 200 varieties (species & sub-species) in North America and over 3,000 world-wide.

Wikipedia notes that "The adult insect, known as an imago, is 2 to 5 cm (1 to 2 in) in total length in most species. The largest, the empress cicada (Megapomponia imperatoria), has a head-body length around 7 cm (2.8 in), and its wingspan is 18–20 cm (7–8 in).^[7][23]"

Summary of the week

The ears have it - 6/14/2021

Hunky Husband had an appointment with the audiologist. The upshot of the appointment was that he chose to have Dr Combs set his hearing aids on "fully automatic". Trying to make adjustments was not working out for him. No more than HH currently wears the hearing aids, it isn't that big a deal. I must say, though, that I'm enjoying that HH is now (mostly) wearing his hearing aids when he watches TV in the evening. (Not so, during the day; but, one thing at a time!)

At times, HH's TV has been set to such a loud volume that, even though my den door is closed, I cannot hear my own TV over his. Note that, in the photo above, the charger sits on a note that I had written HH a couple of weeks ago to remind him to keep the lid open while charging his hearing aid batteries. Dr Combs recommended this as a means to check that everything is proceeding normally with the charging - by observing the blinking green light on each unit, during charging, or a steady green light when fully charged.

Note to Bogie: I showed your dad the hearing aid controls information in the format that you suggested (which reorganized the information and added the bit of info about the beeping that I had previously omitted) the other day. He didn't recognize the difference. He kept saying that it was the same information as on the previous table. It was mooted by his going to the "fully automatic" mode, anyway; but, I appreciated your input. Thanks for taking the time and making the effort.

Outlook and my teeth - 6/16/2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was not too pleased upon learning that, seemingly, a recent update to Outlook has changed how it operates a bit. Just how, I've not determined. The effect is that I missed my dental appointment on the 15th and had to re-schedule for the 16th.

My usual practice is to set up important appointments in the Outlook Calendar with first notification occurring 18 hours prior to the appointment so that I am reminded the evening before the appointment. The first notification that I received of the dental appointment on the 15th was when I came in (hot & grimy) from doing yard work and was notified that my appointment was past due. Picking up my phone to call the dental office, I noted that they had left me a voicemail about my not being there.

In setting up my appointment for the 16th, I was doubly positive to set first notification for 18 hours prior to the appointment. However, as had occurred on the previous entry, the default of 15 minutes was actually set on the appointment. Of course, with the kerfuffle, I did make it to the appointment on the 16th. I saw the dental hygienist (Lacey, who cleaned my pearly whites), the owner of the practice (Dr Carol Ysidro, who said she just wanted to see me because it had been at least a year since we last spoke), and Dr Omar (Dr Omar Barakeh who adjusted a few of my teeth to improve my bite). My teeth have been shifting a bit since Dr Omar installed the permanent bridge.

The lawn and my "miniature meadow" (mm) - 6/18/2021

Edward, of TenderCare Lawn and Landscape, came by this afternoon to check out our irrigation system. This is a mid-season service that the company offers. Having spent time weeding in the side yard, this morning, I decided to check out my mm that sits between our back lawn and the far back grounds, to see how the milkweed plants are doing. The above photo shows the mm's status.

The lacy-looking white flowers are Annual Daisy fleabanes, I think. I didn't plant them, but neither did I pull them when I saw them growing. The daisy-like yellow/brown flowers at mid-height are Brown-eyed Susans that I seeded a few years ago.

The multi-hued little flowers lurking in the shade of the towering Brown-eyed Susans and Wild asters are Blanket flowers that I planted from pots in 2019. At the left of the photo, one can see that the milkweed plants have grown little since I stopped babying them. Perhaps they are thirsty. The mm is just out of reach of the irrigation system unless the wind is from the north.

As an afterthought: The yellowish long leaves sticking up at the edge of the bare dirt, toward the right edge of the photo, is what's left of one of the Narcissi that surround the mm and a few of the trees that I've had planted in the edge of the woods. The Narcissi have shriveled, fallen, and been mowed down for the season.

Weather notes for the week

It has been hot, hot, hot - and it isn't even summer, yet. The NPR station was announcing that their studio thermometers (in Downtown Wichita) were showing 103 degrees Fahrenheit. The hottest I saw, myself, was 103 on my car (but it changed to 100 when I turned down-sun) and 100 on our front porch. It is supposed to be hotter, today. It is 96 on our front porch. On my drive home from visits to the gym, this week, I've been swabbing down my carotid arterial areas, etc, with the wet wipes that I have been carrying in the car for COVID-19 precautions for the past 15 months. When one cannot perspire, it really helps cool one down.

Bogie, how's it doing up there in New Hampshire? You've been having really hot weather for an area that is supposedly "cool". You were hotter than were we, by about 20 degrees during May, I think.

Today's yard work & after-effects

Yard work & observations

This morning was cool and dry enough for me to be able to get some yard work done. I didn't stay out very long each time, but I went out several times. Mostly, I pulled weeds; but, my greatest achievement was completion of the task of removing the root system left when the yew bush outside one of my bedroom windows died this past spring. Our freshly-sharpened axe and my rarely-used razor tooth saw were my friends. The photo (below) shows that the hole has been filled with the dirt that I had dug and piled - as shown in Weekly summary - 5/22/2021. 

Some of my neighbors appreciate having a ready source of dill weed for their cooking (at which they are much better than am I!) Last fall I seeded, with far too many seeds gathered from last year's crop, a couple of beds, of which I show one (below).

While thinking of our neighbors, I am about ready to call them over to pick cherries. Just a few more days, I think.

In going out to the previous edge of our woods to pull creepers, I saw an array of gorgeous, ruby-red jewels among the grass (below). The closeup shows one ruby-red jewel. I don't know whether the seeds came from the strawberry bed that we had (now, HH's rose garden) or from green garbage that I've buried. At any rate, the taste of these left something to be desired.

Just an update: The new Oklahoma redbud tree, the planting of which is shown in Pretty Trees, is doing great, so far. Unfortunately, the new cherry tree still hasn't shown up. (I need to call the nursery.)

Visual Disturbance

Sitting at the luncheon table across from Hunky Husband, I noticed that I couldn't really see his right eye. Admittedly, it was not entirely light in the room - we've had a lot of practice getting food into our mouths, so vision isn't really required. However, I checked to see if it was one eye or the other that had an issue and found that it made no difference which eye (or both) I used. Absent my long history of migraines and migraine equivalents (variants), I would probably have been very concerned. As I have that history, I quickly cleared my plate from the table, did a quick check for possible stroke, told HH that I thought I was having a migraine, and retired to my darkened den. Indeed, my loss of vision progressed to nearly 100%; but, within 15 minutes, I was recovering visual field. Strange. I've not had a migraine of any sort for about 10 years and haven't experienced a retinal migraine equivalent for at least 30 or 40 years.

Migraine is a syndrome characterized by paroxysmal headache associated with other signs and symptoms, such as aura, but when a migraine manifests in a way other than head pain, it is termed a migraine variant (or migraine equivalent). These variants are not as common or as well understood as typical migraines and may be characterized by paroxysmal episodes of prolonged visual auras, atypical auras, confusion, dysarthria, focal neurologic deficits, gastrointestinal manifestations, and other constitutional symptoms, with or without a headache.

I'm surprised to have come up with a migraine equivalent at this late date; but, perhaps it was triggered by all of the bright sun that shone while I was working in the yard.

Weekly summary - 5/22/2021

Our first roses of the year were picked Monday, the 17th. As the blossoms opened even more, the larger of the yellow roses (photo, below) reached a span of over six inches. Beautiful! Although the roses are fragrant, HH says that he can't smell them. His "smeller" has declined in sensitivity over the past few years.

Today, I photographed the whole rose garden (below), and the real Mr Lincoln rose bush. I had intended to pick the Mr Lincoln bud for HH to enjoy. (He doesn't go outside, much, and it takes an effort to see the rose garden through the kitchen window.) I waited too long.

 

 

In Horticultural pursuits, I showed several of our bushes that I was/(am still) trimming to remove the winter killed branches. Most are doing well, as can be seen in the photos that I took, today.

Double Play Big Bang (larger bushes) and Magic Carpet (smaller bushes) spirea - with sedum ground cover (foreground) and tomatoes (background)

Ivory Halo Dogwood bush

(Dead) Hick's Yew of which I've just started digging out the roots  - outside my bedroom window - The photo's not being 3-D, it's hard to tell that there is a hole around the few remaining dead branches and that there is a pile of dirt to the right of it. It has copious, tough roots that will make me glad that I've had the axe sharpened, when I get to that point.

Nanho Purple Butterfly bush, I think

Assorted holly bushes in front of the house - work in progress

Crepe Myrtles

Although I did not post "before hacking out the deadwood" photos of our crepe myrtle bushes, I'm posting a couple of "after hacking" photos of three of the four bushes. In the first photo, showing a dwarf variety, the bush on the right is one that I layered off of the 20-year-old bush on the left. The bright green at the right edge of the left photo is a couple of the Stella de Oro Daylily plants - with a volunteer tomato nestled in there. The second photo (on the right) shows one of the two standard variety crepe myrtle bushes that were much cheaper since I bought them on sale at a big box store.

Irises

The irises were lovely, again, this year; but, I didn't get around to photographing the various kinds - except the Root beer irises. The root beer irises were the earliest bloomers. Not too far distant from them are the latest bloomers - Orchid irises - shown below.

Progress of flora

This (photo, below) is what the milkweed plants look like, today - one week since they were planted in the dirt. The pretty little posy is the first blanket flower blossom of the season. As one can tell by the lack of shadows, we are experiencing cloudy days. What is not apparent is that our temperatures have been 10-15 (Fahrenheit) degrees lower than "normal" for most of the past three weeks. (We had one day where we soared to 85 degrees, but temperatures in the 50s have been more usual.)

Moving along to something that we humans can eat (as opposed to the butterfly larvae that may eat the milkweed), the photo (below) shows the progress of the largest, most protected tomato plant - nearly four weeks following the planting of the tomato plants in the dirt.

Root Beer irises

In Getting back to normal, back in April of 2012, I posted the following photo of dwarf, root beer colored irises. That variety of irises has always been the first to bloom each year since I planted it - probably a few years prior to 2012.

In April, 2018, the whole planting area in which the miniature iris had proliferated was removed and sodded. Some of the iris plants were transplanted to a planting area along the driveway, many were given away to neighbors, and some were dumped back in the woods - some more ceremoniously than others. As it happened, the miniature iris bloomed, just enough in 2019, to let me know it was at the roots of a tree in the then-edge of our woods. I took it up and transplanted it to the planting area that surrounds my basement escape window well. Again, this year, it was the first iris to bloom - a week or so ago - as shown, below.

Yay! I really like that little bugger and am thrilled that it shows every sign of proliferating in its new home.

Horticultural pursuits

Spring has sprung (Summer has sprung doesn't have the same lilt) in our neck of the woods - say I. It was in the 70s (Fahrenheit), yesterday, and is to reach the low- to mid- 80s, today; thus, about one week ahead of time, I placed the house plants on the front porch/steps for the summer.

The first three months of 2021 brought us weather that dithered between the extremes so much that it was damaging to some of our shrubbery. Slowly, I'm working toward taking out dead ones and renewing shrubs that are still alive but which have scraggly live branches left among the dead. It is slow work because I overheat when working out in temperatures above 60 degrees. Yesterday, I worked outside for an hour before coming in to (nearly) collapse. Once I cooled down, I was fine to go set up the hose with a sprinkler to continue watering trees - the dogwood trees and the trees along the driveway.

Two weeks ago, I took a hedge trimmer to the three (well...there are now four because one of the branches established itself with roots) spirea bushes - originally two Double Play Big Bang and one Magic Carpet. They are renewing, nicely (below).

Yesterday, I took the dead branches out of the Ivory Halo Dogwood bush, leaving a sparsely branched bush (below).

Today, I tackled the yew bush that has shielded one of the windows to my bedroom for the past eight years. Prior to that time, the window was to my sewing room. Unfortunately, I failed to think of photographing the dead bush before tackling it; but, this is what it looks like (below), now. When I have the energy, I will dig up the roots and rake up the rest of the leaves. Note that the majority of the dead leaves are pin oak leaves - off of trees in a neighbor's front yard across (and up the street one house) from us. BTW: The little green sprig is a pin oak seedling, of which I pull many. I may save this one in a pot to see if WichiDude & Dudette or Wonderful GrandDaughter & Rachie want it for their yard.

Below is a photo of the two trash carts full of dead yew branches from that bush. Only the blue cart will be picked up. I'll empty the small, green cart into the blue cart for pickup next week. The tan cart is the single-stream recyclables cart.

The next photo not only shows off another patch of Bogie's phlox progeny but shows the dead-looking butterfly bushes. Last year, I failed to cut down the branches in March and they sprouted leaves (and blossoms). I doubt that happens this year, but why not give it a shot?

ADDITIONS OF 5/1&2/2021 - One photo after cutting out the dead branches, and One photo of butterfly bushes as they appeared in July, 2012

BACK TO 2021: Finally, the photo below shows the sorry mess that comprises the holly bushes in front of one side of our house. I haven't quite figured out how to tackle it. The green bushes at the right end is a Hick's yew.

More photos - flora

The first photo shows the birthday bouquet that I cut for Wonderful GrandDaughter (WGD) this morning. Her birthday was a few days ago, but her mother is gathering the family to celebrate, today - Saturday's being a more convenient day. The bouquet comprises a small branch from each of three trees that are abloom in our yard. The bouquet is small because WGD and her father have allergies. 

The next photo shows the three common milkweed plants that were delivered to our doorstep late yesterday. The plants, favored by monarch butterflies, were ordered last fall. The company from which they were purchased ships them in time to arrive at the customer's location near (in time) to the frost-free date. (Our frost-free date is April 20.) I will hold the plants in the window well for a few days to acclimate them to the temperatures and sunshine before setting them out in my little meadow.

Finally, because I was taking photos of the milkweed plants in the window well, I snapped a photo of the hostas that I planted in the window well a couple of years ago. They are ahead of the hostas that grow just outside the window well and those that grow in the near woods. Those later developing hostas are growing, but didn't break ground until about a week ago. (The little round white specs on the leaves nearest the camera are petals from ornamental pear tree blossoms - from across the street.)

Pretty Trees

REDBUD

About an hour ago, Josh and his crew showed up to plant the Oklahoma Redbud tree that I bought last November. It is to replace the redbud that was taken out, last fall, for being too close to the neighbor's fence. Below, the photo shows Josh bringing the tree from the trailer to the hole that his crew had dug.

 

The photo, below, shows the new tree in all its glory! Note the small patch of bare dirt next to the neighbor's fence, toward the left side of the photo. That is where the old redbud had been removed last fall.

DOGWOOD

While checking out my new/old camera, I snapped a couple of photos - closeups of blossoms on the two Prairie Pink Dogwood trees that are abloom. I've decided that the third tree is, alas, dead. Note the difference in color and shape between the blossoms on the two trees.