candy flowers

These hydrangeas look like they are made of purple and green nonpareils.

Hiphopopotamus Vs. Rhymenoceros

I really miss Flight of the Conchords.

I think Jemaine misses me a bit too.

Hello Summer

15 hours and 4 minutes of sunlight today. All of them overcast?
Happy summer solstice!

Free tomatoes!

Farmer's market egg stand was giving away free tomato plants. Am anxiously awaiting the first bloom. How soon does that happen?

Happy breakfast to me

I bought these fantastic martini glasses at the dollar store, beautiful cobalt blue glass which match my goblets and water glasses. I popped them in the dishwasher and when I unloaded them yesterday morning I didn't want to wait until I made martinis (which would be just about never) to use them. So I had cereal and a mar-tea-ni. breakfast never tasted so sophisticated.

Recipe: pour tea into glass

snapshots of happiness

I sent this photo to Sara, explaining it was out of focus but she might like a copy anyway. She wrote back saying she liked it blurry, perfect for two people who never stop moving. So true, these two NEVER stop working. They exhaust me.

New Vet

I took the dogs to their first appointment with the new veterinarian today. Lola has a heart murmur, needs a hernia operation and must have her teeth cleaned. Nashi tried to bite the Vet. It was a delightful visit.

Nashi licking her chops after sampling the new Vet

Nothing but blue skies from now on

I pulled over to the side of the road to take these. It was such a joy to see blue skies and fluffy white clouds after all this rain.

Blue skies smilin' at me
Nothin' but blue skies do I see
Bluebirds singin' a song
Nothin' but bluebirds all day long

Never saw the sun shinin' so bright
Never saw things goin' so right
Noticing the days hurrying by
When you're in love, my how they fly

Blue days, all of them gone
Nothin' but blue skies from now on
(Blue skies smilin' at me
Nothin' but blue skies do I see)

Baby bird

I went out to see the lillies this morning which are in full bloom and when I started to weed around them I came across a poor tiny baby bird that had fallen to it's death from the nest in the eave of my roof.

I can hear all the other birds chirping nonstop above. There must not have been room enough in the nest for them all.

Botanical Nomenclature

Early this spring Sarah gave me bunches and bunches of lillies to plant from her garden. I kept my hopes in check and aimed for not killing them. I was blown away when I saw flower buds last week and today they started to bloom.

Ever respectful of botanical nomenclature, she informed me the names of the three species she gave me are:
regular lillies
fancy lillies
special fancy lillies

She and I are, if anything, eternal students of Latin.

Blueberry yum-ble muffins

A tray of jumbo blueberry crumble muffins for the flower show bake sale.

How cute are those labels? My mom cut, labeled and tied each one.

Look at that handwriting, can you tell she was a teacher?

Abundant herbs

This gorgeous bunch of oregano was trimmed off a plant in my mother's garden. What do I do with this much fresh oregano?!

Fish Hatchery

The fish hatchery was on the list of must-do-activities every summer as a kid. It couldn't be more basic, just a dozen or so cement tanks in the ground filled with different types of trout at various ages, it's smelly and dirty and not very pretty to look at. But you get to feed the fish. And the fish go crazy. And there are so many fish. That's what makes this place so great.

We took E there for the first time and I was way too excited for my age. I could not wait to feed the fish (thank you Sarah for buying me my own bag of fish food).

E and his mom checking out the fish.

Feeding the fish.

Ahhh! Crazy fish swarm!

So many trout.

Jumping on the metal plates turned out to be much more exciting.

Running to the big fish sculpture. 

Stalking the ducks.

A well deserved ice cream break from the intense heat.

Let the trout have their pellets, ice cream wins the day.

I can't wait to go again next year!

Garden Club

I am now an official member of my town's garden club. This group raises money for scholarships, has monthly classes, gives awards to local citizens, has flower shows, donates time working on town flower beds and is a lovely group of people which I am thrilled to be part of. After giving my oath they presented me with this lovely peace lily.

This meeting's entries, so many!

Beautiful centerpiece and food provided by the hospitality group.

un-BEE-lievable

I saw this on the ground this morning.

And then I looked up.

Some serious mandibles were at work over night. At the rate this carpenter bee is chewing my windowpanes will fall out by July.

May flowers

Blossoms from May.

(click photos to enlarge)

Benchmark

I love my new bench.
Love, love, love!
I have been looking for months for the perfect bench to go next to the kitchen door, I have a pile of catalogs dog-eared on the bench pages. All the benches were either too fancy, too big, too high, too short or not the right color. I had no idea there were so many bench styles out there and apparently I was chasing the most elusive one, which is to say, inexpensive. And then I went to Home Goods with my mom and there it was. Just sitting there all appropriately priced and perfect.

Now you can't have just a bench. You need some flowers. And as long as I have been searching for a bench to put by the kitchen door my mom has been looking for pots to put flowers in by the kitchen door. And she found them, also all appropriately priced and perfect. After a very much needed lesson on how to plant in these giant pots (thank goodness because I would have dumped an entire jumbo bag of planting soil in each...) I now have the prettiest flower pots and bench combo going.

They are each planted with a gardenia tree and petunias. I can't wait for the gardenias to bloom! And thank you Mom!

Shangri-La

A family lunch at my mom's today turned into magical-happy-play-land.

When do you remember being this excited? 

(click on photo to enlarge so you can 

really see how excited he is)

Or this content?

True blue

I found another tiny little egg in my yard the other day. This one is a Robin's egg, I forgot how blue they are and that they have no spots.

You can see where the baby bird pecked at the shell and made tiny holes trying to break out.

The shell is so tiny and fragile, it crumbled every time I touched it.

You can see the color difference when compared to the first shell I found. 

Does anyone know what type of egg the spotted one is?

Joy

Coffee and toast on the front porch with a dog on my lap.