Be Careful What You Wish For

It's Crabapple Season! Can you tell?

In May I was bemoaning the fact that due to the extreme temperature swings of this spring, our magnolia tree wasn't the mass of flowers it has been in previous years. Then a few weeks later, at the very opposite end of the garden, our crazy pink and white crabapple started to bloom.    

Like it had never bloomed before!

It rained petals for days.

To be fair, it was a very good year for crabapples all around our area, check out that one across the street! Our lilacs put on a pretty good show, too.

Eventually, all those pretty white flowers became light green crabapples.

While every last one of the fuchsia blooms turned into orange and yellow ones. Now we have lots and lots of crabapples everywhere, in the trees, all over the ground and regularly hitting us on the head!

Incoming! Look out, Burt!

 Ooooh, right between the eyes!

Wow, it got a great bounce off his skull!

Currently, we are focused on getting them out of the tomato bed.

 At this rate, it's going to take awhile.

(Looks like we have a bit of a Creeping Charlie problem to deal with too.)

These crabapples have met a fitting end in the always creepy compost bin. They were beautiful flowers but they came with a price. The cleanup has only just begun and we're probably going to need a shovel. 

Hope everyone had a safe weekend.

Thanks for stopping by!

A Few Lights and Some Critters

Since the days are getting noticeably shorter, Ivy decided it was time to string the lights through the pine trees next to the patio. Last year I forgot to take them down and they stayed up through Christmas. So far, it appears they're still working! 

These two trees are inhabited by a bossy family of squirrels who have been doing their best to be annoying ever since we moved in. Usually, they stick to the regular squirrel stuff, like digging around in the planters and raiding the bird feeders but lately they've upped their game. Currently they are feasting on the acorns in the oak trees by the garage. The incredibly loud noise they make while eating and their constant chattering isn't so bad but the mess they make rivals a tropical storm. Just how much they actually consume became painfully apparent when I thoughtlessly walked across the driveway barefooted.

Speaking of noisy!

(This is totally off the topic but doesn't this cicada look a like a pug?)

Fortunately, there are a lot of other critters in the garden that aren't so annoying. The butterflies have begun to migrate so Yellow Swallowtails and Monarchs pass through daily. They're very energetic this early in the season, His Madness got this photo with his phone, in a lucky moment. They're almost as hard to photograph as the hummingbirds! 

There's usually lots of dragonflies around thanks to our overabundance of mosquitoes. From a couple of feet away, the markings on this one's wings made it look like a little black butterfly. All the better for sneaking up on those pesky little blood suckers.

In early June, I was walking past this pot I'd recently planted with petunias and thunbergia and noticed these little yellow specks, 

Upon closer inspection it turned out to be hundreds of minuscule spiders! Eeek!

Could one of them have grown up to spin this giant web?

Getting back to cute and fuzzy, I can't forget the bees! 

Then there are the plastic critters. What garden is complete without fake flamingoes?

They always put a smile on everyone's face.

Okay, maybe not everyone's face. The squirrels always make Spenser grumpy.

Happy Humpday!

Take care of yourselves and thanks for stopping by.

Back to Summer!

So, how has your summer been going so far? I hope everyone is staying safe and doing as well as possible during these scary (and not in a good way!) times. It's been awhile since Burt and Ivy made an appearance here but they will be around more often now that Halloween is only 92 days away!

Currently, the lilies are in bloom, everything has been a little later than usual. The Phlox are also flowering but they don't count because they just seed themselves everywhere!!! 

Our weather has been particularly crazy this year. Bouts of heavy rain and sweltering heat have produced a sea of mud and mosquitoes in my backyard. So naturally, everything has been growing like crazy, especially the plants that I don't want getting any bigger! Somewhere at the end of this overgrown path, where the weeds are so high they partially hide the garden hose, is our house. 

Apart from the lilies, the garden is not looking its best these days, basically it's a jungle out there. Mother Nature, without any intervention, can really get out of hand! Luckily, I had decided not to make any significant changes to it this year because of a couple (now postponed) vacations we had planned. However, just when the weather was finally getting nice there were suddenly all these people at our next door neighbors. I was hearing a lot of really loud, sexist, racist and extremely right-winged talk coming from these people and they were not shy about staring at HM and I as if we were animals in the zoo. Since our neighbors driveway is only about twenty feet from our house and the shrub that usually gave us some privacy had died over the winter, I decided to make myself scarce whenever there were too many of them around.

It was during the end of May, when I first noticed a lot of people visiting next door. The retired couple who lived there weren't exactly friendly and had managed to threaten or alienate most of the residents on our block at one time or another, so we could only speculate about the situation. The couple in question mostly kept to themselves and always lived somewhere else during the summer. Rumor was that they spent those days antagonizing the residents of some lakeside community "up north". At least that left the rest us in peace, until this spring. One of our nice neighbors asked me if I liked living next to "that continuous frat party"! I had to laugh at his apt description; a lot of people constantly coming and going, no one wearing a mask and no social distancing. Sounds like a bunch of college kids, right? Except this lot was mostly senior citizens. (No offense to college students, I was one myself back in the previous century and that's how I acted.)

With all the huge issues going on in the country, the total lack of national leadership during the pandemic, the tragic death of George Floyd and the subsequent demonstrations that followed, it was easy to ignore the neighbors. Around the Fourth of July things did quiet down and it seemed like they might have left for the summer. Then early one morning, HM saw a gurney being loaded into a large black vehicle in their driveway. Four days later, with the help of the internet, we finally found an obituary. I do feel very sorry for his family but I rarely spoke to him or his wife except to be cordial. Shortly after we moved here, two men from the animal shelter came to my door to inform me that he had threatened to shoot our cat if he walked through his yard again. Other people on our block have had similar experiences. So, how to respond to our neighbors death has been complicated. Even making a donation in his memory is difficult because the organizations I support, like Black Lives Matter and Planned Parenthood might help me feel better about this sad situation but are definitely not organizations he would have wanted any association with. This clash of ideals is bewildering and I also feel like I should have confronted his bully friends instead of hiding from them. Fortunately, there are lots of medical research facilities that need donations and that should bring some closure between HM and I and his family. I'll continue to make donations to all the organization I care about and I think the next one will be to the animal shelter in memory of my cat McKinley. Not only did he avoid being shot by Mr. R but he kept being an irritation to him for eighteen years.   

So now we are finally getting back into the swing of things, safely at home of course. Even if there's only a month of summer left it's never too late to party and there's no place we have to be! What's better during these strange times than some silliness? 

The basement plants have even made it outside. 

The party lights are going up!

Its Hedge Week, featuring His Madness versus the Angry Privet.

Looks like the privet is going down!

HM was victorious once again but suffered some scrapes and bruises in the process. He does take his hedge craft very seriously. In reality, his wounds aren't as bad as they look (he says so himself) however, that is a pretty silly farmer tan on his feet. 

Finally, the first Halloween catalog has arrived! The hunt begins, if I can get it away from Ivy!

Have a safe weekend everyone and thanks for stopping by! 

Spring Cleaning - the Groceries?

Spring has finally arrived up here in the frozen north. It's a little worse for wear but I'll take it! 

Every time the flowers on our poor magnolia began to open, the snow would start to fall. So, it never became the glorious mass of blooms it usually does - but that's okay, the fragrance was still wonderful. That grey blob in the corner of the window on the right is our cat, Spenser. I like to think he's keeping the squirrels from digging in the window boxes but that's probably not the case. I've got my mask and gloves all ready for whenever the garden centers open up so I can fill them up anyway. As long as I stick to geraniums the squirrels bury their seeds and nuts elsewhere.  

This is one of the daffodils from my last post, they were still just buds and picturesquely covered in snow. Amazingly, not only did they survive but they weren't damaged at all.

It's been below freezing overnight for the past week here but the tulips and daffodils seem perfectly happy. Apparently, they are a lot tougher than magnolia blooms.

Meanwhile, back inside the skeleton crew is hard at work washing the groceries! Hopefully, it will soon become just another part of the shopping routine. Although, among all of the precautions we have to take these days, it's probably the last thing I ever expected! For awhile, I added items to the grocery list based on how well they would survive a good dose of soap and water. It made the cleaning process a lot faster but produced some pretty weird meals.

It would probably be easier to just use a disinfectant wipe (if there were any available) but since CNN's Dr. Gupta says that soap dissolves the bonds that hold the coronavirus together, shouldn't it work better than alcohol? Then the FDA said there was no risk in getting the coronavirus from food or its packaging but to be sure to wash your hands after shopping. What? Now I'm confused but in the interest of not getting sick, I'm washing everything that comes into the house and then my hands, again! Better safe than sorry. How that cheese will taste after its bath is another question. 

At first, the "let them sit outside for 24 hours" approach seemed totally unrealistic to me. However, Mother Nature has not blessed us with nice weather, in fact it's still the same temperature outside as it is inside our refrigerator! So, following the guidelines from the FDA (but mostly out of sheer laziness) I decided to leave some of the groceries (with the more water soluble packaging) on our patio overnight. Unfortunately, the squirrels immediately started gathering in a nearby tree, so that option was abandoned before the raccoons and possums joined them for an all out assault on our patio screens. Honestly, we're used to getting stuck at home during blizzards but this is completely different and I guess there will continue to be lot of trial and error.

I can't bear to pick my outside flowers mainly because they're lasting so long in this cold weather! Fortunately, there's no shortage of cut flowers at the grocery store. They didn't get washed or spend much time on the patio but Spenser is the only one who eats them anyway.

HM took this photo of him a bit later. It's hard not to look guilty with a stamen stuck to your face.

Online ordering with curb pick-up is really handy but even that has some challenges. 

This is what I got in my first order from Target. Just for the record, it was an accident and not an attempt to hoard cat treats or trail mix. I'm not a novice at online shopping and have made plenty mistakes but this is the first time an error has resulted in quadruples of anything. It's okay, HM and the kitties are overjoyed and I will definitely be double checking those totals from now on!

 

 I hope everyone had a great weekend. Weather Bug was predicting snow for us but it rained instead, yay! I got a note from my son reminding ME to wash my hands that was delivered, along with these pretty flowers, by a masked man. This is definitely one Mother's Day I'm never going to forget!

A belated Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there!

Thanks for stopping by. 

A Celebration of Sorts

 In this neck of the woods, spring is more a state of mind than actual fact so celebrating its arrival is primarily an act of faith. For most of us this year, I suspect the Easter merrymaking was pretty low key and involved FaceTime or Zoom. Still, a virtual party is better than no party at all!

Mother Nature is such a comedienne. Even before it snowed our temperatures were hovering around 40°F. on a good day, so it was pretty obvious that an egg hunt wasn't happening outdoors.

That wasn't such a tragedy, being in lockdown resulted in some unusual surprises.

The selection of springtime and Easter decorations this year was completely hopeless even before the lockdown. Honestly, aren't designers allowed to use their imaginations anymore? Of course it's pointless to keep bemoaning that fact but thanks to some inspiration from Quarantine-O-Ween, Ivy decided to add some old friends to play with all the bunnies and chicks.


 

That put a whole new perspective on the situation. 

Back in mid-February these plush Peeps bunnies showed up at Target alongside their edible versions. I thought they were the perfect size for sofa pillows and they have become our stay-at-home, couch potato besties. The fourth one, in the classic Peeps yellow, has been impossible to find, which is probably for the best. I believe these sweet little guys are the first home decor items I've ever purchased in the candy aisle.

HM did find some ham in the freezer and oddly, that went a long way in recreating the Easter dinner vibe that I grew up with at my grandma and grandpa's. As for the classic carrot cake for dessert, the smallest bag of carrots HM could find was this whopping five pounder! Unfortunately, it has been postponed. Somehow we forgot to get the cream cheese for the frosting (an absolutely crucial part!) and there was no running back to the store this year!

What can I say? Sometimes you just have to improvise.

Another notable absence was the chocolate eggs but thanks to the Girl Scout Troops of the Northwestern Great Lakes, we had an alternative. Would it be spring without Samoas and Thin Mints? They went great with our boozy coffee and crunchy marshmallow bunnies.

Hope everyone is doing well. It looks like in our state we are facing another six weeks of staying at home but all we can do is adapt and make the best of the situation. Easier said than done but now that it's spring we are half-way to Halloween! 

Be safe, stay healthy and have a good weekend!

Thanks for stopping by!