Category Archives: Daffodils

The Week in Pictures

Birds, Daffodils, Flowers, garden, Gardening, Reflections, Roses, Ruby, Strawberries, Weeding, Wild Flowers, Wildlife, , , ,

Well, I’ve got some catching up to do, so some of these pictures actually go back a couple of weeks.

Gardening

My husband has finished all of the planting for this year, and most things are coming up. Most of these photos are a week or two old and with the warm summerlike weather and rain that we have had everything seems to be growing in leaps and bounds.

Potato patch

Cabbage patch

Pole Beans. The strings are for them to climb on.

Tomato Patch just a few day after they were planted. Some are now getting blossoms.

The new strawberry patch. Yesterday my husband spent several hours weeding and removing the flowers and berries that were forming. It is best to remove the flowers the first year, so the plants put energy in developing a strong root system. It will make for healthier plants. Next year we will hopefully get a good harvest.

I spent about 12-15 hours over the course of several days weeding our old strawberry bed that had been taken over by weeds. In the photo above I am almost finished. Only another hour or two and I was done.

On Saturday, about a week after I finished weeding, we picked about a quart of berries. My husband picked about another quart on Sunday.

The Prayer Garden

After I finished weeding in the strawberry patch, I went to work taming the prayer garden.

In addition to weeding, I cut down all of the daffodil leaves and stems.

I’m afraid I might have cut them down to soon and that we will have less flowers next year, but it looks so much neater with them out of there.

A few days after I finished, it exploded with color.

The primrose began to blossom. I just love their brilliant color. I am sure I need to thin them because they spread very quickly and will take over everything, but I will wait until they are finished blossoming.

The roses also began blossoming. I love the red roses with the yellow primrose.

In the Wild

Last week the wild roses were in full bloom. We have wild rose bushes scattered throughout the property. I have featured two of the largest. The one above is a least 15 ft (4,57 meters) wide and 8 ft. (2.43 meters) tall. I can’t even begin to guess how deep it goes back among the other trees.

A close up of the rose blossoms. You might notice some wild grape leaves in the photo. Apparently there in a grape vine growing with the rose bush. What you don’t notice in the photo is the wonderful fragrance of the roses, – sweet but a bit spicey. Every now and then I would catch a whiff of it in the breeze. I love this time of year! Definitely worth taking time to smell the roses!

The second one that I am featuring climbs up the oak tree at our picnic area. We do keep it pruned a bit, otherwise it will reach out and grab someone as they are walking by, or in my case riding by on the mower while cutting the grass around the tree.

It probably reaches up 20 ft (6.09 meters) into the tree.

Feathered Friends

I sat quietly in front of the barn and snuck a picture while this blue jay ate chicken scratch near the coop.

We have a pair of ducks that have become regular visitors. Sometimes it’s just the male and other times the male and female are together. Not only do they swim in the pond, but my husband has also seen them eating chicken scratch with the chickens. If Ruby spots them, and she usually does, she is quick to chase them off. We actually encourage her to chase the off because duck dropping in the pond can bring bacteria and parasites that could affect human and aquatic health. we don’t want that.

Thanks for visiting.

Catching Up

Chickens, Daffodils, Dandelions, Family, Gardening, Grandchildren, Reflections, Sewing, The Farm, , , , ,

Hello and welcome. It’s been pretty quiet here on the blog lately so it’s time to do a bit of catching up.

Sewing Projects

I spent a lot of February and March sewing for Jackson and Addie. The first three photos are things I made for Jackson. (I apologize it some of the photos are a bit blurry. Sometimes my hands are not as steady as I’d like them to be.)

T-shirt for Jacksom
Spiderman shorts
Spiderman Hoodie

Jackson loves Spiderman. My sister had sent me some Spiderman fabrics that she wasn’t going to use, since her grandkids have outgrown the Spiderman phase.

On Easter, when I gave Jackson and Addie their outfits, Jackson looked at the things I made for him, then looked at me and said, “You are the girl!” I construed this to mean, “Thank you Grandma. I love them!” 🙂

My sister also had some extra cat fabrics. Addie loves cats!

Cat Nap Pajamas

The patterns on the fabric are difficult to make out in the photos, so I added close-ups of the fabric.

Close-up of fabric
Pants for Addie
Close up of fabric

I also made myself a summer turtleneck.

Turtleneck I made for myself.

I love the way it turned out, and my husband complimented it several times when I was wearing it.

Farm Views

We’ve had a lot of rain this month and much of it came last week but on the nice days I’ve been getting out to enjoy the weather. I love watching the world come alive in spring and each day we’re seeing more and more – flowers opening, plants sprouting, leaves unfurling.

These photos were taken early last week.

Since then, we have a hen or two that are sitting on eggs, so, you’ll likely be seeing chick photos in a couple weeks. Also, dandelions are blossoming and the fruit trees are beginning to flower, so the bees have plenty to forage.

Plantings

Each year since 2019 I have potted up pansies to display in the bed alongside our deck. In past years my husband was able to get them from the greenhouse where he worked in 2019. They are a wholesale business but allowed him to come and purchase a couple of flats.

This year, in March, when he tried to call them, he was only able to leave a message, and he never got a return call. I was disappointed but ready to accept that we would not have pansies this year. My husband didn’t give up so easy. He began calling around to other local greenhouses to see if they had pansies. Mostly they were not open yet for the season. Eventually he got a message back from one of the greenhouse owners that they thought they could help him. Several phone calls and about three weeks later he picked up a flat of pansies.

I couldn’t be happier!

My husband also picked up a package of pansy seeds so we can start our own plants next year.

I did have them set out along the deck but brought them in for a couple of nights when we had the temperature dipped down below freezing. Hopefully we are past that now.

My husband started some cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower plants in March. They are now big enough to be planted in the garden, and we are hoping things dry up enough this week that we can get them planted. We also have some potato seedlings that we will plant as soon as the soil is ready.

Other News

This is so exciting!

It was the last week in March when I received my preview copies of the book my story in being published in, Chicken Soup for the Soul, I Can’t Stop Laughing. The book goes on sale next week, on 4-27-26, and I will be doing a separate post about the book and about the process of being published in this book.

One of the benefits of having a story in the book was that I received 10 free preview copies. When I told my family that I would be getting them and that I would be giving them out, they decided they need to hold a book signing event. I was honored.

On April 4th we met at a local coffee shop for lunch, and I signed and passed out copies of the book. (That’s me at the far end of the table.)

As a congratulations gift my family gave me this beautiful garden statue. It says, “The Garden is my Happy Place.” 🙂 You all know that is true.

Thanks for visiting and Happy Spring!!!

It Looks Like Spring is Springing – Finally – I Think

Bees, Chickens, Daffodils, Dogs, Flowers, Reflections, spring, , , ,

After a brutally cold winter and a March that has seemed to be one step forward two steps back it looks like spring is springing. Monday and Tuesday were both t-shirt days (only the second and third ones we’ve had this year) so my husband and I got a few little outside jobs done at the farm.

Join me for some of our sights of spring.

The crocuses, our first spring flowers are blooming. 🙂

White one too!

Our mini daffodils began blossoming on Tuesday.

The rest of the daffodils are up but no flowers yet.

The garlic is up but seems slow. We had rain in the forecast for Tuesday, so I gave the garlic a dose of fertilizer on Monday. We did get some rain/storms Tuesday, but at least it wasn’t an all-day rain.

The chickens were out enjoying the weather. This hen actually stopped and posed for me. They have been laying good since the middle of February and some of them are starting to act broody. We will likely let a couple of them brood some chicks later this year.

The bees were out in full force. My husband mentioned seeing that they were carrying pollen back to the hive.

My best guess is that they are gathering pollen from the poplar trees

or the maple trees. Perhaps both.

Believe it or not we spotted our beagle fish on Monday. LOL. I thought it might be a bit early in the season for that.

Ruby didn’t do the full body plunge that Ranger did, but she was in far enough to get her belly wet. I’m looking forward to spending time in the pond too but not until it warms up A LOT!

Thanks for visiting. Has spring found you?

Spring Bouquet

Cherry Tree, Daffodils, Dandelions, Flowers, Forsythia, Killdeer, Parkinson's Disease, Peach Tree, Pollinators, Prayer Garrden, Reflections, The Farm, Tulips, , , ,

I think it was our first fall at the farm when I planted a bunch of tulip bulbs in the area that has since become our prayer garden. I remember arriving at the farm one morning the following spring and being delighted that several of the tulips were blossoming. They were so pretty. Later that day when we returned for our afternoon walk all of the pretty blossoms were missing and all that remained were the stems and the leaves. I wanted to cry. Thus began our love-hate relationship with deer.

Our First Tulips

After fencing the farm two years ago and then fencing in the prayer garden last year, we thought it might just be safe to plant tulips. We planted 4.

The first one to open was red. I thought this fitting since the red tulip is a symbol for Parkinsons Disease awareness and April is Parkinsons Awareness month.

The yellow one opened one day later.

And a second red one opened today. I expect the last one will open tomorrow. It looks like it will be another red one.

White hyacinth with mini daffodils.

Peach Tree

We planted a peach tree last year and it was doing well this spring

Peach Tree

so, we decided to plant a second one. Both are blossoming. It would be nice to pick a few peaches in August.

Forsythia

Lots of Daffodils
Sweet Cherry Tree

We planted three sweet cherry trees last year.

Sweet Cherry Tree

The above two have nice blossoms. I would be thrilled to pick a handful of sweet cherries this year.

A honeybee enjoying the dandelions. We lost our bees over the winter and decided not to start a new hive this year so it’s nice to know there are still bees in the area.

A wildflower that popped up and I am still trying to identify. If you know what it is, please tell me in the comments section.

My husband found the killdeer sitting on her nest. There are four eggs in the nest. She is very camouflaged. Can you see her? (Look in the foreground.) He marked the area with the yellow flag so we remember to stay away from it.

Thanks for visiting! What’s blossoming in your area?