Category Archives: Flowers

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.

The Week in Pictures

Apple Blossoms, Apple Trees, Bees, Birds, Chickens, Flowers, garden, garlic, Killdeer, Nature, Reflections, Tadpoles, The Farm, Weeding, , , ,

It seems like we have been waiting forever for the weather to get nice and now, all of a sudden, we have so much that needs to be done mowing, planting, weeding and more.

Missed Shots

Monday morning when we got to the farm I started on my walk with camera in hand. I began taking pictures of flowers in bloom only to realize that my camera battery was dead. The pictures would have to wait until later that day.

After my walk I began mowing grass being careful, as I normally am, not to run over any bees that were foraging in the dandelions. It may slow me down a bit but to me it’s worth it. I was mowing in the area near the gardens when I notice an adult killdeer running around, then as I looked closer, I saw the four babies. I’m sure they were only about a day old but I’m not sure where the nest was. At least it wasn’t in our driveway this year. I didn’t have my camera but was fairly certain they would be around later.

Not long after that, I was mowing not far from our beehive when I noticed that the bees were swarming. This is when I regretted not having my camera available. This is something you don’t see very often, and it is a sight to behold. Thousands of bees swarming outside of the hive. Keep in mind, if you ever see a swarm of honeybees, they are not a threat. They are in transition from one home to their next home and at this point their main objective is protecting their queen.

My husband and I kept an eye out to see where they landed, because he wanted to capture the swarm and put them in our empty hive if possible. They landed in a great location in a nearby spruce tree at a height where he could reach them. After lunch he went back to the farm alone (I stayed home with the dogs) and captured the swarm. Since I didn’t get any pictures of the swarm or him capturing it, I will refer you to this post from 2017 when he did the same thing.

It really was a gift having this hive swarm and being able to start a new hive with these bees since these bees were able to survive this past winter.

Now for some of the pictures from the week.

Nature

Three of the four baby killdeer.

Adult killdeer doing the broken wing act, trying to lure me away from the babies.

On Wednesday, we discovered another brood of baby killdeer running around in the front of the property, with the busy parents trying to keep track of them. We have to be careful when driving in or out, as they spend a lot of time in the driveway and they tend to blend in making them difficult to see.

This red winged black bird posed for me as I was walking around the back field. I assumed there was a nest nearby but since I didn’t know much about their nesting habits, I did a little research and came across this article. It explains that the female builds a nest between 6 inches and 6 feet above water or ground, anchored to upright stems of cattails, shrubs or tall grasses.

According to the article “Red-winged blackbirds are polygynous, meaning a single male defends a territory that contains the nests of multiple females. In Washington state, males typically have harems of 3 to 8 females nesting simultaneously on their territory.” It also states, “Both males and females defend nests aggressively, but they play different roles. Males are the more physically aggressive sex: they dive at, and sometimes strike, predators and intruders that come too close. During these attacks, males produce a distinctive growl call that they use only when actively diving at a threat. Females, meanwhile, vocalize at higher rates than males when a predator is nearby. The female scream call is the most effective alarm in the colony, attracting more birds and triggering the highest rate of hovering behavior from defenders.”

I remember several years ago I was walking in the back field and Trooper, our leonberger, was a ways ahead of me, I saw a red winged black bird diving at Trooper’s back. Trooper never saw the bird because it was behind him and the bird never actually touched Trooper, but it was definitely not happy the Trooper was there.

On Sunday we discovered, newly hatched, tadpoles in the pond. I had been watching for frog or toad eggs but never saw them. Obviously, they were there somewhere.

Before long we won’t be able to see this squirrel’s nest up in the pear tree.

Pear blossoms.

Apple trees blossoming in the wood line.

Remembering Our Moms

My husband picked out this beautiful dianthus to plant in memory of our moms.

The lungwort is also blossoming.

Behind the rock there are hosta plants and day lilies coming up as well.

Gardening

The garlic was being overrun with weeds.

I got about half of it weeded Saturday morning.

I didn’t get any pictures of it, but on Friday we got our new strawberry bed planted – 3 different varieties – 75 plants total.

Chickens

Just thought I would finish up with a shot of the girls enjoying their day.

Thanks for visiting.

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?

Garden Goodness

Apple Trees, Apples, Bees, Fermenting, Flowers, garden, garlic, Hibiscus, Peach Tree, Pollinators, Reflections, Sauerkraut, Sunflowers, The Farm, Tomatoes, , , ,

Hello and welcome. Despite having very dry weather, and doing our best to keep things watered, our gardens have flourished.

Blooming Beauties

Right now our hibiscus bushes are the star of the show.

Their large, showy flowers are stunning.

I don’t like to play favorites, but if I had to pick a favorite flower, it would probably be the hibiscus.

This hibiscus that I planted three years ago on my mom’s birthday was just beginning to open on Sunday, August 10, which would have been my mom’s 80th birthday.

Today it was in full bloom. 🙂

Several weeks ago we decided that we needed to rework the memorial garden the we planted this spring. This garden memorializes our parents who have all passed away. The beautiful lupine plants that were planted on either side of the rock were struggling, apparently not getting enough sun. My husband dug them up and planted them in the very sunny prayer garden and they have since developed new growth.

On Saturday, August 9, I visited my sister who wanted to thin her flower beds. My husband and I decided the shade loving hostas would do well in the memorial garden. My sister had just what we were looking for. She was very generous, selecting the large beautiful plants, instead of the ones the deer had eaten. The two light green hostas were one that my husband split before planting. I also brought home a lungwort plant that my husband split and planted (the dark green wilted plants). It looks sad after being transplanted but I read that it will develop new growth and should be fine.

Veggies

Our garden situation is changing daily and some of these photos are about two weeks old. I’ve just fallen behind in my blogging.

The honeybees that moved into our empty hive seem to be doing well.

Bees love squash and pumpkin blossoms.

And this is what can happen when a pumpkin or squash blossom is pollinated. 🙂

A basket of fresh garden goodness. My husband has been bringing home this basket full of veggies every day.

Eggplant, sweet corn, beets, green beans, tomatoes, banana peppers and cucumber were the haul on that day. Many of these vegetables are being eaten fresh. Others are being canned or frozen.

I made four pints of dill relish last week.

On Wednesday my husband and I made a trip to the orchard so I could can some peaches. On Thursday I canned 23 pints of peaches and had a dozen left over for eating fresh. Sunday, I made peach cobbler with five of the fresh ones.

One of our peach trees produced two peaches.

One for my husband and one for me. They were perfectly ripe when I picked them yesterday and so delicious. The orchard peaches, that were picked before they were ripe, were not as sweet as these.

They are not ready yet, but it looks like we will have a great apple crop.

The other thing the bees are enjoying right now are the sunflowers.

But who doesn’t love sunflowers.

This week’s projects include canning tomato juice (I did 6 quarts yesterday), making sauerkraut (I started it fermenting today), and cleaning garlic (tomorrow or Thursday).

Thanks for visiting.