There’s a HAWK

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,,,sitting not 15 feet away from me on a branch of the magnolia outside the office window.  He’s been there for at least  fifteen minutes, sitting and watching for little visitors or meals to come by.

I’ve looked on-line for pictures of hawks to determine what kind of hawk he is, and my best guess is a Red-tailed hawk.  He’s sitting with his back to me.  He’s at least twelve inches tall, probably more.  He has a brown back with white speckles or spots lining the outer sides of his back.  He has white-ish gray feathers folded behind his tail feathers, and it looks as though there are white-ish stripes on the back of his head.  He’s a very handsome bird.  Hmmm…no red tail.  I’ll have to check the bird books.

He’s sitting on a shaded branch where the forsythia in front gives him cover.  HIs head has been swiveling, watching everything around him.  I thought for a moment that he might be aware of me, when the cloud cover made the light from the monitor more obvious, but he didn’t leave.

I’m on the opposite side of the house from the bird feeders.  This is the first time I can remember having seen a bird this large so close to this side of the house.  Usually we see them using the bird feeders to hunt up a meal.

He ruffled his feathers and there are considerably more white feathers than I realized.

My quilting bee is coming to dinner.  I can’t stay to watch any longer, darn it!

Status Quo

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My life is wrapped around the same few activities, so I tend to go fallow with my blogging, thinking that there is only so much you can read again and again.

This time of year I always have gardening that needs to be done.  I’m also busy with Scraps on a Mission, making twin-sized and smaller quilts for charity.  I love to read, but have put some of that on the back burner, or have shifted to books on disk so that I can listen to books as I garden or sew.  I’ve been crocheting squares for Charity Crochet Exchange, which makes “blankets” for groups in need.  And, I sleep.  Midday naps, sometimes LONG naps, have become a part of our lives.

I have been blogging in my head, but I have just not made the time to post those entries.  I find I am more likely to make an entry when Fred is off sailing, and I can structure my day as I please.  This morning I weeded, and took pictures for an entry that you’ll see below.  This afternoon, I’ll take pictures of some of the things I’m working on in the studio, and do another picture post.

Fred was home with me Monday and Tuesday because it was rainy, and it’s not a lot of fun to sail in the rain. (We won’t discuss lightening at this point…)  We drove to Morris to drop off my sewing machine to be cleaned and repaired.  I ordered the parts to make a new foot control for my Singer machine.  I’ve been waiting more than a year to get that done.  We dropped off a chair and a stool that needed to be re-caned and re-rushed.  That’s another of those projects that has been waiting forever to be done. We went to Merischka’s for lunch and had their incredibly greasy, garlicky poor boys, and then went to see “Despicable Me 2.”  It felt like Saturday,  I really enjoyed being with Fred, and I was delighted to get all these time consuming chores done.

This morning, I’m going to see if I can’t tidy up things in the garage.  If I move both cars out onto the drive, I should be able to accomplish what I want to do a little faster.  With what’s left of the day, I need to grocery shop, work in the studio for a bit, and crochet some more squares.  There’s nothing exciting to report, other than I’m satisfied with life.   🙂

Iris and Weeding

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I have been thinking about  lifting Iris and dividing them for some time…..years actually.  Part of the problem is that I need to clear spots in the garden before I begin lifting the iris.  I don’t want them out of the ground for more than a week..  I thought I was going to start with a pod of beautiful dark purple iris near the downspout, because I think they are in a spot too wet for Iris, but this morning the plan changed.

I set my alarm for O-dark:30 and hauled myself out of bed.  I started spading the outer curve of the sidewalk garden at 6:30, and weeded for two and a half hours, while it was still cool.  There is a pod of peach iris to the right edge of the area I cleared that has needed to be divided for years.  Each year the blooms were getting fewer and fewer in number because the rhizomes are so overgrown and there are too many weeds competing for the dirt and light. The weather was good, and I felt good, so I dug up about half of the iris.  I plan to replant three of them and share the others with friends and family.
Weeded Bed Resized

I left two violets and a volunteer oriental lily, but I may take out the center violet.  I think I want to add more dirt, and plant a rose there, possibly some coneflowers, the peach iris and a verbena that will creep across the bed.  Once things are planted, I’ll put down Preen to discourage seed generation, and I’ll mulch.  DSC02094

It seems that two and a half hours of weeding equals one overfilled wheelbarrow.DSC02095

I think this is about half the peach colored iris, perhaps two-thirds of them.  It’s really difficult to tell because the rest of the bed is so over run by  clover and other weeds.

Next Bed to Weed Resized

THIS is the mess immediately to the right of the bed that has been weeded.  (sigh)  It will take me YEARS to finish this project, but I’m glad I got such a good start today!  I’m a happy camper!

Celebrations

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This weekend was full of celebrations!  We spent most of Saturday sharing happy times and meals with family members who were passing all sorts of milestones in their lives.

We celebrated grade school, high school and college graduations, an anniversary, and scads and scads of birthdays  We participated in a bridal shower.  I met the newest baby in the family and his mother, and I spent some time this weekend working on a baby quilt for the first of three who are still on their way.

And, there was a wedding this weekend, too.

I have four siblings, so there are five of us in the oldest extant generation of my family plus four spouses.  Counting children and step-children, there are eighteen in the second generation with ten spouses.  That generation has TWENTY SEVEN kids and three spouses.  There is a fourth generation of three babies with two more imminent, and the third generation will increase by one in October.  We are peopling the world, so you can see we have a lot to celebrate.

Of all the celebrations, I’m proudest of those who have graduated from high school and college.  I know what it takes to get through college, and I want these kids to know how proud I am of them!  Congratulations, on a job well done!

Flower update

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The sage and oregano want to bloom.  I cut back one of the oregano plants (barely a tenth of what’s there)  and took the branches to exercise class, tied in bunches with rafia.  Bless them, they took every bunch and I need to cut more!  I thought I’d cut off all the blooms on the sage, but I must have missed a few.  I clip them off when I deadhead the lamb’s ears.

Day lilies and purple coneflower, and the shrub roses are blooming.  What few lilies I have left are almost ready to open.  Something out there eats lilies!  One end of the sidewalk garden at the front of the house is filled with volunteer coreopsis.  The ox-eye daisies have bloomed and died back.  It’s time to pull them out.

I have a big wire basket lined with coir and filled with potting soil that sits in a well in front of the dining room windows.  Last fall I cut some of our evergreen branches and covered the basket, and then added some red twigs that have a curly stem for contrast.  I was VERY surprised this spring when those twigs grew leaves!  I’ve kept them, just to see what will happen for the rest of the year, and added a few annuals to the basket.

We’ve had so much off and on again rain, that I have not been keeping up with the weeding.  And, there are a few plants that still need to be put into the beds.  We have the possibility of rain today, but it might be worth it to get out there and do some weeding while the garden is so wet.  That makes pulling weeds SO much easier!

Birds!

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I believe that I have seen some birds that I have never seen before!

In a grassy area not terribly far from a good-sized retention pond, we saw a bird that ran like a water bird or piper.  It had two distinctive dark bands at it’s throat.  I didn’t have binoculars with me to get a look at the beak, but DH says it’s not terribly long.  When I checked the bird books, it looks as though we may have seen a “killdeer.”  I’m uncertain about that spelling, but that’s what Wikipedia said.

Then, we were on our way to exercise on Friday, and drove between two very large marshy areas where we normally see egrets and herons.  At the edge of the water, in the reeds, we saw two large birds, which were facing us.  Their heads and chests were a rusty, tawny color, and they look more substantial than the blue herons.  When I searched the bird books, the closest bird I found was a juvenile common crane.  Since we couldn’t see their backs, we couldn’t tell if they might be sand hill cranes, but they had the right shape for some type of crane.   Of course, they were gone when we made the return trip, or very well camouflaged.

I don’t keep a life list, but it’s always fun to add new birds to the mental list of birds that I’ve seen.

Same Old, Same Old

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This time of year, most of my blog entries are about gardening, or needing to garden, or needing rain, or having too much rain.  Nothing has changed.  I started work on the gardens at the sidewalk at the front of the house.  I cut back Iris stalks, and planted two purple fountain grasses.  I planted some Black-Eyed Susan vine seeds  between the grasses and set a tutor over them, so they’ll have support.

About 20 years ago my brother gave my mother an immense planting that had vinca in it.  We set it near the front sidewalk gardens, and the vinca reached out for the dirt and made itself at home. Each year it creeps out and tries to take over a little more of the garden, and I keep clipping it back.  THIS year, I cut it back to a patch about 18″ x 18″.  I rooted out most of the vinca, but I know it will be back.  In the dirt that I uncovered I planted cleome and alyssum seeds.  It’s about two weeks to a month late to be planting seeds, but I’ll take what I can get!

I need to cut back peonies and sweet William.  There’s an infestation of Bouncing Bet in the lower driveway garden, and one of clover in the sidewalk gardens.   There are more iris to cut back, and eventually, daffodil greens and chives to cut.   I plan to just keep hacking away at what needs to be done.

I was reading a book called “The Curious Gardener,” which talks about chores that need to be done month by month in English gardens.  I’m really glad that my gardens are fairly simple.  The list of chores took three pages in the book!

We’re celebrating Father’s Day a day early so that the “kids” can have Sunday to themselves.  I’m going to start the morning with deadheading, and then relax at a nice dinner out!  The perfect balance of work and leisure.  Happy Father’s Day to you all!

Daffodil Greens

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It’s the time of year when the question of what to do with daffodil greens rears its head.  Dear Husband spent a good part of Saturday riding the lawn mower, trying to get most of the lawn mowed before the rain arrived today.  I noticed that on the west lawn he had  cut the daffodil greens that are naturalized throughout the lawn.  Ruh Roh.

I generally wait until the greens have gone brown before I cut them back.  That can leave the gardens looking untidy, and we want the front garden to look its best while our house is for sale.   I know the greens feed the bulbs for next year’s blooms, so, I went on-line to surf for advice on how long to wait to cut them back.

The best advice I could find was to leave the greens alone for eight weeks following their bloom time.  “Ice Follies” which blooms first in my gardens, is just coming up on the time when I could trim them back.   I have other daffodils that don’t bloom until late in May, so it will be late July before their greens should be ripe enough to cut back.   It’s a relief not to have to cut all the greens down on one day!

In addition, the website also said not to tie the greens and not to braid them.  It’s best  to leave them alone.  Many of my daffodils are planted behind day lilies, so some of the greens are hidden as they ripen.

Having to wait to cut them down, and having to deadhead the blooms, would never keep me from having loads of daffodils in my gardens.  I must have at least a dozen different types of daffodils, and I wait for those first blooms all winter long.  I recommend “Ice Follies” to you.

Daffodils Resized

Busy Day

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I wanted a day in my quilting studio, and finally carved out time today.  I have been running several projects concurrently, and needed to work on all of them.  I haven’t quite finished anything, but I’m a lot closer now.

1. I chose the fabric that I want to applique over two patches on one of my quilts that have disintegrated.  This tessellated maple leaf design  has a large variety of fabrics in fall colors and one of the fabrics I used has shredded apart.  Current practice is to applique over what’s left of the fabric, so that the original fabric could be seen in the distant future, should anyone care to look.  I cut out the pieces for the two blocks and I’ll hand applique them either tomorrow night, or at quilting bee on Friday.

2.  I looked through the box of extra blocks and extra pieces from Scraps on a Mission to see what we could finish up and found two sets of blocks that could be used if we added a little to them.  I went through my personal stash and founds browns and golds and cut them into four inch squares.  Four of these are sewn together to make a block.  I might also choose some fabrics to alternate with the pieced blocks.  I also made two blocks in blues to extend what we have for another quilt.  You know…”Use it up, wear it out…”

3.  I have a block I am doing that is a pieced Maple Leaf surrounded on two sides with strips, like a Log Cabin.  I need to make 56 blocks for the top I want to do, and I’ve completed 32 of them.  I set out ten of the leaves and chose the strips for each of the blocks.  I’ve gotten good at cranking out six to twelve of these blocks at a time, so I’m set to sew the next time I have the chance.

Project 2 Resized

4.  I trimmed the points off a quilt that I am making for a women’s shelter.  I want to put a strip on the top and bottom the shift it from square to rectangle, and then I can layer and pin it, to be quilted.

Color Strip Quilt Resized

My picture is dark, but the quilt is very bright and vibrant.   It was a rainy day when I took the picture.

5.  I chose a border for a lap quilt for Scraps on a Mission, and sewed it to the quilt.  I cut the backing, and sewed it together, so that it’s ready to be layered, pinned and quilted.This is a picture of it pre-border:

YBR Resized

6.  And, I worked on the quilting for this 60″ x 75″  quilt.  When I started this afternoon I had five of 20 blocks left to quilt.  Now there are just two and a half to finish, and I can do that tomorrow morning.  I’m quilting in the ditch, so you won’t be able to see any of the quilting on these blocks, but there’s a lot of it!

Missing U Resized

The only things I didn’t get to work on are two bunny quilts I’m making for the babies of two of my grand nieces.  I still have a few days for one of them to hatch, and two months for the other.  I’ll have to put some of this work aside and get them done, though!

There’s one more twin-sized quilt for the women’s shelter that I need to finish, but I’ll wait to post  about it when the quilting is finished  My days are full, and the gardens are lush, and I really need to be working outside, but I do love quilting!

June Is Busting Out All Over

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I’ll have to post pictures of the gardens at the front of the house.  Between the greens from the daffodils, the early iris in bloom and the volunteer Oxeye daisies, AND the RAIN… everything is looking lush.

I made a second trip to my favorite nursery, and bought the rest of the herbs, three hostas to complete the planting in the renovated (smaller) bed under the pear tree on the front lawn, purple fountain grass for both the sidewalk garden and the east driveway garden, and plants to tie the sidewalk garden and the window well planter together.

Purple, and fuschia petunias, a purple verbena (not the Homestead purple that I love…it was not part of their offering this year), white alyssum, and white snapdragons will be tucked in around the greens from the spring plants and I have a purple sweet potato vine for the well planter.

I bought less this year, but Dear Husband reminded me that I shouldn’t buy more than I am able to get into the ground.  It’s been my mission the past few years not to buy plants and then waste them by not being able to get all my planting done.

I know that it’s June 1…or actually, it’s June 2 now, but I have seed to plant.  I’m running about two weeks late thanks to all the rain we’ve had.  I’ve planted some cosmos and cleome, but I’d like to plant more.  The same is true for dill, but dill really needs to be sown in succession if you want it to be available all summer long.  I have a short tower that I want to put out next to the windows in the garage wall, with Black-eyed Susan vine seeds.  That worked well last year.  And, I’d like to try morning glories on the arch in the east driveway bed.  I’ve had less success with them (not enough watering, I suspect).

Today I planted three more sweet basil plants, bringing the total to 7, two curly parsleys, two flat leaf parsleys, two rosemarys and a geranium, before the rain started.  I should have been out earlier, and kept finding other things to do (NOT QUILTING!).

I moved the geraniums from the office to the protected side of the front entry way.  They get sun for a few hours, and are protected from the heavy rain.  I think I’ll move them to their final home at the end of the week, if they are still doing well outside.  THey will either sit up on the ledge around the well at the dining room window, or on the walk, just below that ledge.  It’s hot and sunny there.  I’ll have to remember to water daily.

Same old, same old.  I could probably have posted one of the spring entries from last year, or the year before that, or the one before that, and it would have said just about the same thing.  I love my herb garden, and I’m looking forward to doing some renovation in the front gardens.  Send me some help! *G*