Magic May Day Porch

The May Day surprises on my magic porch - lucky bamboo and a begonia!  The hummingbirds will line up for this begonia.  

Things appear on this porch.  It goes with my magic kitchen window that makes plants happy and magic seed-sprouting oven under the sink and above heater duct.  With lucky bamboo in the house, I'm watching for new paint on the magic walls.

I followed these instructions for all of my excursions out of the house today, too.

Thank you to the magic May Day fairies!

Evening Visitor

My neighbors called with a surprise this evening.  They had a rufous hummingbird in the garage and he wasn't leaving.  I don't blame him.  It is cold outside.  He flew around us, and the warm lights. It didn't take him long to find the feeder we put out for him.  I think he has done this before.

He was very colorful, as we could see while he was flying, but not in the photos.  He'll probably be on his way north tomorrow.

Here is the link to the hummingbird who visited our barn in 2007.

Future Tree Frogs

 April 28 - One tadpole, many almost tadpoles.
They are likely related to the frogs in this link.

April 7 - Frog eggs

April Blooms and Bees

This smaller cherry tree made it through the snow and ice earlier this year.  I know the bees and hummingbirds are missing our 3 large cherry trees damaged by the ice.  See them in bloom in this link.  We had to cut them back significantly so no blossoms this year (but a few new limbs are sprouting now).  

The mason bees are busy today.  Here is what their house looks like.  The fruit trees are blooming too, so they must have what they need.

Star magnolia.

Arizona Rose

A rose in DH parents' Arizona garden on January 1, 2012.

Bees!

I see I'm not the first to find the blooming heather. 

February Garden

Saturday's sky over Petunia's Garden.  The benefit of a garden blog is looking back at prior years.  After two years 'on-hold,' do I have this June garden to look forward to again?  And Sunflowers and pumpkins and green (or purple) beans.

Thanks to Coffee Bag Mulch Magic  the main garden rows will be ready for spring with only a little preparation.  Those are iris leaves flopped on the bags in the lower right hand corner.  They have had their time in the garden and need to move out.  There are more rows with out of control herbs and weeds.

And then there is this tree, plus several remaining native shrubs bordering the garden.  They need to be moved, if it is still possible.  They landed here temporarily in our 2nd year at the house when we had extras from the King County bare-rooted tree/shrub sale. 

Geocache Recovery

DH had a report that his geocache could not be found so we went to check on it.  There was so much debris in the area, even he couldn't find it at first.  Geocache containers in the NW have a constant battle with moisture problems.  You know he found it in a sad state when he decided to bring it home and dry it out.

This is a side / horse trail we were on.  The main walking/biking path was quite cleared already. 

Winter color along the trail.

Geocaching is the outdoor (most of the time) activity, sort of like a world wide Easter egg hunt.  People hide caches, with travel bugs and other odd artifacts inside, and post the location GPS coordinates and a clue online.  Other people try to find them.  It gives you a great reason to explore places you might not go otherwise.  See Geocaching.com and my Label below for more info.



Storm Recovery

We had nice weather today to do some bad weather clean up.  The snow and ice in January did a lot of damage to the trees at our house and along our little road.  

It will take years for the ornamental cherry trees to recover, but we don't think we'll have to remove any of them.  We do have a number of other trees that didn't survive.

To see what they look like in the spring, go to this Link to cherry trees in bloom.

 Meanwhile, the seed catalogs have arrived and Petunia can expect to find a garden and gardener waiting for her summer arrival.

Fall Treats

You know you are missing your fall garden, when your special treat (for doing stuff you don't like) is stopping at the fresh veggie market for a pumpkin to cook.  And a few other fall friends.  It took a lot of effort to resist many other items, at least for this trip.

I did pick the largest tomato ever from the garden this week.  But that's partly because I had been traveling for 2 weeks and I'm only now catching up with what has changed (besides the decreased temperatures).  

By advertising these types of fall treats, I guess I won't have to prepare for many trick-or-treaters.