Yesterday

After three weeks of rain, cold, raw weather, we finally had a nice day, just in time for my meeting with my rose club and the open garden. It was a pleasant day and the turn-out of folks was nice. There was more than enough food to go around for everyone. I was pleased, but as usual, even with both Bob and I working the room(s), it didn't seem like enough. We were both kept very busy. But I think everyone got out of the event what they really wanted to.

Later, after everyone left, just as evening was coming, a beautiful rainbow made an appearance. Actually there were two, but by the time we got the camera, only one was left. What a wonderful promise after all the nasty, unstable weathr we'd just experienced.

We also got some shots of the pond about 1,000 feet from the property and the lovely mist that was rising from it in the evening temperatures.

During the gathering, while walking around with one of the guests, Bob was able to snap this shot of the opening flowers of one of the viburman, All That Jazz. Very similar, except for the leaf structure to the Blue Muffin viburman (which I have two), All That Jazz also gets blue berries after the flowers that the birds will strip before they have a chance to drop off the plant.

The Blue Muffin viburman are only a year old, not very big but are producing an abundance of fower heads already. Something that All That Jazz waited to do for about 3 years.

One of the Finishing Touches

One of the finishing touches to the hardscape of the property is a path that I've been wanting from the patio to the driveway, so guests don't have to walk in wet grass and mud to get to it from the outside.
I hired a handyman team to help with the initial digging of the pathway. They dug a hole 4 inches deep, 30 inches wide and 80 feet long and did it in only a few hours. I was impressed and very delighted with the work! Husband, who argued with me at first was so impressed and glad that we had done that. It saved him a lot of time and backache. They also dug up the rest of the grass between the path and the rose garden, giving me an area for favorite annuals and a serious punch of color.

Husband actually did the rest. He laid down the weed block into the hole. Covered it with 2" of rough stone chips and began laying the pavers with three inches between them, cutting the ones on the curves. This took about a week with good weather. Finally, with this done, he filled with the decorative stone pebbles I had gotten as a finish. During some breaks, we went to local flower nurseries and bought four flats of colorful annuals, mostly snapdragons (one of my favorites), marigolds (Husband's favorite), summer saliva in different colors, Gerber daisies, stock and a few other kinds of annuals.

The flowers have been in a week now and this morning I headed out to give them their first dose of fertilizer and saw several hummers busily working through them. I think this will be nice.

This is one thing I've been wanting done for a number of years - since we put the patio in anyway.

New Dawn is Dead!

The highlight of my garden, the New Dawn rose, my grandmother's and my mother's favorite rose is dead! Don't ask me how or why, it simply died. This rose with a 17" diameter trunk on it, gorgeous blooms several times a year has done well until this spring. I am heartbroken. I truly expected this one to last over 50 years, not just nine. Now to get the thing off the arbor. This will be no easy feat. Most of the main canes are far to thick for even a heavy pruner and will need a chain saw. Most of them in my case are larger than both my wrists together. I'm figuring this will be the summer project. I think I do want to replace it with an own root New Dawn. The one on the other side was from Vintage Garden and is now three years old. They are harder to start, you need more patience, but maybe it will last longer than nine years. Right now, three main canes are over 12' tall but it doesn't have the mass yet as the other did. I will have to check with Vintage and Roses Unlimited about getting another. The problem with getting roses mail order, especially with Roses Unlimited, you need to purchase three roses and I'd want only the New Dawn. That is a downer. However, now that I think about it, Roses Unlimited also has Summer Wine which is another I would want, so with just one more, I could order three. I need to think about that quickly. All my roses in the back of the house took a hard hit this year. Many of my strongest roses froze to the ground. So far, I've lost just Ellen Wilmont that I can see. Even my most tender Crimson Bouquet survived. Then roses such a Marie Pavie, Charles Aznavour, Shaifra Asma, Ann Marie de Montravel, Rose de Rescht, Baron Prevost, Frau Karl Durschki, Bonica, Gruss an Aachen and all the climbers except New Dawn seem untouched. Even the very hard to root City of York, only two inches high when I finally planted it last fall, made it through the winter. It had just one 1/4" root on it after 4 months of diligently struggling with it to get it to root. Finally I had no choice last fall but to plant it. It's growing beautifully now. Go figure. I'll have to let you know what I do now, but there's no question that New Dawn is dead. Oh, I am heartsick about this.

Garden thoughts

After showing you this gorgeous picture of Longwood Gardens weeping hemlock, I must show you mine... This little on is about hip high and has been in the ground close to 5 years now. It's average growth is about 1/4" a year and at this rate it should take about 200 years to look like the one at Longwood. I do have this one a bit close to my well, but at it's growth rate, I'm in no big hurry to move it. I figure the well will be long gone before the tree gets big enough to interfer with it.

My new and improved west garden bed. After we discovered that the forthsytia had a gull disease, we had them dug out and transplanted the area with other plants, most of which were planted last fall. I don't usually like planting in the fall because of the severe artic winds we get here, many plants that haven't had a chance to establish a root system will usually die. To make matters worse, the Douglas fir was a problem for the nursery man to get it dug. I'm watching this tree closely and making sure it gets plenty of water and fertilizer this year to keep it going. I'll know soon if this tree has made it or if it is a goner. There is some die back on it, but also there's some on the blue spruce as well. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

The Bones of Longwood Gardens Cont.

The Bones of Longwood Gardens

We went to Longwood Gardens today to try out my new camera and we did! 162 pictures worth. We also wanted to start using our new membership cards which I just received and I'm thinking we'll go there a lot more often now. Here are a few of the pictures we took today:

The Penn State Master Gardner's Symposium

Today was the Penn State Master Gardener's Symposium. This is a once a year seminar that lasts one day. We make this one of the spring beginnings for the season each year.

Each year they have a number of speakers to talk about gardening from designing to vegetable garden and more. This year we heard from experts and doctors in their field for perennials, vegetable gardening, native gardening and we also had a local wild animal expert visit us.

Jack Hubley is a licensed falconer, with several licenses to keep and maintain several birds of prey. He often does shows mostly for children, trying to teach about the wildlife in this area and how they impact us and the gardens. I must admit he was the highlight of the day especially when he came with several of his animals.

He first showed us a skunk. He was trying to tell us how incredible they were when they weren't skunk pie in the middle of the road. And admittedly, I thought his skunk was actually delightful. This one was born a captive critter and had been desented at a very young age. Being born a captive critter, to be left in the wild it would become instant prey for the skunk's arch enemy (yes, there is an animal that will actually eat them).

He also brought us his red-tailed hawk. This little lady was hit by a truck on Route 30 some eight years ago when she dove after a meadow vole and into the path of the truck. A passing motorist saw the accident and called the Dover Wildlife Rescue and stayed with her until they arrived to rescue her. Her right wing was permanently damaged so her days as a free bird are no longer. She now visits schools and functions such as this one to show folks how magnificent her species truly is.

He also showed us the skunk's arch enemy - the Great Horned Owl. I know this bird as I see them at night around the house, especially when the baby rabbits leave the nest. Here he is showing the comparison size of the eyes of both human and Great Horned Owl. Not only do they eat rabbits, but cats and skunks. If you love your cat, you keep it in the house at night.

He showed us his male peregrine falcon. He did say this boy was a prima dona and the bird proved it every time Jack opened his mouth, the bird spoke up even louder. He told us about the birds and how they've been multiplying nicely, their numbers increasing annually - but not as good as the eagles. He also discribed the flight abilities of these birds and how impressive they are.

He also showed us a 6' black rat snake, a very common snake in this area. This is a snake you often see sunning itself stretched across the less traveled roads around here. Even though they aren't poisonous, I'd still rather keep my distance and allow them the respect they need.

He also showed up the white footed mouse (field mouse as we call them here) and the meadow vole, two of the most hunted animals on the planet. For being so tiny, these creatures are the corner stone of all predator life here.

The whole talk he was moving through the audience with his animals and only one person left the room when he got the snake out. The rest of us gardeners were able to handle all the mice, voles, snakes, skunks, and birds of prey he presented to us and could even appreciate them.

All in all, the day was incredible and well worth the money and the time. It started at 7:30 AM with coffee and breakfast and then a nice meal for lunch. It ended a little after 4PM because we decided to keep Jack Hubley and his animals a bit longer. It was a fun day and very enlightening. I look forward to next year already.

2010 Overview

2010 turned out to be an extremely rough year for the family. With my mother's passing, September 27 and some serious illness with the rest of the family, it was hard enough. Add to that the deaths of four friends and an aunt on Christmas Day and all this made for a very rough year.

Even going into January of 2011, things still hadn't settled. But now, everything seems to be getting better, evening out and calming down. I certainly hope so anyway. I am in need of some quiet, restful time.

Now, however, spring in right around the corner and the early spring events have already begun to start. My weekends are filling up quickly. But I still have quiet time, like this morning and they feel good.

A New Toy

Using some inheritated money, I was able to buy myself a new camera. I got a Canon 7D. This is a really cool camera and it arrived just in time to learn how to use it for spring.

I'm thinking I'm really going to need it this year.

Some winter pictures of my neighborhood.

The dog, Bratley no longer goes for walks with me anymore. His joints have begun to break down and even walks can get painful for him. So I opt to leave him at home now. He will still go to the mailbox with us and is actually beginning to enjoy car rides. He will be 12 in August.

I think I'm really going to like this camera. The sharpness is so totally on and I like the idea of using multiple points of focus. It appears to do really well in dim and low light as well as compensates with the white light for the sun. It has all kinds of adjustments for all types of lighting and has an extremely fast shutter speed for when we decide we want to photograph wildlife.

The sharpness brings out the depth of Tootsie's coloring in this shot. She is actually one of the prettiest diluted cocalicos I've ever seen. Even after three years, I'm still getting a charge out of this cat. She is silly, sensative and deeply bonded.

Something New

There were some things that I didn't get when we built this house. It seemed that on some fronts I was out voted.

The first was the hardwood floors, which I now have. They were put in about 5 years ago.

The second was the master bath which was put in about 3 years ago.

Today was the front door. I had wanted a nice fancy door for the front of the house, but was out voted for that as well. Now I have it. This door has a light in it to allow natural light to enter one of the darkest corners of the house. It isn't finished yet as the new trim needs painted, but that will come fairly quickly.

This door was custom made since I wanted specific things with it such as the brass caning to match the beautiful lock set that I had bought when we built the house. I now also have my button doorbell that I bought when we first built the house but the electrician refused to install it. Instead he put up a yucky plastic thing that looked tacky and didn't belong to the rest of my house. Of course the door was a contractor's grade steel door too.

There are still a couple of things I would like to do to my house, but one thing at a time. With each thing I get done, the closer I come to having the home I envisioned when we first built this place.

Roadside America shots

Traveling north along the Susquehanna River, we had to stop and take a couple of pictures of the river. This year has been hot and dry and the water level in the river is low and more calm than in other years.

Because of this, the waterlilies are in their glory! Along this part of the river it is rare to see them, expecially as they look here. We noticed them in the more calm spots all up and down the river as we sped along.

Egrets aren't usually seen along this river as well. They generally seem to like the more calm, shadier areas of smaller rivers and streams in the area, so to see several (there were six of them but three of them took wing before the shot was taken) in one spot on the Susquehanna River is something I don't see all that often.

As you can see, the river in this spot is relatively shallow and the water seems calm. In this part of the river there are small islands that peek above the water's crest and trees grow readily there. The bogs are above the water line as well and covered with grasses. In the foreground, the waterlilies happily help themselves to some sun.

Today, I was actually smacked on the shoulder by a couple of fighting hummingbirds! I was startled and amazed and had to check my should to make sure their wings didn't cut me. They continued to fly off still fighting each other. Those little wings felt like razor blades.

If you ask me again how I feel about where I am living, I might have to answer you. There should be no need for an answer. Just look at the pictures and discover how they make you feel.

This visitor

Yesterday Husband was outside preparing to burn some garden debris when out from underneath the pit came a 5' black snake.












Apparently it had been under there to rest and Shed it's skin.

More Eye Candy

Eye Candy

These shots were taken with a 75-300 4.ISO USM lens