Blooms 2013

Daffs from the yard,

those big doubles get heavy and fall over

I am forced to pick them!

Trillium

This must be the year of the trillium,

they are abundant down by the Creek

this year.

The crab is getting ready to burst into blossom!

Purple Trillium.

Bad composure.

I tried several times to get the creek and the flower just how I wanted

No dice.

Apples

Breathe in.

Do you get that?

Oh My!

I love that smell.

There are bees too!

Mariposa Lily~Calochortus

 Every year I am so happy to see these bloom!

I can still remember the first time I saw one,

they are so exotic looking

it seems funny that they are so common.

 I was just informed that the root is edible and tastes like a raw potato.

I looked it up online, and sure enough,

the native peoples ate them and so did the early Mormon settlers.

Lunch Time Jaunts

This is the new-ish pathway to the Park in Troy,

AKA "the lunch walk".

Note that the pond is covered with "cotton" from the cottonwood trees.

Thankfully I am not allergic!

Can you imagine if you were?

The town has piles of cotton blown all over.

The view from the west end of the fishing pond toward town and the Cabinet Mountains.

The entire town of Troy smells like this!

I am not exaggerating!

Look!

And I couldn't resist,

I have been playing with my new camera,

trying to bond with it, if you would.

And this is the weird, artistic setting!

Love the boldness!

Weeds

 This weed.

You can smell it from around a corner.

copious blooms, and smeels SO sweet, you just want to roll in it!

This weed.

Makes my bike commute SO wonderful.

In the early morning,
but especially in the later afternoon when the sun has been on it.

Mmmmmmmm!

I am trying to find out what it is.

I want to be able to name it when I sing its accolades.

not the greatest fotos.

I guess weeds don't much like to have their picture taken.

I tried from several angles, close up and far away.

But that smell...Oh MY!

Hadlyme, CT

 Butterflies and flowers in the Gieseys yard

 Lilies and frogs in the pond at Gillette Castle State Park

More butterflies and flowers in the yard.

Columbines of many colors

Here is a good sampling of the several varieties of columbine I have blooming around the yard. I have a few more, but missed getting shots of them while they were open, now they have gone to seed. I cut the seed heads off and scattered them around in the woods and down the driveway, hoping they will grow wild!

Poppies and Echinacea

 I have one plant of white poppies and they opened now

while all the other colors are losing their petals.

 And here is this exotic green echinacea that I got from

 a lady in Troy who was giving up her flower gardens.

It does get tiny little yellow ruffles around the bulb, but that is it for color.

Summer Blooms

 The Beauty Bush against the pre-thunder ominous sky.

 Bumble Bee on the lupine in the garden.

 Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that around every circle another can be drawn;

that there is no end in nature, but every end is a  beginning; 

that there is always another dawn risen on the mid-noon, and under every deep a lower deep opens. 

Emerson, Essays, First and Second Stories

 Blooms in the hanging pots.

The Morning Wander

Our walk to the paperbox on the weekends becomes more of a journey in the late spring. Mike becomes a weed extracting machine, no weed goes undetected and there are always many to pull, or at least remove their flowers untill he can get there with the weed whip or herbacide. The cats come along, usually Gazpacho only makes it halfway before turning around, but they both need many attention breaks,

 2/3 mile 'round trip is a long way for a cat without any attention!

I bring the camera and am distracted by all of the wildflowers blooming and other plants. We talk about all the plants and practice our horticultural latin and verify with the books when we get home. Mike has his cup of coffee and I have my cup of tea and we have to balance sipping and weed picking and foto taking and holding the paper and petting the cat...multi tasking in the truest sense and most relaxing sense!

 Calypso Orchid~Fairyslipper~Calypso bulbosa

 Wild Saparilla~Aralia Nudicaulis

We haven't noticed this flower before, we see the leaves all the time.

We think it is the very wet spring that is drawing our attention to these blooms.

 Starflower False Solomons Seal~Smilasina stellata

 Bunchberry~Canadian Dogwood~cornus canadensis

 Fairybells~disporum tracycarpum

bunchberry & yellow violet 

 wild apple

 wild strawberry~fragraria virginiana

 Oregon Grape~mahonia aquafolium

 wild strawberry, just past flowering & ready to make a berry.

 beech fern-thelypteris phegopteris

heart shaped leaf (violet) by a rock with moss. 

 Just past the fork in the lane on the way home.

 kinnickinnick~bear berry~arctostaphylos uva ursi

bunch berry with a pinker center! beautiful!

This year with all the rain, the world around us is very lush and clean and verdant.

The water drops on everything make the world shine with a different light.

oregon grape with rain drop and note the pollen in the center of the rain drop.