There I Was, Minding My Own Business...

...taking pictures of flowers outside when GIGANTIC raindrops started plummeting out of the sky.  No thunder, no wind, no warning, just RAIN.  Naturally I was on the far side of the house so I had to scurry to stay dry.  It sounded cool, though.

I love these little purple flowers, actually I love their name--Spiderwort.  Doesn't it sound like something you'd put in a potion?  Something a witch would cackle over growing in her garden?  I bought it the first time because the care instructions said "thrives in poor soil and neglect."  That's my kind of plant.  Now I plant them all over.  I love how the little flowers are kind of hard to see in all the greenery but if you look closely you can see the little yellow pollen sacs (stamens? anthers? Botany class was SO long ago.)  I like 'em.


The astilbes I planted are doing well.  Not growing much but then perennials don't do much more than survive their first year.  I read or heard somewhere that the first year perennials sleep (hardly grow at all), the second year they creep (grow a little), and the third year they leap (grow like crazy), I need to remember that.  Behind the white one's flowers you can see my lone peony blossom hiding its head behind a fern frond.  I think some judicious fencing might be in order there.

The poppies are done *sigh* but the yarrow's looking good (that's the white stuff that looks like Queen Anne's Lace).

We've had a nest of chickadees in the birdhouse behind the house.  I keep hoping to get a picture of the adult sitting on the crook with a grub in its beak but I'm not fast enough.  Durwood just saw one of the babies out fluttering its wings to be fed (that's it on the crook's crook), so maybe a new nest is in our future.  That birdhouse is the only one that ever has tenants.  I don't know if its the location or the house itself but it frustrates the bejeebers outta me to have the other 2 houses empty all the time.  Except if hornets move in.  Grr.

June 21--German, Nuremberg, Tournament Book.  John bent over the work in his hands.  The pile of shavings at his feet grew slowly over the hours after supper until bedtime.  He hoped to enter his carving in the annual competition.  He had practiced carving whistles and toys for his little brothers and sisters; this dragon chariot was on a much higher level.

It looks like it's going to be another gray, rainy day so if you need me I'll be on the couch knitting and listening to podcasts.  Adieu, cheries.
--Barbara