June Yard Work

/

There has been a lot of yard work beyond the usual mowing and weed eating in June. The wildflower seeds I planted are up and I water them almost daily to help them get established. There always seems to be something that needs doing in the yard and I try to spend an hour each morning working on the highest priority ones!

The above ground portion of our two rose bushes died over the winter so there were a lot of dead stems to cut away. I think the same thing had happened during winters in the past since there were obviously some parts that had been dead a lot longer than others. I am still trying to decide whether to dig out the bushes entirely.

I did get sidetracked while I was working…when I noticed a small slug on one of the older stems that had some fungus growing on it. I couldn’t resist the photo op!

The 4 crape myrtles in the flower beds also died back to the soil line over the winter. The part that was older broke off easily. The part that was last year’s growth had to be cut with pruners, but it wasn’t very large. There was one plant that had obviously been more vigorous in the past and had stems that were large enough that I had to use a saw to get lengths that would fit in my chimenea.

I’d decided that the easiest thing to do with the dead rose and crape myrtle stems was to burn them. I don’t have anywhere for a brush pile in my Missouri yard and the idea of taking rose stems (with lots of thorns) anywhere very far was not appealing.

It was a good task for the cool mornings of June! I would start gathering the dead stems about 7…burned what I collected in about an hour and was back indoors before 9!

My husband noticed that the store where he buys our bird seed was having a native plant sale; we went to shop. I’ve wanted to start adding native plants to our landscaping. Our first is fragrant sumac. I planted it a flowerbed where it had room to expand (they can grow new plants via suckers). It will be a great addition for wildlife and fall color! It’s close enough to the wildflower seedlings that I can water it when I water them.

Our Missouri Yard – June 2023

/

There are always things to photograph in our year. In June I decided to walk about with my phone (Samsung Galaxy S10e)….taking mostly macro looks at the plants.

Our lamb’s ear is blooming. It attracts pollinating insects. I have lamb’s ear plants coming up in the yard too….thinking maybe I should avoid mowing them and let them continue to spread…take over some areas where the grass is not growing so well anyway.

This time of year it is possible to find all stages of flower development on a single plant. The color sometimes is deepest just as the flowers open.

I have pokeweed coming up in some of the same places it was last fall…probably from the roots that remained. I like the green leaves and will probably let it grow. Maybe this year the fruits will mature before the first hard frost…provide early winter food for birds.

There is a native grapevine near one of my bushes. The new leaves start out folded in half. I am pulling it away from the bush and allowing it to continue to grow. Something has already been nibbling on its leaves.

I like that the yard has interesting plants…and is providing some food for wildlife. Hopefully the wildflowers I’ve planted this year will grow this season and then come back year after year…increase the yard value for pollinators!

Downed Pine Tree

/

We called a tree service company as soon as we noticed that a pine in our yard was leaning toward the house. They came and said the tree would have to be cut down…no way to save it….and they would be back in 4-6 weeks (evidently they were backlogged). We called another company, and their backlog was even longer.

They did better than their estimate – coming in 3 weeks. By then the tree had fallen. A holly tree and bush got crushed/brushed by the top branches; fortunately the holly only had a few broken branches and no damage to the trunk; the bush seems to have fared even better.

The cross section of the tree shows that it was not a healthy tree. Perhaps one side of the trunk had been damaged (maybe hit by a mower several years ago?) so the tree did not grow uniformly around the center.

After they cut the pine, arrangements were made for an underground utility survey before they came back to grind the remains of the stump. The grinding was done via a remotely controlled machine! It was just a mound of dirt and wood shavings afterward.  

I already miss the tree. This is the first time we’ve removed a tree from our yard…and it is a little traumatic to have something as large/significant suddenly gone. On a positive note: mowing the yard is a little less convoluted now and the grass should fill in quickly.

Ten Little Celebrations – May 2023

/

I picked my 10 little celebrations for May…then grouped them in to 3 categories: playing tourist (5), emotional experience (3) and getting outdoors (2). There was a lot to celebrate in May!

ArtsFest in Springfield. An interesting event and great weather too. We went with my daughter and son-in-law. I had heard about it in previous years from my daughter but it was my first time to experience it. It was a way to celebrate great spring weather and the artists of the area.

Springfield Botanical Gardens/Mizumoto Japanese Stroll Garden. Another way to celebrate springtime…savor the flowers…the new growth everywhere.

Fantastic Caverns. The easiest way to tour a cave…riding on a tram. I celebrated that this one had visible fossils in the ceiling that were visible too.

Springfield Art Museum. I celebrated the pottery/ceramics which is the focus of one of the exhibits now. Somehow art that has the potential to be something functional always appeals to me.  

World of Wildlife Museum and Aquarium. Celebrating the improvements in presentation of taxidermied specimens (meticulous attention to the depiction of the ecosystem around the animal)….and best aquarium in this part of the country!

Mother’s Day. A hearty breakfast then a hike alongside a meadow with my daughter…celebrating the relationship (and motherhood).


A sister’s successful surgery. Health of ourselves and people we have close relationships is always somewhat emotion. It’s great to be able to celebrate a procedure that was successful.

In-range blood work results. I celebrated some recent blood work that indicated that everything being checked was in the normal range. As we get older, we tend to be more aware that there could be some challenges ahead…and it is reassuring when the results indicate everything is still fine.

Coopers hawk over the Pocket Prairie. It’s always startling to see a raptor in a suburban area. I heard the racket of other birds before I saw the hawk swoop over the pocket prairie at Josey Ranch and into the neighborhood across the street. I celebrated that these small hawks evidently have thrived in that environment.

Rhododendron Flowering. I missed the rhododendron blooming last year…was thrilled when the flowers opened. It was a big part of the celebration of spring in our back yard!

Neighborhood Ponds – May 2023

/

There is always something to notice/photograph during a quick walk around the neighborhood ponds. This month was the first time I saw a turtle outside the ponds. It was on the side of the walkway away from the pond but pointed back toward the pond. Had it already laid eggs?

Further along, I spotted a large snapping turtle swimming just under the water…didn’t manage to photograph it until it stuck its snot out of the water near the shore. I wondered if this turtle decimated the ducklings (i.e. I only saw them once so there was a predator in the pond that got them within a few days). A large snapping turtle could be that predator.

My favorite sighting of the morning was a bullfrog. It was soaking up the sun in some very shallow water. Somehow it still managed to look grumpy and a little intimidating!

Macro Photography – May 2023

/

The flowers I brought inside in May made great subjects for macro photography with my phone (Samsung Galaxy S10E) and Bluetooth remote shutter. The irises were my favorites. The translucent petals with prominent markings remind me of chiffon fabric. I also like the fuzzy ‘beard’ that looks like a caterpillar, the gentle color (pink and purple in thise case), and the curves.

The alliums lasted longer in a vase than the irises. They were also harder to photograph; it a challenge keep enough in focus with the magnification.

The pine limb that I cut was also long lasting. I liked the greens and yellows and browns. The stem between the needles was shaggier than I anticipated.

There were a lot of breezy days in May which reduced the opportunities for outside macro photography; but I did manage two shot shoots. The first was a flower (vine) in my daughter’s garden. It came up on its own, planted by a previous owner to climb the arch of their garden gate.

The second is the young Kousa Dogwood planted in the front of our yard. The blooms are smaller than I thought they would be. I liked that the ‘petals’ are tinged with green.

Overall – it was a good month to remember that I have the equipment for macro photography with me almost all the time…and it is easy to use!

May Yard Work

/

There is a noticeable uptick in yard work in May….always something to do. The temperature is warm enough – and there is sufficient rain – for the grass to need to be mowed (weed eating/edging) weekly. Most of the time my strategy is to do the front yard one day and the back the next. In the back I am realizing it was a mistake to plant alliums in the grass since they are not done yet….so there is a patch of taller grass along with them.

There was one week that had a lot of rain in the forecast, so I opted to mow everything in one day before the rain. I took a little break after I used up the batteries…only a little left to go and I needed some down time anyway. When I started again, the most robust pine in our yard was in my path. When I bumped it – yellow pollen swirled through the air – and I diverted to give it wide berth. Some of the grass near it did not get mowed! The allergic reaction didn’t start until somewhat later – one of the worst of the year so far; I didn’t even realize I was allergic to pine pollen until now.

One of our other pines is problematic. It is leaning toward other landscaping and our house – the ground freshly heaved upward. The arborist says it can’t be saved so they will come soon to take it down.    

Both rose bushes appear dead. They are older but the landscaping fabric/rocks were added by the previous owner before she put the house on the marker and they might have caused them a problem. I’ll start cutting them up and burning the sticks in my chiminea fire pit soon – a better solution than cutting them up and taking them to the recycling center (yard waste) since the thorns making handling hazardous.

I cleared away rocks and landscaping fabric from an area and planted sunflowers, black eyed susans, cone flowers, gladiolus, and a wildflower mix in the big plan and some mini-pumpkin seeds in a smaller area nearby.

I sprinkled the area with spent flowers and empty edamame pods as a kind of celebration of the bed after I finished. I’ll be collecting seeds from the things that grow this year (except for the gladiolus) to plant in other areas next year. Creating places to plant has been hard  work (rock is heavy and landscaping fabric is tough).

Realizing that the weight of the rocks might be a problem for some of our other plants, I raked rocks away from the small cedars that have looked sick from the beginning. And there are more plants that might need the same help. Always something else that needs to be done in the yard!

Windowsill Photography

/

I enjoy flowers in tall narrow vases on the windowsill in my office. Recently – the contents have been alliums and iris from my garden. I decided to try some creative photography with them on a couple of mornings when the sun shines through the window for a short time. The alliums made some interesting high key images even if the screen showed in some of them.

I opted to take advantage of a ‘sparkle’ effect that the screen caused for two images. Sometimes it’s fun to just use the artifacts created by the camera’s response to the environment as a creative prompt!

I took a picture of an iris bud that was outside with water droplets – on the other side of the screen….more sparkles!

Now for the iris…lovely colors and curves. I like to zoom enough to fill the frame with the flowers. This is the my first time for pink irises; the previous owner planted them on the west side of the house….not visible from any window but lovely to cut and bring indoors.

The two photography sessions satisfied an urge to do something a little different than my normal flower pictures….and reminded me how much I like my office in this house!

Rhododendron

/

We’ve never had a rhododendron before….so I watched the buds carefully this spring at our new home in Nixa MO…wondering when they would open. I already knew from seeing rhododendron in public gardens and in other yards that it would be the “plant of the month” whenever it bloomed. May is its month!

The buds opened very quickly once they got started! I went out after a light rain one warm afternoon about a week ago…and found that many had opened…and flowers were unfurling.

The plant is between two windows – with the wall that is the gas fireplace on the inside making a bland background. Now the remaining question is - how long the blooms will last? There still seem to be a lot of buds that haven’t opened.

Springfield’s Artsfest

/

Last weekend we enjoyed the Springfield, Missouri Artsfest. My daughter has enjoyed it in years past and I’ve been on the receiving end of some of her purchases; we missed it by about a month last year when we moved to the area in June. So – we anticipated a great spring outing this year.

The day we went was forecasted to get to the high 80s, so we chose to go in the morning before it got too warm. There were enough people around to make it a festival but not too many to impede browsing the arts. Artsfest is held on a street with older houses that are now businesses and (Missouri State University) student housing. Food trucks and canopies for artists lined the street (that had obviously been closed to traffic). It was a great opportunity to buy local!

We wandered all the way down the row enjoying the artists on the right side then worked our way back as we looked at items on the other side. I bought some earrings for myself right away…before my daughter reminded me that she intended to buy my Mother’s Day present at the fest!

She bought the next pair from an artist that upcycles glass; the glass I the ones I bought is from a jam jar!

My husband bought a turned wood plate for my daughter and son-in-law (they seemed very drawn to it…we were happy to indulge them)!

I found am stainless steel yard ornament that I plan to give to my mother next time I go to Carrollton. I chose to get one with pink speckles to pick up the color of the oxalis and hydrangea in her garden.

After a little more than an hour at the Artsfest, we made the decision to find a restaurant rather than getting something from the myriad of food trucks and sitting on a curb to eat it! Overall – an excellent outing!

Later in the day, the Allen, Texas mall shooting occurred. It put a damper on the joy of the day. We are reminded again and again that mass shootings are unpredictable…can happen anywhere (evidently more frequently in the US than anywhere else in the world, and more frequently when there are few/no limits on guns). Thoughts, prayers, and more guns aren’t reversing the trend. If something does not change dramatically, we will eventually modify the way we live to make ourselves less vulnerable (i.e. not gather in larger groups, order items to be delivered rather than shop or go to an Artsfest, interact differently (or not at all) with anyone we don’t know)….a dystopian vision for the future.

Ten Little Celebrations – April 2023

/

Glorious spring…cool mornings and very pleasant afternoons…flowers…travel. So much to celebrate.

Springfield Botanical Garden and Mizumoto Japanese Stroll Garden. Visiting gardens is one of my favorite spring activities! There is so much to see and celebrate as the gardens come back from winter…blooms abound.

Finding a lost ring in a gardening glove.  I celebrated finding a ring I thought I had lost in the tip of a gardening glove finger. It must have some off with the glove and then pushed to the tip when I put on the glove the next time. It was lost for over a month before I finally realized there was something in the end of glove finger!

Ducklings on the neighborhood pond. Another sign of spring – baby birds. The ducklings were all staying close to their parent…still tiny enough to be vulnerable to turtle predation.

Getting to Pensacola FL. We took our first multi-day vacation since before the pandemic. The drive to Pensacola took us longer than we anticipated but we made it. More posts about our adventures in the week ahead. We both celebrated when we got to the hotel after 13 hours on the road.

Indigo buntings. A small flock of indigo buntings was enjoying the grass/weed area near some buildings in Gulf Islands National Seashore….more than I had ever seen at one time! Celebrated noticing the small birds with vibrant coloring.

Home again. It always feels good to come home again after being away. It happened twice in April: once when I can back from Texas and the again when I returned from Florida. Celebrating being at home.

Mowing the yard. I celebrated that the new yard and new mower are going to be a positive learning experience during the growing season – the yard looks great and the work is helping me build up my stamina, get some ‘intensity minutes’ into my routine.

Forsythia with composting mulch. The idea to pull some none flowering weeds as mulch under the forsythia where there was bare soil has worked beautifully. I celebrated finding a place in the yard to put cut/pulled vegetation rather than taking it to the recycling facility.

Great day to put out mulch around trees in the front yard. After mowing the front yard the first time, I realized the trees needed mulch under them to make mowing eaiser. I celebrated that we had great weather on the day we bought the mulch and were able to complete mulching the trees in the front yard…and celebrated again every subsequent mowing.

Great day to put out mulch around trees in the front yard. After mowing the front yard the first time, I realized the trees needed mulch under them to make mowing eaiser. I celebrated that we had great weather on the day we bought the mulch and were able to complete mulching the trees in the front yard…and celebrated again every subsequent mowing.

Planting bulbs around the red maples. I realized that the mulch around the trees made it easier to plant bulbs too. I planted some summer blooming flowers – lilies and butterfly weed and gladiolas. I celebrated that it was so easy to do…and will be celebrating again when the plants bloom this summer.

Zooming – April 2023

/

The zoom capability of my bridge camera (Canon PowerShot SX70 HS) is used in almost every picture I take! I rarely carry binoculars anymore since I’d rather have the option of taking a picture once I find the subject…and I am keen to minimize the weight of gear I carry around.

The locations for the zoomed images selected for this month are Nixa MO, Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge (near Sherman TX), Carrollton TX, Coppell TX, and Springfield TX.

My favorite subject this month was ducklings! I was thrilled to find them in my neighborhood pond when they were only a few days old.

Enjoy my views of April 2023!

Our Missouri Neighborhood – April 2023

/

Springtime view of our neighborhood from our backyard just after sunrise. The trees are leafing out…filling in more of the eastern horizon. The red bud is a break in the spring greens looking past the tennis courts.

Later in the morning I took some macro shots of fading daffodil blooms

And redbud flowers/leaves.

After spending time photographing the ducklings (see yesterday’s post), I made a project to photograph some of the trees in the morning like against the very clear sky. There was a little breeze but the light was bright enough to freeze the image!

The lawn around the pool was dotted with dandelions. I know that many hate the plants – wage war on them in their lawns – but I have come to appreciate them. I like their cheerful yellow flowers (and so do insects) and the puffs of seeds are always photogenic. I mow them but don’t do anything else to discourage them in my yard.

Ducklings!

/

There are mallard ducklings on our neighborhood pond! I photographed them on the 14th – 10 ducklings still sticking very close to their mom.

The pond also hosts some turtles that might be large enough to pull a duckling under. The mother can probably protect them when they are in the nest or in very shallow water. I noticed that when they were moving about in the deeper water that the mother kept up a brisk pace and the ducklings stayed in a group rather than trailing behind (most of the time).

The ducklings must have to move their legs and feet very quickly to keep up with their mother. Their down is so fuzzy that they sometimes look out of focus as they bob along.

Plant of the Month: Hostas

/

All the areas the hostas were growing when we moved to our Missouri house last June have hostas emerging – even the ones that were burnt by the very hot dry spell (their leaves shriveled and dried) after the bushes that shaded them were trimmed. It was thrilling to see the new leaves showing among the rocks in our flowerbeds! The greens and whites of their leaves made them my pick for “plant of the month” in our yard.

Enjoy some macro views of the hosta leaves – the curves…the lines…the color transitions. Little works of abstract art from nature!

Composting Mulch

/

This is my first spring in my Missouri house, and I am still acquainting myself with the flowerbeds around the house.  A very fast-growing plant came up in the east flowerbed and spilled out in the yard. I pulled a wheelbarrow of the stuff and took it back to put on the bare soil under the forsythia bush. It covered about half the space.

A few days later, the 4-6 inches deep plant material under the forsythia had collapsed to about ½ inch. I decided the weed is perfect for composting mulch! I started pulling the remaining weed in the east flowerbed.

I uncovered hostas, irises, violets, and a maple seedling. I pulled the maple seedling but left the other others.

It wasn’t difficult to pull another full wheelbarrow of weed.

This time it covered remaining the bare soil!

The weed might grow back since I probably did not get all the rootlets…but I have other places in the yard I can use it for mulch. The strategy is to pull it before it creates seeds. My overall goal is to keep what the yard grows cycled into the yard…avoid spraying or fertilizing…plant more pollinator-friendly plants…and (over time) reduce the amount of turf.

Tree Mulching Project

/

When we first moved to Missouri last summer, we hired a crew to mow/weed eat/edge our yard. This season I am doing it. The first time I mowed (with our new battery powered mower…a big improvement over the gasoline powered one we had in Maryland), it was obvious that the job would be easier if the trees had mulch around them – an area large enough to avoid any low branches. The front yard has three trees: 2 red maples and an Asian dogwood. The red maples are relatively young trees so the mulched area did not need to be large. The dogwood had a lot of lower branches that I wanted to keep – hence a larger circle of mulch.

The first step was define the circle I would cover with mulch with very short grass; it was a good project for me to learn to use our new weed eater (also batter powered).

My husband helped me pour bags of mulch and I spread it around with a rake. The red maples took 1.5 bags each and the dogwood took 3 bags.

My follow up plan is to plant some daylilies and butterfly weed in the mulch areas around the red maples. The base of the young trees in sunny because are relatively skinny trees; the plants should do well. I enjoyed the ‘ruff’ of daylilies I had around the base of our oak tree in Maryland, and I hope eventually that will happen around these red maples. The plants might make it easier to extend the mulch circles as the trees grow since they reproduce rapidly. There aren’t deer wondering through our Missouri neighborhood eating buds like candy (like happened in Maryland); I’m looking forward to having flowers!

Kittens! – Month 8

/

Our three kittens are growing up! They still sometimes sleep close together on the (sheet covered) futon…but each with their own space rather than in a pile as they did when they were very young (Puma, Pooky, Sooty on the move from top to bottom in this picture).

The male cat, Sooty, is the only one to jump to the top of the kitchen cabinets (where there are indirect lighting fixtures). My husband thought the cat might not get down on his own, but Sooty is quite capable of that (as he demonstrated before my husband could get a step ladder in place to climb up to reach him).

The kitchen is where our biggest remaining challenges are with the kittens. They all like to watch food preparation and they are fascinated by running water in the sink. We had one instance of them chewing through plastic packaging on bread (fortunately that has not been repeated). My husband provides the kittens a snack to draw them away from the kitchen while I prepare a meal …but they are back once they finish eating. I have learned to prep faster!

They have a tent that they’ve all used at various times for some private space although there are occasions that the two females (Puma and Pooky) nap together. Sooty is bigger and demands the whole space.

The 2 hammocks we have are also popular napping spots. The hammocks were handed down from our previous cats. Sooty was the first to claim the leopard one.

The kittens have learned to use scratching posts rather than the furniture (most of the time). They tore one rope wrapped post apart and they like the new one as a pedestal almost better than for scratching (Pooky, Sooty, Puma).

The cat donut is in the background. They all enjoy it – sometimes as part of an obstacle course and sometimes for napping. Occasionally it has two at one time in it – on opposite sides.

We have baby latches on several cabinets now….all of the kittens had become adept at opening lower kitchen and bathroom cabinets…getting inside…not always as adept at getting out. Fortunately – we didn’t have an instance when all three of them were stuck; the kitten(s) on the outside would stay close…our clue that a kitten was trapped.

Overall – we are still having fun keeping up with the kittens. We have left them for one overnight with our daughter checking on them and they were unphased. We’re taking a 5-day vacation this month; even though our daughter will be with them one or two times a day, we are anticipating they will be needy kittens when we return…another milestone for them and for us.

Previous Kittens! Posts: day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4, day 5, week 1, week 2, month 1, month 2, month 3, month 4

Spring Bulbs

/

Before I went off to Carrollton, TX the last week of March, the bulbs I planted last fall were beginning to bloom in our Nixa, MO yard. We had some very cold nights and the flowers seemed to take a very long time to open. There were only two crocus; one looked battered and the other looked like it had been eaten! Some leaves of another bulb were eaten as well (maybe it was a hyacinth). The hyacinths were a bit deformed too.

A little over a week later when I returned home – everything was blooming profusely outside the window of my office. The daffodils are probably the bulbs that are doing the best and will come back year after year. The squirrels have left them alone too. My plan it to hold off mowing the area for a few weeks – giving the bulbs time replenish and grow….be good to bloom next year.

The days are getting longer. The sunrise is at its best around 6:30 AM when I am in my office to enjoy it so I am OK with daylight savings time again!

Hot Pepper Suet

/

Most of the winter the squirrels quickly ate the suet we put out…with the birds getting a minor share. Now – the birds are getting virtually all the hot pepper suet! The spiciness does not bother them. My favorites are the blue jays which would sometimes visit our patio area but were never there for long. Now they come to the suet several times before moving on.

And the squirrels don’t like the hot pepper spiciness at all. I have seen a squirrel at the suet feeder, but they leave within seconds! Maybe this is the only kind of suet we’ll buy in the future!