Ten Little Celebrations – July 2023

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Celebrating is often linked with appreciation. When I notice that I am celebrating something – I almost always notice that I appreciate that it happened or how beautiful it is…or just that it is a brilliant positive in my day.   Noticing little things to celebrate/appreciate every day is a habit that builds mental resilience!

Miniature pumpkins on the vine. I planted the seeds back in May, not confident that they would be more than vines. They started to bloom – and I enjoyed the flowers. I am celebrating the recognizable little pumpkins now.

A new low weight of the year. Slowly but surely…I am getting to the ‘normal’ weight for my height. Every time I reach a new low for the year, I celebrate!

Ozark (Missouri) farmers market. I was overwhelmed by the crowd at the farmers market in Springfield and underwhelmed by the sparse number of vendors in Nixa. I celebrated that the Ozark farmers market was the Goldilocks (i.e. ‘just right’).

2 ‘hens and chicks’ planted. I finally planted something new in the front flower bed; it wasn’t a simple task since it required moving rock and cutting away landscaping fabric underneath. I celebrated the completed project…and am enjoying the anticipation of ‘chicks’ appearing before fall.

Getting the lawn mowed. Avoiding high temperatures…rain..heavy due. I celebrated that the night was dry, the light dew in the morning, and the temperatures still in the 70s when I did the mowing.

Intensity minutes while gardening. This summer I have increased my ‘intensity minutes’ rather than simply sustaining my low sedentary time. Mowing generally results in ‘intensity minutes’…but I celebrated when some of my general gardening did too!

Lake Springfield meadow. There is something different to celebrate every time I go. In July the uptick in dragonflies and butterflies was the high-point.

Sprinklers all working. We noticed that one zone of our sprinkler system was not working when the grass started turning brown…so we celebrated when it was fixed (and also that we got rain too) and the grass started its recovery.

Rounding of 3 corners in our yard. I had an idea to round the corners of our yard to make mowing easier (curves rather than right angles) and celebrated that the actions I took for 3 corners (planting some and putting down landscaping cloth to kill grass so that I can plant something) is working!

Test at doctors office shows all OK. Its always worth celebrating when a test comes back with the desired result….of course, with some measure of relief too.

Zooming – July 2023

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The photographic opportunities bulged with the addition of a trip to St. Louis along with the monthly trip to Texas…. local walk abouts in our yard and neighborhood…the Lake Springfield boathouse too. They all added up to a lot of zoomed images taken with my bridge camera (Canon Powershot SX70 HS). I enjoyed choosing which ones to include in this month’s post!

Yard Work – July 2023

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July has been a busy month yard work. The hotter weather and failure of a zone in our sprinkler system (which we didn’t notice immediately) resulted in less mowing…but other jobs more than made up for time savings.

My irises did not have a lot of blooms last spring, so I checked one of the beds and discovered that it was so clogged with rhizomes that they were no longer covered with soil. I dug up a huge mass…broke the rhizomes apart and planted them in the mound of dirt where the pine tree used to be. That meant extra watering of the mound. I also transplanted some lambs ear to the mound. The location is sunnier that the previous place the irises were and I am hoping for more blooms next spring. The downside is – I won’t see them from my office window. I also have more iris beds that I haven’t checked yet.

I also decided to round the corners of my back yard so that it would be easier to mow. I dug up lambs ear that had come up in the yard for two corners that already did not have much grass and put landscaping fabric down in a third. After the grass dies under the landscaping cloth, I’ll transplant iris rhizomes to that corner.

A local farmers market had hens and chicks (small so I guess they were chicks). I bought 2…cleared away rock and landscaping cloth in my front flowerbed and hope they will create a new texture for the bed. They might even grow on the top of the rocks!

My wildflower garden is doing well for the first year. I am watering it frequently along with the miniature pumpkin plant that I planted nearby. So far – there are 5 miniature pumpkins on the vine!

Our most robust pine has become my place for larger items I pull from other beds. The pine needles and opportunistic plants growing there add to the contrasts.

Overall – a good month for the yard. I am slowly but surely making the adjustments I want!

Barn Swallows

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The barn swallow nest under our deck earlier this summer failed (not sure what happened) but the second nest built above the deck on a brick wall visible through the glass paneled door to the deck appears to be successful. We avoid going out on the deck since the whole flock of swallows gets agitated and dive bombs into the area to protect the nest. Sometimes they get upset even if we go out on the floor below or are out in the back yard. My husband has set up a tripod and is capturing their antics through the glass door!

The adult birds come to feed their young. Note how the adult’s tail is used to stabilize its perch on the nest surface. The young are scruffy looking but feathers are beginning to appear.

Only 4 days later and the nest is overflowing with the 4 babies. They are beginning to look more like the adults…less down, more feathers. And they are always hungry.

My husband is already talking about what we will do once the young fledge and the nest is no longer occupied. There is a pile of bird poop below the nest…that will be the first to go…and then we’ll remove the nest itself. (reference: https://www.fws.gov/story/nuisance-swallows)

Macro in the Garden

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My garden plot has done reasonably well for its 1st season. I am letting all the wildflowers bloom and make seeds. The bulbs will hopefully be more robust next year too. The plot has been a joy to see at every stage – a reward for my efforts to plant and keep watered.

The added benefit is the variety of plants for macro photography (using Samsung Galaxy S10e phone). My goal is to make the rounds at least once a month since the plants change throughout the season. The highlights this month are the poppies making seeds and the sunflower just beginning the process. The red leaves are a rosebush next to the patch of wildflowers and bulbs.

Next to the wildflower garden, I have a vine of miniature pumpkins. There are three that are getting  bigger every day.

I noticed that the petals of the showy flowers have spikes at the tip that shortens as the petals unfurl. When I first started looking at the flower, I noticed some small insects were there. I wondered if they were pollinators; then a black carpenter bee came, and I switched to video mode. Clearly the carpenter bee was the pollinator!

In the front yard – there were three types of mushrooms growing where the large tree was cut down well before we saw our house; I know it was there because of the depression and general bumpiness caused by the decaying roots. The most numerous mushrooms this time were white blobs pushing up out of the grass.

In closer looks – they remind me of toasted marshmallows!

The second type was darker and still had rolled edges. They had previously been the most numerous kind I’d seen in the area…but not this time. I wondered if there is a fungi succession when it came to tree stumps/roots.

The third type was a single specimen….more delicate looking than the others. I see it elsewhere in the yard.

 The macro world….easier to observe with my phone in hand!

Plant of the Month: Pokeweed

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A little history…about Pokeweed becoming my ‘plant of the month.’

In Maryland, I battled pokeweed that emerged in my flowerbeds – pulling them and digging up their roots. Here in my Missouri yard – the plant’s exuberant growth has won me over; the large, bright green leaves look good against brick/wood or against other vegetation that is a different shape/texture/color. Its become an appreciated plant in my landscape.

The small blooms are not all that obvious…but are interest at close range. The plants will produce dark purple berries that songbirds will eat in the fall! We have mourning doves, robins, northern mockingbirds and cardinals that are among the birds species known to eat pokeweed berries.

Our Missouri Neighborhood – July 2023

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July has been hot…though not as hot as Texas. I’ve appreciated being home. The month started dry but then suddenly we got 2 inches of rain in 2 days after teasing with clouds and forecasts for rain that didn’t materialize. We have a good vantage point for the sunset over the neighborhood pool house from our patio.  

I saw a large red-eared slider on the move across the neighbor’s yard behind our house; it appeared to be moving in the general direction of the ponds. By the time I got out of the house with my phone for the picture, the turtle was at the tennis court…and quickly discovered the fence barrier. I noticed that the back of the turtle appeared wet; I wondered if it (she?) had been laying eggs – maybe in some damp, mulchy place. I assume the turtle managed to get back to the pond; I didn’t stick around in the heat of midafternoon.

About a week later I walked out into the eastern side of our yard to photograph the sunrise from two perspectives over neighbors’ houses.

More recently I took a morning walk around the ponds. We have more Purple Loosestrife that ever this year at the edge of the ponds….which is not a good thing since the state says it is “a noxious weed in Missouri and should be removed as quickly as possible.” Maybe it takes some finesse to remove it with propagating it? I hope eventually we’ll eradicate it and plant something native – like buttonbush (one of my favorites).

Note that the second picture (above) is near the willow tree…the one that had grown around a stake. There seem to be more plants around the base of the willow this year than I noticed last year.

Asian honeysuckle – another non-native invasive plant – is also growing in clumps around the pond. I wonder if there are children that pull the flowers to taste the nectar? I remember doing that as a child…and taught my daughter to do it too!

There are maple seedlings that are growing in the areas that don’t get mowed and a small clover hill that is full of blooms even with the occasional mowing.

I tried an artsy picture of the sun glint on the water silhouetting the shore vegetation. It looks like a picture that could have been taken at night!

Bullfrogs are some of the more recognizable sounds at the pond. It is harder to see them. This one was under one of the loosestrifes. I heard another one not far away while I was photographing this one.

As I headed back to our gate, I saw a robin on our fence…observing me!

July is a great month to be outdoors in the morning…but the afternoons have been stifling – good time to be indoors with air conditioning.

Indoor Flowers

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My office windows have a limited view to the outside even though there are 4 of them:

  • Irises and violets (long past their blooming) in a flower bed and lawn

  • Hosta and crape myrtle in a flowerbed, pine and lawn

  • Hostas and a bush in a flowerbed, chiminea fire pit, holly trees, bird feeders

  • Patio

The hostas are blooming but not anything else. I appreciate whatever is blooming around the yard and periodically bring them indoors to enjoy in vases that easily fit on a windowsill – out of the way and where I can see them when I am at my 2-monitor computer table. In July the indoor flowers are primarily roses and gladiola.

Periodically I get into the mood to do something with my cameras…and the indoor flowers are obvious subjects – particularly on rainy or ‘too hot’ days. Macro photography (Samsung Galaxy S10e) is easier indoors – no breeze to move things around.

High key photography is also easy enough since the flowers are already in a window that has sun shining in for a short time in the morning.

Most of the time I can adjust enough to eliminate the screen outside the window (I left one image with the screen showing a little in the slideshow below). I had taken the screen off last year but discovered that birds crashed into the window too frequently without it! I have an office chair well back from the window…using the zoom on my bridge camera (Canon Powershot SX70 HS) to compose the image I want…probably the most ‘artsy’ type of photography I do. I like the gentle curves that combine to form the flowers…the softer focus.

Our Missouri Yard – July 2023

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There’ s always something to photograph when I walk around our yard. I photographed a mushroom that had appeared in the grass near one of the pavers along the route to our back gate for a walk around the neighborhood ponds.

The big players in my macro photography (done with my phone – a Samsung Galaxy S10e) around the yard this month have been the roses that came up from the roots of the bushes that died, the ornamental grass (also coming back from last year), ‘wildflowers’ I planted in a flowerbed near the house that I cleared of rocks and landscaping cloth, and the crape myrtle that came back from the roots (I have 4 and they all came back but only one is blooming so far).

After an early morning rain, I went out to photograph the water on the plants with my bridge camera (Canon Powershot SX70 HS) so that I could use the zoom rather than needing to get close: roses, grass and leave/needless, hosta flowers, crape myrtle. The hostas are my favorite.

I like our new home – inside and out!

Alliums

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I planted allium bulbs last fall. They sprouted and bloomed in the spring. I enjoyed several photographic sessions with them over the past few months. In May they were blooming, and I tried various levels of zooming and lighting. The buds unfurl until they are an orb of color.

In early June, I cut them because the grass was getting too long where I had planted them – and it needed to be mowed. I did some high key images of the wilting flowers and seed formation.

In July, I noticed that the seeds were visible in the open husks. I took some macro images before I took them out and distributed the seeds into some flower beds where it would be great to have them sprout next year!

Balloon Glow

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I missed an annual event near my home in Missouri while I was Carrollton TX in June – a balloon glow (where tethered hot air balloons are inflated at dusk at a local park as part of a summer festival). My husband and daughter decided to attend at the last minute after afternoon thunderstorms ended…and sent pictures! It was great to be able to enjoy the event vicariously (and maybe also good not to be slogging through a muddy field). But – I am determined pay attention to the scheduling of the event and be there rather than in Texas in 2024!

Ten Little Celebrations – June 2023

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Every day brings multiple little celebrations…I choose one to log for the day and then select 10 each month to savor in this post.

One year anniversary for our Missoure home. June 2022 is when we moved to Missouri. We’ve settled into the house and I’ve confirmed that my favorite room in the house is my office…just as it was in the Maryland house. The house itself and being closer to family have confirmed again and again that we made a good decision to move when did! So we are celebrating the anniversary.

Dishwasher and sprinkler system working. Of course, every house needs maintenance…in June both our dishwasher and sprinkler system had problems (dishwasher leaked water and the sprinkler system developed a broken head/pipe after the grinding of the pine stump). Fortunately, both were easily fixed (rather than an expensive replacement) and we celebrated that they are functioning again.

Internet/TV/phones working. Shortly after I got to my parents’ home in Carrollton, their internet and TV and phones failed. We had a painful 4 days….celebrated when the tech finally came and replaced their outside box (it was at least 18 years old!).

Scissor-tail at Josey Ranch. Celebrated when I saw a scissor-tailed flycatcher while I was out of my car with camera in hand!

Ducklings at Josey Ranch. Celebrated seeing newly hatched ducklings with a mom trying to protect them from turtles!

Seeing beautyberry flowering. I had previously only noticed beautyberry plants after they had their purple berries. This June I celebrated knowing where the plants grew so I could see the flowers.

Trimming all the dead parts out of crape myrtle and rose buses. It was a daunting task because it seemed like there was so much to trim. It got a little better when I discovered that my gauntlet gloves worked (not thorn pricks from the roses) and that the dead twigs/branches would burn easily. I celebrated when the task was completed…felt like I had accomplished a lot in getting my yard looking better for the summer.

Buying a fragrant sumac (native plant sale). I celebrated my first native plant addition to my landscaping…there will be more through the years.

Homemade marinade with balsamic vinegar. Celebrating trying a new recipe and realizing that I will never need to buy bottle mariade again!

Road trip to St. Louis. Celebrating another road trip with my daughter! Blog posts coming up re our adventure.

Mushrooms and a Robin’s Egg

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Some surprises that show up in my yard are worth photographing! The mushrooms that show up where a large tree was removed (probably several years before we bought the house) have appeared several times in the year we have owned the house. They come up in clumps that display different stages of development…then disintegrate to black goo. I saw these one morning when I was mowing….stopped to take pictures before I continued.

The same day I saw part of a Robin’s egg in the mulch under one our maples. Was there a robin’s nest in the tree…a parent cleaning up after a chick hatched? That is the hopeful story I told myself…although I also realized a predator could have found the nest in the tree or elsewhere and dropped the shell after a good meal.

The next day, I mowed the other half of the yard and discovered a stinkhorn had come up in the mulch where our pine had recently been cut and the stump ground up. I guess the fungi are hard at work in the cleanup!

June Yard Work

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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!