Random observations from your day

[odeon]

Lots of tourists about today. Our little village is a tourist magnet these days.

[DirtDawg]

Not touristy, just locals out in huge numbers. Super busy roads. It was 80F/27C and clear, beautiful late spring day. It was a play day! They even blocked off one of our few bridges over the river, which I use to get our kids to work. That was annoying, but I am glad to see the small town come back to life.
The area where they host the "farmers market" has been under renovation, again, so they extended the market day from just a Saturday morning to include all day and all day Sunday.

The bridge was closed to protect the massive foot traffic this change created.

... but, HEY! It's Leg Season!

[DirtDawg]

Now that the weather has warmed consistently, the hummingbirds have come back. We have eight really large, well grown huechera plantings in our yard which the hummingbirds frequent in the mornings.

We had a few at the old place, but here they swarm through every morning in large numbers. Really beautiful!

[Icequeen]

Now that the weather has warmed consistently, the hummingbirds have come back. We have eight really large, well grown huechera plantings in our yard which the hummingbirds frequent in the mornings.

We had a few at the old place, but here they swarm through every morning in large numbers. Really beautiful!

Need to put mine in the flower bed. Neighbor always buys those pricey flower arrangements every year, and tosses them over the hill come fall when everything dies ..sometimes they mix perennials in with the annuals though. Noticed this winter that one plant was still fighting to hang on in the pile of rubble when I walked out to get the mail. Stuck it in a pot and brought it in, it's nice and healthy now on the back porch.

My mom used to have them here, but I guess you need to divide them every 4 years or so because they can get woody and rot during the winter here if not. We didn't. 

[Genesis]

Thoughts of revenge are best left for fiction, not the real world... if it happened in the real world I would be in county jail being ordered to take counseling from a Christian Therapist who has no idea what they're doing.

[DirtDawg]

Now that the weather has warmed consistently, the hummingbirds have come back. We have eight really large, well grown huechera plantings in our yard which the hummingbirds frequent in the mornings.

We had a few at the old place, but here they swarm through every morning in large numbers. Really beautiful!

Need to put mine in the flower bed. Neighbor always buys those pricey flower arrangements every year, and tosses them over the hill come fall when everything dies ..sometimes they mix perennials in with the annuals though. Noticed this winter that one plant was still fighting to hang on in the pile of rubble when I walked out to get the mail. Stuck it in a pot and brought it in, it's nice and healthy now on the back porch.

My mom used to have them here, but I guess you need to divide them every 4 years or so because they can get woody and rot during the winter here if not. We didn't.

I love free plants!  I used to haunt the grocery stores in the fall when they dump everything that's not perfect. Grocery stores don't usually have a dedicated/educated person to care for the displays they lease from nurseries. So they just toss everything not "shiny" enough to sell. Goldmine!
I have reclaimed many things that just needed to be repotted and given a second chance.

There's another native plant that attracts hummingbirds, but they are quite large. I'll let someone else use those.
I'll stick with smaller plants.

I am pleased with how these huechera are doing. Probably divide them next year. I swore to myself that I would only watch and learn for this entire year before I do anything but nursing efforts.

I am going to fill a few holes with the small, shrubby, ever-bloomig roses this fall, though. Bright red ones I have chosen are commonly called "Fire Meidiland Rose."   They stay small, but it's still a rose, so, same care as big-ass fancy English roses, but with much better behavior.

[Icequeen]

I have a few roses, bought a bunch of them one year reduced for a $1.00 after they lost their labeling. Surprises are nice.

Ended up with 2 climbers and some assorted bushes.

Cemetery up the road used to dump anything in pots over the hillside after every holiday so that they could mow the grass. azaleas, lilly's, rhododendrons from that dump, curbside iris, freebies by the dumpster, daffodils near old cellar holes from burned out houses....

Friend of mine inherited a house from an elderly aunt years ago...the aunt and her mother had a huge cottage garden. My friend preferred the structured, typical small landscaping shrubs, stone with well defined borders and a few well behaved plants. (I am not a fan of the well-behaved...I have trumpet vine on my porch railing...that stuff is a bigger asshole than English ivy)

So there I was with a shovel, tarps/boxes laid down in the back of a VW Golf, and plants literally poking out of the sunroof. Probably a dozen or so trips. Saved what I could.

First thing to go was the giant Rhododendrons in front because she considered them a "security risk" blocking the view of the house from the road... 30+ yr old Peonies she was mowing to the ground and was pissed because they kept growing back. My mom about fell over when she heard about it.

"GET THOSE PLANTS"

...so I did.

I did A LOT of digging that year, I could barely walk upright for a month...while my mom ooohhhed and awwwed over every muddy carload.

It was so worth it.   

[rock hound]

Thoughts of revenge are best left for fiction, not the real world... if it happened in the real world I would be in county jail being ordered to take counseling from a Christian Therapist who has no idea what they're doing.

Agreed and Amen! 

[DirtDawg]

I did not mention trumpet vine, but that is the large, "attracts hummingbirds"  plant I was talking about. I had it on my back fence at the old place. I had taken bamboo stakes and woven them into the chainlink fence at the back and the trumpet vines grew six to eight feet tall out there with those bamboo stalks as support.

Those plus some euonymus and I had a living privacy fence of native plants that required very little care.

Rhododendrons don't do well here unless you dig a huge hole and replace all the natural soil with a heavily acidic mix of peat and active organic matter. They need low pH and that's quite a trick to accomplish in limestone soil. You have to build a giant inground pot for them to thrive.

I do regret not salvaging my thirty year old peonies and a chance to cherry pick a massive group of irises and Asiatic lillies from our old place.
But, as I have mentioned, our new home is landscaped well and beautiful to behold.
Busted wing kind of gave me a reality check.

[DirtDawg]

The bunny brigade is out in force this morning.
So cool to see these big ass bunnies everywhere. There is one especially large bull that is actually "eating size" running around out back. He has a call that marks him as king shit bunny.
I won't do it, don't worry. My wife does not like game and to her, rabbits are not for eating anyway.

She won't even touch venison I bring in, unless I make chili with it. I guess all the spices hide the "gaminess" of the deer? I like venison and wild rabbits, too.
But, I'll give her this one.
Besides, if I eat them they will be gone and I like watching them a lot more.

[Parts]

There was a guy out it the  river in a kayak frantically trying to get away from a swan while yelling 'FUCK FUCK FUCK' today when I was walking the dog .  I fucking hate swans and know enough to give them a wide berth evidently he did not

[DirtDawg]

Few swans here, but same story with "adapted to humans"  Canadian geese.
There can some kind of goosey bachelor party going on at the lake and they won't even let you out of the car when you pull up.

... until you feed them something, that is. Then they won't let you leave.
 

[rock hound]

Noticed a 2nd construction type cargo holder was placed near the entrance to our townhouse area.  The first one has windows and bars in them, as well as a hook up to an electrical out let at the base of a nearby utility pole.   

[rock hound]

On my daily walk, I noticed the two full beer cans that I left on a rock wall by the roadside cemetery were gone.     They were the cans I found in the inner rock wall of said old cemetery.   By the fading on the cans, they had obviously been there for some time, a year or two or more.  I wasn't about to take them home to try to drink them.     Oh well, cheers to whoever took them.

[odeon]

... but, HEY! It's Leg Season!

This.

Prague had lovely summer weather. Just sayin'.