~ the lovely...

Spring garden in full bloom 5.14.13




The photo is set up so you can click on it to enlarge it.  Wish I could figure out a way so that you would be able to smell the irises and roses -- they are just fantastic this year! :-)

Hope you find "the lovely" this weekend...

~ are they telling me something?

I found this hanging in my front door this morning...




Why would someone take the time to walk up on our front porch and hang this on our door?  Did they not notice that our yard already has everything that they advertise?

~ peonies...

Fully bloomed while the temperatures were still chilly...




Thanks to the "powers that be" the temperature over the past few days did not require the use of the slightly malfunctioning air conditioner.  The repairman fixed the problem yesterday -- so at some point today, we will be testing his expertise.

We also learned that the refrigerant our air conditioner uses -- R22 -- is being phased out by the federal government.  By 2015 it will be 90% unavailable and expensive if you need it.  If I want to continue being cool during the summer months, guess I had better start saving now...sigh...

~ family history...

Ancestry.com is allowing free searches through military records until May 27.  I hopped on over there and found this!



It is a draft registration card from 1942 for my great-grandfather!  From what I have researched, even though my great-grandfather was 58 years old at the time this draft was taking place, he was required to register.  It is called the old man's draft.  This little piece of paper answers many questions for me.  It was a great find!

If you are interested in your own family history, you should hop on over to ancestry.com today or tomorrow -- before the free military search access is over.

~ so much to do...

We need Mother Nature to cooperate this weekend, so at least the begonias can be planted in the front yard...




...and after that, maybe she'll let us throw some burgers and dogs on the barbie too!

Have a great Memorial Day weekend :-)

~ calling in the experts...

Here is a photo of some of the leaves on our newly planted upright japanese maple (acer p. bloodgood).  I took the photo this morning.  I have noticed white areas on the leaves over the past 2 days.  The weather has been rainy with periods of bright sunshine.  Is this sunscald? or some sort of fungus? or disease?




Anyone have experience with this?

I have set up the photo so you can click on it to make it larger.

~ how it begins...

At the beginning of May, Rick planted a few seeds around the backyard that he saved from our last year's sunflowers.  This past weekend, we were still looking at the wooden plant markers and dirt.  We thought perhaps the seeds had been damaged over the winter, so we decided to plant a few new seeds from a package purchased at the store.  As Rick was planting the new seeds, I thought to myself -- watch everything just pop out at once...

Yup...that's what happened :-)

This is a seedling sprouting from last year's sunflower seeds.  The seedling at the top of this photo is a rose of sharon -- we have seedlings all over the yard from our original Rose of Sharon.  I just pluck them out -- but this year I am going to try and keep a few to see what they do ;-)




This is the view of where the sunflower seedlings are  planted in the backyard outside of the kitchen windows.  The hosta plant at the left side of the photo is a transplant from 26 Hatfield.  It is in a temporary spot -- pretty sure this is the third year it's been there -- maybe it should just stay there...



So, I thought that this year I would record the progress of this little sunflower -- you know -- just because I have nothing better to do than sit back and watch the plants grow :-)