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| If you need a hobby while under house arrest, buy ears of corn and place them on a squirrel feeder like this little chair. You will be filling it every day. Empty cobs will appear to remind you to buy more. |
Our thunderstorms seem to race across Springdale. Thursday night was full of warnings but one inch of rain fell. Sassy and I went walking and saw Pat and John Friday morning. She had been looking for them on every morning walk. They said, "Give us some love, Sassy." She came in closer to kiss them.
The Friday storm was robust, with three more inches falling. Saturday may add more rain.
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| The rose garden was once carpeted with shredded cyprus mulch, but rain and soil creatures have converted it to soil. |
I will check the new Joe Pye and Red Daisies on our walk. Another Daisy will form a mound of flowers, so it is called Whoopsa Daisy, the cheer we use on Sassy for jumping up on the bed. We clap and yell when she does it. "Yay! Hooray, she did it!" She answers with joyous barks.
She expects her morning walks around 7 am and begins whimpering around 3 PM for the afternoon walk. She was ahead of everyone. Harvard Medical wrote that two walks a day are the best medicine.
New plants are in areas where everyone can see them, so I check up on them during walks and note the progress of roses. Last year the wild roses were blooming first. This year Easy Does It bloomed first, and wild roses began afterwards. The wild roses will bloom only once.
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| Europeana Rose |
Hybrid tea roses are enjoyed by many because they have longer stems and bloom repeatedly. The Knock Out roses are shrubs, more weather resistant, but not self-pruning as advertised. They love a 30% pruning and rebloom quickly.
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| Sassy likes to dig a bed in the garden. Recently she raked out a wild rose, which was in her way. No problem - I was going to pull it out. |
Borage - Bee Bread
I have a large packet of Buckwheat seeds left, but the early rains have made me fearful of using them among the roses. They actually engulfed the roses twice in the same summer, thanks to rain that helped prodigious growth. |
| Borage flowers are tiny and drop seed easily. Sometimes it will grow again the next spring on its own. |
Instead, I will scatter Borage seeds everywhere. A pound is slightly more than 4 ounces, so I bought a pound. Borage blooms, forms seed, and blooms again. Bees love to work them over, and the borage presence encourages even more friendly pollinators. The flowers are edible and used in salads.
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| Bee Balm reminds us that unkempt hair is still attractive to some. |
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| Hummingbirds delight the front porch sitters. The smallest of birds is also the bravest and most sociable. |
