Walk Around the Yard and Plans

Monday morning I did a walk around the yard and took photos to share with you.

First here's the view of the field and hill to the west of us. Grass is green but no leaves on trees here yet.

At the bottom of our deck is this clump of daffodils planted by someone else.  I counted the blossoms - 20, so it's got to be at least that old.

Saturday was a good day to work in the yard.  I had Dan remove a large clump of day lilies that were mixed up with too much grass to be weeded properly.  I planted instead three day lilies I got from FedCo Seeds called "Simmons Overture",  They are supposed to grow to 24" tall with giant 6" blossoms in lavender-rose with dark purple eye zones.  When they bloom I'll share a photo.  I also transplanted a clump of Siberian irises and a clump of what I think is spider wort.  I still need to put rocks around the top side and mulch that new little bed.

Here's a new face in the yard from one of the bulbs I planted last year.

Here's another.  Both of these are in that little bed.  Daffodils and day lilies go well together because the foliage of the day lily covers the drooping foliage of the daffodils.

Across the yard is this new bed created last year when we had the hemlocks limbed up.  It's where my Inukshuk is still standing without adhesive.  Look carefully and you'll see 6 holes where I plan to plant 6 humongous Hosta I purchased from FedCo.  I need to think of a better name for this garden.  Maybe Inukshuk Garden or Rock Sculpture Garden as I plan to try my hand at more rock sculptures.

We cleaned out the compost bin and Dan dumped the compost in that bed for me to use in planting.

In the back Hosta Garden the first Hosta is showing up.

So is this ligularia. I hope I get some volunteers of this one from the seeds it put out last year.

Pansies from last year wintered over.

Wild ginger, I think, is showing itself.

And lamb's ear survived the winter.  Not shown are two purple heucheras that survived.  One yellow one did not.

This bluebird box is new to our yard.  Emily had it but it was too close to her apple trees so I took it and placed it on the property line.  Saturday I spied a female bluebird near the deck and a male sitting on this box.  They have a lot of boxes to choose from [unlike human house hunters - tight house market here].

In the garden next to the deck, the white irises that Blogger Vickie Lane sent me are growing.

The peonies are getting bigger.

I still need to clear off leaves and see what is showing up in this front bed. Last year there was a fence dividing this bed and the view into our yard from the street.

In the front yard the beds next to the porch will undergo an overhaul this spring.  I want to move the hosta out and add lavender and annuals.  I want to widen them a bit too,

Looking into the yard from the front that propane tank is such an eye sore.

We did plant a juniper on the deck side of the tank to block our view of it from there. We had the tank moved away from the house because snow got trapped behind it and was rotting out the clapboards.  I wish we could paint it.

So as you can see Spring is still a work in progress here.

 

 My oldest brother sent me this.

Lost words from those of us lucky enough to have lived in the 1950s

Mergatroyd! Do you remember that word? Would you believe the spell-checker did not recognize the word Mergatroyd? Heavens to Mergatroyd!

The other day a not so elderly, (I say 75), lady said something to her son about driving a Jalopy; and he looked at her, quizzically and said, "What the heck is a Jalopy?" He had never heard of the word jalopy! She knew she was old!

Well, I hope you are Hunky Dory  after you read this and chuckle.

About a month ago, I illuminated some old expressions that have become obsolete because of the inexorable march of technology. These phrases included: Don't touch that dial, Carbon copy, You sound like a broken record, and Hung out to dry.

Back in the olden days, we had a lot of moxie.  We'd put on our best bib and tucker , to  straighten up and fly right.

Heavens to Betsy! Gee whillikers! Jumping jehoshaphat, Holy moley!

We were in like Flynn and living the life of Riley ; and even a regular guy couldn't accuse us of being a knucklehead, a nincompoop or a pill. Not for all the tea in China!

Back in the olden days, life used to be swell, but when's the last time anything was swell? Swell has gone the way of beehives, pageboys and the Duck's Ass; or spats, knickers, fedoras, poodle skirts, saddle shoes, and pedal pushers.

Oh, my aching back! Kilroy was here, but he isn't anymore.
We wake up from what surely has been just a short nap, and before we can say, "Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle!" Or, "This is a fine kettle of fish!" We discover that the words we grew up with, the words that seemed omnipresent - as oxygen - have vanished with scarcely a notice from our tongues and our pens and our keyboards.

Poof, go the words of our youth, the words we've left behind. We blinked, and they're gone. Where have all those great phrases gone?

Long gone: Pshaw, The milkman did it. Hey! It's your nickel. Don't forget to pull the chain. Knee high to a grasshopper. Well, Fiddlesticks! Going like sixty. I'll see you in the funny papers. Don't take any wooden nickels. Wake up and smell the roses!

It turns out there are more of these lost words and expressions than Carter has liver pills. This can be disturbing stuff! (Carter's Little Liver Pills are gone too!)

Leaves us to wonder where Superman will find a phone booth... See ya later, alligator! or  AFTER WHILE CROCODILE.


Okidoki. You'll notice they left out "Monkey Business"!!!

WE ARE THE CHILDREN OF THE FABULOUS 50'S ... NO ONE WILL EVER HAVE THAT OPPORTUNITY AGAIN .. WE WERE GIVEN ONE OF OUR MOST PRECIOUS GIFTS: LIVING IN THE PEACEFUL AND COMFORTABLE TIMES, CREATED FOR US BY THE "GREATEST GENERATION!"

New Garden Art

 We have a lot of rocks in our soil as we have discovered with the grading work we had done last year. It's the nature of this land and why stone walls are so prevalent.

I've always wanted to make a First Man  or Inukshuk [Wikipedia] after we saw them in Glacier National Park and in Banff in 1999.

Here's a magnet from Canada as a small example.

On our 1999 trip we hiked the Highline Trail in Glacier National Park and there were these statues all over the place. I made this one while I sat and enjoyed the scenery.

Sunday I finally made one for the garden. Sorry there's no sense of scale but it's over two feet tall.

I wanted to build it before I planted a wide variety of Hosta in this bed. I didn't have cement and hope it stays up.  It fell multiple times as I attempted to get it all balanced. The largest stones were very weighty.

My Garden Room

 

This clump of daffodils is tucked in a corner near the deck planted by former residents. There were irises in this space too that I transplanted.

Two different peonies that were in a very shaded garden 

and also in the midst of weeds at the edge of the field behind us have made their appearance this spring in a new flower bed where I moved them to last summer. Daughter Emily doesn't think they'll bloom for me this year because of how poorly they were doing in their former locations. 

The barn will be painted this summer but that doesn't prevent us from using it now.  The door on the left opens to what I've named the Garden Room. The doors leaning there outside are giveaways.  When we had a fence I thought I'd mount one on the fence after painting it. The other was going to be made into a headboard by son in law Matt. They have a headboard coming to them from his grandmother instead.

This was once an animal stall, likely for horses.

Dan built a potting bench for me and mounted a shelf.

My order from FedCo Seeds of perennials came on Friday last week and since we are not past our frost date, as instructed, I've temporarily planted the hosta, day lily and bleeding heart plants in potting soil.

Here's the door to an interior room with the steps that lead up to our rec room where the ping pong table is. See my blue bird bath on the floor on the right.  It's too soon to put that out too.

Love these daffodils - first color besides green and brown in the yard.