I really want a big field with a hill full of red poppies cascading down. Not that poppies typically cascade or anything. The only place I know of anywhere close to here is along the interstate near the overpasses.

And I’m not going there. I could just see a big car pileup happening.

Why couldn’t this field have poppies in it

instead of this flame weed stuff. 

Yeah, I know, then they couldn’t make hay in it like they do when this stuff dies off.

There is some story from my childhood that niggles in the back of my mind. I don’t remember the story or the moral. It seems like it had something to do with someone (probably a child) planting lots of poppies somewhere where they supposed to and this big crop of poppies took over the place. They couldn’t get rid of them no matter how much they wanted to. I think it was sort of a Be Sure Your Sins Will Find You Out stories.

Anyway, poppies always seemed a little Evil and something you definitely didn’t want to plant on purpose for fear of them being forever a pestilence.

I was at Lowes the other day and I saw a potted poppies and thought “what doth hinder me?” Apparantly nothing did.

It said Mixed Colors but I was kind of hoping for mostly red.

Yesterday morning I watered them and there was 1 red bloom and 2 “pods”. By the time I got home, a white one had started blooming.

I wonder what color the next one will be.

And here’s my poppy field.

Really big, isn’t it! I might GPS just to find my way back home!

So if you know of any big poppy field near you, give me a holler. I need an excuse for a road trip. Not really but in case there’s one close to my travels that would be splenderific.

While I was at Lowes I spotted a few more Gerber daisies and since I only have 4 plants I was sure I needed more. Then I thought, “how many Gerbers does a person need?” and I knew that would be exactly 0. So I settled for getting only 2 more.

These tinged ones are my favorite out of all that I have so far. The colored tips are so pretty!

painted:

And its a shame because all the plants I got 3 weeks ago still have not been transplanted. Yeah, I know! I really do have it on my list of things to do in 2010! I’m working on a tipsy pot thing (idea from my friend Velma) and if doesn’t tipsy over I might share with you some pictures later.

These Gerbers crack me up. They look like Dr. Suess characters. I call them Thing 1 and Thing 2.

And there’s a pre-adolescent Thing 3 peeking out at the bottom. Hope I don’t run out of numbers.

 

And now I must make my corn casserole and go to bed. It’s kind of a marathon weekend with activities this weekend. Pre-communion services Thursday, school fundraiser (pancake breakfast, yard sale, bake sale, auction) this morning, 50th anniversary celebration for long-time friends, Taste of Home cooking school tonight, communion tomorrow AM and potluck dinner tomorrow.

Adios and good night!

 

One of the things I kept thinking this past winter when everything was so blah looking outside was that I was sure to find things to photograph again when spring came. Sure enough! Color came bursting forth and my camera became my sidekick again.

Now my flowers for the tipsy pot thing are desperately waiting to be planted and I need to get some welding done before I can do that.

Anyway, I raided Raymond and Edna’s yard again like I like to do every spring. Here are a few flowers from their vast supply.

Azaleas:

Dogwood:

I’m so thrilled to have 2 pink dogwoods to plant in our yard. I was in SC with Ginny this past weekend and they have so many pink dogwoods there and I didn’t stop to take any pics. I did find trees at the Jockey Lot (2 for $25).

Wysteria:

In my planters:

 

Waiting for planters:

Gerbers:

Balloon Flowers:

Recently my SIL got some 8mm tapes converted to DVD for us and it has been fun seeing some footage from my last year in Northern Ontario. Anything from seeing the last ice of the winter melting, to watching my then first-graders Jonathan and Janelle doing school things to summer camp and PWTC training week to jug-a-lug games to Ruth and Leon’s wedding rehearsal in Ohio to single staff campout at Williams Bay.

And then there was the day us singles from camp took one last day off to go fishing at Cook Lake before summer activities and I kid you not, we caught nothing but a few branches. Fortunately we had hamburger along so all was not lost.

I was again reminded how watching the Cessna 206 land on water it was possible to know whether it was Clair or Dennis flying by how it taxied.

We had a most memorable trip to Ruth and Leon’s wedding in Ohio traveling in a 15-passenger van with 8 adults and 4 children under 6. Oh, and we were pulling a trailer that had a heavy load of steel on the way back north. Did I mention that we drove straight through (21+ hours) on the way down? Yeah, we all felt pretty woolly by the time we got there!! Great memories!

Then there was lovely shot of us ladies aound the campfire singing Friends with Karen playing guitar and in the background was a loon just singing his heart out.

And there is no croquet quite as challenging as the version played on a very bumpy sandy beach and 1 of the wickets in the water. It ended in a water fight, with Phil and Hanes duking it out.

Listening to the various groups who sang at Family Camp.

So many campers came through camp that summer and there were a few names that came back in a flash. Funny how that works. It’s been 12 years since I left the north.

Any of this sounding familiar? Come over and watch it with me. I’ll even supply the popcorn!

 

 

Some quotes:

Hans B was washing dishes at the very wet, overcast campout.

Me: So what do you think of that?
Hans: I don’t think, I just feel.

———————————————————-

Hanes cleaning the walleye that I’m very certain I caught. After we had been arguing about it for a while and he was cleaning it:

Hanes: This is the fish that I caught.
Me: BALONEY!!!
Karen: No, it’s fish!!

———————————————————-

Acting out Bible stories for singles campout church service:

Me: I can see, I can see!!
The “village people”: How?
Me: “Jesus” put sand on my eyes and told me to go wash them in Williams Bay.

 

I bought some flowers to use on the tables for Sunday Easter Brunch. I decided to have some fun with them and well, I did stay up real late on Friday night doing some editing. The wisteria just started blooming recently and is so fragrant. Too bad it is also so pesky.

We had a sunrise service at a nearby lake and it was beautiful outside, watching the mist on the lake and the sun occasionally peaking through the fog. The mosquitoes were out in full force but thankfully they must’ve been about ready to head to bed as they didn’t bother us much.

We had a lovely service of special singing, a short message by Joel, sharing time and more special singing and then we headed to our dining hall for a breakfast of pancakes, breakfast casserole, fruit slush and cut fruit, and pastries.

I had a vicious sore throat which Advil helped to keep manageable until I could finish my food committee duties and the go home and collapse into bed. Slept 4 hours, I did, but I still managed to come down with a full-blown flu.

Anyway, I was pretty tickled with these and after my Gerber daisies mature, I can try some with different colors. The flowers were actually orange but they look more like red here.

Have a great day!

Spring keeps springing and today I’m home with the flu. Yuck. I’d actually rather be working. Somehow I managed to miss the bugs coming around over the winter but not now.

The other evening we went to a “plant farm” as their names says. They have millions of plants that they ship out to retailers, plus you can go through their greenhouses and handpick you own plants.

This is a picture I took last year we were there:

This time we went earlier in the spring than last year. So we hope we got the color flowers we wanted. And we only had a little over an hour to shop. Not enough time for that place.

After we left we decided to take the dirt roads home. It was supposed to be a 30 minute drive home but it ended being a bit longer than that. We apparently turned the wrong way once and took the scenic route home. And no, we don’t have GPS. We are so twentieth century.

But we did pass this place which we found to be quite interesting. Way out in the country, by a big field.

Seems the tables are turned on the cows of Chik-fil-A. The chickens are getting their revenge.

And I have no idea what this means.

 

We did find out way home before the sun set and we lost east from west. No really, we weren’t that lost, just out a slightly different direction that we thought we were headed.

Yesterday we spent the day outside. I got the outside of the windows cleaned which was neglected last fall and even maybe last spring. It was amazing how much cleaner they were this time vs. before our grass came in and the dirt didn’t get blown around. I still had the dilemna of how to get the windows clean that are surrounded by flower beds and wouldn’t be safe for a ladder.

I checked at our local hardwares stores for a squeegee window washer but could only find a squeegee. So I bought a deck brush and safety pinned a rag to it. And I found a squeegee for the shower and taped it to a broom handle. It looked, well, like a red-necked contraption but it worked. Very well, in fact.

Plus I needed the deck brush to wash our pollinated carport.

Lois got her butterfly garden started. And I have a tiered planter that I want to try.

And we planted more vegetables. Our broccoli plants are pretty much history. The cabbage is hopefully developing heads.

The brussel sprouts, a new venture for us, are getting small “buds” on them.

The kale and kohlrabi are coming along well. The lettuce is at it’s prime. The garlic and onions are beginning to mature. We planted tomatoes, squash, and 3 kinds of peppers. We also started an asparagus bed, another new thing. Hopefully it will work, if not, we’ll know in a few years.

Our garden is looking better than last year, probably in thanks to adding lots of lime, a must for this area, and an all-natural bovine by-product thoroughly mixed in last fall.  We also used some mushroom mulch, a tip we learned from Clarita who had absolutely gorgeous plants last summer.

Now if we could find a really effective way to get rid of the bugs and weeds.