Blackberry Lily

I bought this plant before the ankle incident and didn't get it planted out, so it sat in it's nursery pot for several years and managed to loose it's label.  I finally put it in the ground last fall.  It bloomed this summer and fortunately a number of people posted photos of it on the internet so it was easy to identify--blackberry lily, Iris domestica.  It formerly was in a genus of its own, but due to recent genetic work, it was moved to Iris.  I hope it will settle in and have more than one flowering stem next summer.

Tall Flowers

Great coneflower, Rudbeckia maxima, is native to the south.  These, planted next to the rain gauge, are 8 feet tall.  It is also called cabbage leaf coneflower in reference to it's large silvery-blue leaves.

Common or wooly mullien, Verbascum thapsus, is an European native, introduced and naturalized in the US for it's medicinal uses.  This one, growing near the coneflower, is almost as tall as the cone flower.  When the girls were small, we called it "fuzzy monster"  because it has very fuzzy  leaves.  I just found out that mullien is a very good plant for moths, both adults and larvae.  Some studies suggest that moths are better pollinators than butterflies.

The Last of the Daylilies

As July comes to a close, so does daylily season.  Not too many daylilies left around the house above Heck Creek after a year of totally no garden maintenance due to the ankle incident.

July

Red . . . 

Crocosmia

White . . .

Daucus

Blue . . . 

Plumbago

Seasonal decor at the house above Heck Creek.

Soapwort

 

Tattered

 

The May Report and Catch Up

At the end of January, while outside playing with Conner, I slipped and damaged my ankle—dislocated it and broke three bones. Now the ankle is held together with a metal plate and several screws. After the surgery I was forbidden to put any weight on it for ten weeks. I've had two months of physical therapy, and now I can walk a bit with a cane. I'm told it may take a year or so to get back to close to normal.

Lacecap hydrangea

Now, in May, I am finally getting back to some of my regular activities—I can wash dishes, make the bed, and do laundry—fun, fun, fun. I just can't stand up for more than about ten minutes.

Oxeye daisies

Sitting on the ground in the cold waiting for someone to come and pick me up after breaking my ankle, I thought some profound thoughts. One was that time is short and I had better get on with doing those things I have always wanted to do. I've always wanted a studio where I could make my crafty messes. The original plan for the house above Heck Creek included a largish area downstairs for this, but when the plan needed to be downsized, the studio was lost. I talked things over with the Ralph, and we decided we could go ahead and build a separate studio. In May the Ralph and his friend, Jerry, rented a track-hoe and began the excavation. Hopefully we can get the foundation poured and the block work done in June.

Conner's gotcha day was in May. We've had him for a year now. In mid-May we had a visit to the bird feeder from a bear. Conner got excited and very loud. For about a week afterwards, Conner would bark at every sound he heard all night long—we had some interrupted sleep and lots of admonishments for him to be a “quiet dog, quiet dog”.

I'm back to making handmade books. I've tried to start a few in the past months, but there are just some things I couldn't do sitting down like cutting book board, making signatures, and making book cloth. Here's my version of the Handmade Book Club May project— a small sketch book with spring leaf binding, a dyed cork fabric cover, and stud closure.

spine

front

August

Hot! Hot! Hot!  

Not a "dry" heat, but a sauna heat.  

Steamy! Steamy! Steamy!

 

the Hill Across the Way