Our Own Little Botanical Garden

Hahahahaha! See? We've got dandelions! We didn't see too many of these at the New York Botanical Garden, but they probably were there as they seem to have loads of everything that grows. And it was humbling: coming back from touring over 400 acres (or some such hard to comprehend number), and seeing the modest patch of ground that you spent all summer digging wild roses, assorted brambles, rocks and small trees out of (not to mention battling seriously entrenched poison ivy) to plant a modest batch of daffodils and vinca...
But I don't have a staff of a hundred. There's just me and the dog (Hi Lil' Robin!) and occasionally Bob (when a rock or tree is just too much!). And I am thrilled with my efforts to produce a spring garden. The lilacs- although young- are in bud and the predominately white daffodils are in full bloom thanks to the rain and warm weather.

That's Mount Hood- spectacular when full out as they just get whiter and whiter and more imposing...

No wonder this variety has been in cultivation since the 1920's!
And here's "Barrett Browning", which has a nifty orange center but is a creamy white:

 

And then there's "Ice Follies", which is especially cheerful...

And "Geranium" is starting to come out and looks sort of cosmic and cluster-y (these are all new and exciting to me as I had never planted daffodils! I think you can tell...) and "Misty Glen" and "Thalia" are later still so I still have plenty of spring flowers to enjoy. Hey! I waited all winter for this extravaganza to erupt!
The only perplexing aspect to all this loveliness is that the daffodils- to a one- insist on facing toward the sun and you have to walk on the lower path to enjoy them; from the upper side, they've all turned their backs on you. I never considered this when planting. Oh well...

*And there is some foolishness going on with the blogger site! For four days, I couldn't even access my blog account and then I was entirely unable to upload any more pictures. Probably those pesky Russians or the evil rethuglicans!

The Wild Kingdom

The Gods of Completed Electrical Circuits and Bringing the Equine Home must be sour on Bob n' Rita as we have had nothing but really egregiously hard times since we embarked on this last major project of 2011. We spent several days stringing electric line (wires and tape) (and humming Glen Campbell's iconic rhapsody "I am a Line Man for the County...) and have yet to determine why we can't get a shock out of the system. The box clicks and the red light pulses. Bob got shocked (accidentally) when one of his smaller sculptures touched the postive and ground terminals so the box must be okay. I called Tractor Supply and received what seemed like good intelligence; we had neglected to complete a part of the system and still no go. Then I discovered a wire touching a post and we worked that out and it STILL didn't work. Baffled and defeated, we turned to ripping the floor boards out and finishing the stall. I'm outside and Bob is ripping the boards when he erupts from the building... turns out there's a skunk under the floor he just removed. I mean, we have been noisy as all get out. Skill saw running, we're moving wood and stomping around; you'd have to be deaf not to be disturbed and this partcular skunk is asleep? Just our luck.
We went next door and borrowed a HavaHeart trap and procured cat food to bait it and our older trap with. But we can't really complete our floor removal until skunk removal is done. This project is progressing too slowly! Bob actually turned to me and exploded wtih "Maybe we SHOULD eat the horse!!"
I know how he feels.