All of these were taken in the last 24 hours around The Havens in between planting canna, calla, acidanthera, gladiolus, and elephant ears as well as working on the wall that will form the new oven/barbecue installation. We now have a deadline for completing this project because someone has asked us if they can use our garden for their wedding later in the spring and we really don’t need to have the back yard looking like this for the event:
I don’t know about you, but to my taste this looks a tad cluttered for a party. Maybe it’s just me. Anyway, we have the whole project covered with a tarp and the cement mixer back under cover in the woodshed because it looks like a storm is coming. It looks amazingly organized just from that, so it cleans up pretty fast. Still, it would be very cool to have the new barbecue area finished for the actual event. So we are putting this project on the top of the priority list, right after work and planting the vegetable garden.
Well, and getting the kitchen drain to work. That’s what Jim is doing right now. It seems the plumbing gods were not satisfied with him replacing two frost-free outdoor faucets and the entire bathroom sink faucet assembly from cut-off valves out. They require further propitiation and so right now he is perched on the roof with a snake trying to clear the drain vent for the kitchen sink.
Ruby thinks this is all very boring. It is a good thing we don’t have cats because the guy on the roof making the house make grating noises punctuated with intermittent watery belches from the sink would have them very distraught.
Speaking of the vegetable garden, which I was before I was distracted by the plumbing thing, the recent warm weather has made the asparagus go berserk, and we have been eating our fill plus I already have a half gallon blanched and in the freezer. And so it begins.
By shooting around the construction area, I can pretend that we are perfect householders, and show you that the yard is full of showers of flowers, notably the species tulip which are rioting both in the front and the back. The way they naturalize and take summer neglect has made me quite enamored of these little beauties.
The next shot is a wider view that includes the little grouping featured in the above shot. I can hardly wait until the orange tulips on the edges start doing what their sisters in the front are doing. I transplanted these from that grouping last fall.
Showers of blue flowers: grape hyacinth and ajuga, mainly
Don’t you just love the chartreuse swath of creeping jenny in the middle?
By panning to the left I get this shot, and suddenly it is all about the candytuft.
Two things are also of note in the shot above. See that redbud on the far side of the fence in the right hand corner? You can also see the bed where I have the tiny hen and chicks and sedums that I have been collecting for the past three years. Here is that area closer up.
Notice how the thyme is adorned with pink flowers? Those all came from the redbud tree. The thyme won’t have its own blossoms until late June. So I guess it blossoms for me twice.
The redbud blossoms are also decorating the rest of the garden.
And now, two last images. One of the whole effect from the bench Jesse and Jim made for me. The other, just amazing.
Now, I have to get a wiggle on because I have an “artist’s date” with myself at Michael’s down in Springfield, where I intend to acquire some items I need for the next outburst of creativity I feel moved to participate in, and that is making an art journal. I even have coupons.
