The roses for today are Camisole and the center of Tuscan Sun. Guildenstern was laying under one of our new lounge chairs and refused to look at the camera.

 

 

 

Painted ladies were fluttering around in the salvia while I was working on the canopies we park our cars under this afternoon. I guess they got used to me being there as I climbed up and down the ladder, messed with the fabric and fasteners, and cursed the wind, because when I finished fixing the canopies, I grabbed my camera and they let me get close to them with the camera.

When I came back from an errand late this afternoon, Puck was laying on the wall in a really good spot that would have resulted in a great composition; but the second I pointed my camera at him he started walking down the wall away from me. I said “Puck! You rotten cat. Can’t you pose for me?” He stopped sat on the wall, looked straight at me, stuck his tongue out at me as I snapped the photo, then jumped off the wall and ran off. Really bratty.

I used the leftover lumber from the canopy project to build a bonsai stand so we could put our large, gnarly bonsai ficus out on the deck for the summer. The stand came out really nice, so now I have to buy more material to build stands for the other two bonsai ficus. Being handy has its advantages and its drawbacks — between working on the canopy, building the bonsai stand, and the stormy weather we had today I can hardly move tonight.

Laurie planted eight new roses this afternoon in the rain. I took a break and laid on the chaise lounge with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern laying on my legs. We listened to the rain on the canopy while I read and drank coffee.

 

 

 

 

I started my summer schedule of 4-10s and taking Fridays off this week. We went to Lowe’s this morning and got material to fix the canopies we park the cars under and repair the plumbing to the outdoor kitchen. We also got companion plants for the Painted Tongue, and some outdoor lounge chairs the lay on and watch the stars. Then we dropped by Costco and picked up some more roses to replace some of the roses that have perished from the hard winters. Laurie was commenting about how we have had seven years in a row of really cold winters and springs that have killed a lot of our roses, and made the ones that survived suffer greatly. This winter and spring have been mild, and the roses, fruit trees and flowers are showing their appreciation.

The rare pink iris below is a good example. Laurie planted a variety of fancy iris five or six years ago. As I have commented before, this is the first year we are seeing many of the iris she planted so long ago bloom. This is the first time I remember seeing blooms on Remember Me, the rose in the penultimate photo. Most of our rosh bushes in more protected areas are in full bloom. Cherry Parfait is really loaded with blooms this year, and America, which is on the south side of the deck, has so many roses on it right now that the canes are bending over the deck, blocking access to the steps up to the sunroom.

I didn’t get to work on the canopies where we park the cars or spread mulch this afternoon because of wind, rain, hail and lightning. I did get the plumbing for the outdoor kitchen overhauled after a lot of frustration and an extra trip to Lowe’s. Plumbing projects are never easy.

Tuscan Sun is putting on some nice blooms, and the sun was a ball shining through the clouds on the way home this afternoon. On the 20th of this month, there will be a full solar eclipse, and Albuquerque is the prime location to see it. I ordered a solar filter for my 600 mm lens to photograph the eclipse, and some new welding goggles to observe it with.

Today is my 365th post since I switched to WordPress and my 527th post since I started Photo of the Day, Etc.

We dropped by Jericho Nursery on the way home to see what roses they had. While we were browsing through the roses, it started sprinkling, and the sprinkles soon turned into a down pour, which forced us to seek cover. Well! Wouldn’t you know it. The covered area happened to be full of Painted Tongue, Calendula and other beautiful flowers, some of which hopped onto our cart and came home with us. The fly was on our Double Delight this morning. I was curious to see how the X-Pro 1’s “macro mode” would perform on a fly.

The nurse had to give me a double roto-rooter before he got blood return from both sides of my port this morning.  At least he didn’t make me do a song and dance before he ordered two rounds of Cathflo. After injecting a syringe of saline solution into each port, pulling back on the syringe and the port simply sucking the stopper back to the top of the syringe, he said “There’s no way! We gotta do a roto-rooter!” If my PET scan at the end of June is good, I’m going to ask the doctor if I can have the port removed. If port maintenance is going to now require double-rounds of Cathflo each month, the Cathflo will start cutting into my cash flow as it more than triples the cost of a port flush.

Mutant Peace is putting out some pretty nice first blooms this year. We call it mutant Peace because it grows 20 foot long canes, and didn’t boom for the first two years after we planted it. The third year I pruned it down to where all the canes were about 2 feet (pruning back a third is considered hard pruning), and figured if it killed it, tough, and then threatened it with shovel pruning if it didn’t bloom after my radical pruning. It has bloomed every year since, but it still puts on 20 feet long canes.

We are seeing a lot of ladybug larva, which is good since we have lots of aphids. Laurie mentioned that she heard someone say that ladybugs were nice because they don’t bite. That person obviously had not had much experience with ladybugs. They do bite and one landed on my arm Sunday morning and started chewing on me. It was too close for the lens I had to focus on it, and by the time I walked over to Laurie to give her the camera, the little nipper flew off.

Osric was on the other side of the fence this morning while I was photographing roses. When he saw me he ran over to the fence and pushed on a slat in the fence, only to discover that I fixed the fence so he couldn’t push out the slat and squeeze through like he could a couple of weeks ago.

 

We are getting a lot of roses for early May. While most are a little rough around the edges, I’m surprised how many are putting on decent first blooms.

 

 

Our yard is becoming a jungle early this year — so far we haven’t had any late frosts so the cottonwoods are in full leaf and dropping cotton already. We have fruit on most of our fruit trees, lions are appearing in the yard, iris we have never seen before are blooming (presumably they froze and didn’t bloom in previous years), and a multiflora rootstock rose I didn’t know we had is growing large and in full bloom along the fence on the eastern end of the property.

When I went out to shut down the irrigation in the late morning, I noticed a lot of white blossoms in the bamboo by the fence. At first I thought they were wild plum blossoms, but then took a closer look because the wild plums have all set fruit, and noticed it was a rose bush with bunches of tiny, white blossoms. I looked it up, and found it is a multiflora rootstock, which I had never seen before. The are lots and lots of Dr. Huey in our yard and all over Corrales (Dr. Huey is used in the western part of the US because it likes alkaline soil), but this was the first time I noticed the multiflora. It’s native to the Near East and China, and prefers acidic soils, therefore, it is more common in the eastern US, and very invasive in southern states. The questions are 1) how did we end up with a rootstock rose not commonly used in the southwest, and 2) why hadn’t we noticed it before today? I’m thinking we probably hadn’t noticed it before because the blossoms probably froze in years past, plus it’s growing by the bamboo on the far end of the property. However, since it’s growing where we would never have planted a rose, the first question remains unanswered.

 

 

 

 

 

We are planting vegetables and corn this year.  In years past the raccoons ate most of anything that survived, so we’ll see what happens.

 

 

 

I had one of those crazy days where I had too many things all going on at once.  The prickly pear is at UNM. I must see it every time I drop Laurie off and pick her up, but hadn’t really noticed it. The light was just right to make me take notice this afternoon.