Funky Fungi

Wild black raspberries

Black raspberries are the earliest bramble berry to appear in our area. My son and I had a little competition for these. He was eating them, I was photographing them.

June 30, 2006

Its a good day to work in the backyard. I have a writing project due today. I'm procrastinating and posting another photo ...

backyardphotos

Daylilies

My daylilies opened today. It is really summer now!

backyardflowers

Skippy passed his CGC!

Yippee Skippy! He did a great job on his test tonight. Now he is an official Canine Good Citizen. I gave him an extra treat.

birdhouses

This year's birdhouses. There is a sparrow family (just hatched, it sounds like) in the one with the rooster on top. Sometimes we get chickadees in the center houses, but not this year. The wren house is new and will go on a post by the vegetable garden soon.

backyard

June 29, 2006

Skippy has his big test today! The CGC (Canine Good Citizen) test
http://www.akc.org/events/cgc/. Tonight at 6:30. He didn't do so well the first time he tried this, but we're giving it another shot. We've been practicing "heel" and he's sort of getting the hang of it. The test has to be done without treats, which is hard for Skip.

Fungi

Mushrooms from our walk. I think the last photo is a cannonball fungus that shoots its spores up to 6 feet when mature. There are some unusual growths out there in our dampness.

Wildflowers

Two native wildflowers from our walk today. Common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) and common fleabane (Erigeron philadelphicus). The milkweed has just started to bloom.

wildflower

Grape vines

Here's a project waiting for me. I know grapes are supposed to be pruned and there is a certain way to do it that seems quite complicated to me. These grapes (Catawba, a red grape with seeds) never ripen properly, probably because there are too many clusters on the vine. I could probably figure it out, but in reality I don't like to eat grapes or get up on a ladder and I like the way they look.
backyardphotos

June 27, 2006

Birthday lunch with garden lettuce.

Dog's eye view

The patio from Skippy's level.

Someone said the funniest thing about Skippy yesterday on our walk. She all of a sudden laughed and said "He looks just like a person in a dog suit!" Now what is that supposed to mean? I had to ask twice what she said, not that I didn't hear it the first time. I think its his movements - they do look very human-like (or as my Dad says primate-like). Something about his elbows.

backyardphotos

"Othello"

Another Othello photo. Just a little one.

backyardflowers

Waiting for sun

My kayak is grounded and waiting ..... For anyone who likes to follow the weather forcast, an interesting blog site is below. Some quotes from it about our upcoming weather: "... the GFS 180-hour rainfall forecast is nothing short of stunning." "... the possibility of historic flooding in some parts of the East within the next week." "In the black zone" Yup, that's us "more than 10 inches of rain are predicted for this period!" "The basic problem is that a trough that doesn't have much amplitude now slowly gets carved out during the upcoming week. At this time of year, such troughs are tough to get rid of, because they can become detached from the surrounding flow that is circling the globe .... " Anyway, we have at least a week of wet weather ahead. http://wwwa.accuweather.com/news-column.asp?partner=accuweather&myadc=0&webcaster=abrams.

backyardphotos
kayaking

Skippy

Oh where, oh where, has my little dog gone ..... Skippy isn't following me to the garden like he used to. I have threatened to change the name of his blog. The lazy bum (not really - he's runs many miles every day) has realized inside is cooler than outside. He'll stick his head out to see what's going on. With school out, he does have other company inside. Oh well.

Dog diet update: (skip this unless you're really into dogs): We are trying hard to put some weight on Skippy. He was 49 lbs 1 month ago and we have been shooting get him up to 57 lbs. He's a picky eater and very active. We switched to a raw food diet (he loves it) and he eats what is recommended for a 60 lb dog (2 lamb patties), in addition to an extra 3/4 lb of cooked chicken added daily, and occasionally some EVO dry food. So he now has no grain at all. His tummy has been really good. He looks good. So I weighed him 2 days ago - 48 lbs! Darn. We'll go to 2.5 patties/day. (Got to find a cheaper mail order source.)

June 23, 2006

My favorite rose. I couldn't pick just one picture. And I'll probably end up posting more. Its a David Austin English rose called "Othello". Beautiful scent. Gorgous color. Enormous blossoms. I planted it about 10 years ago. It has become a vigorous 20-30 foot climber, though catalogs describe it as a 5 x 4 foot bush. I get my ladder out every year to prune and retie it onto its trellis. It drapes down in front of my dining room window so I can watch the flowers from inside.

Daisy (Chrysanthemum Leucanthemum)

Such a happy flower .....











Sweet Daisy!
A little cyclops, with one eye
Staring to threaten and defy;
Whole Summer-fields are thine by right.
(Wordsworth)

wildflower

June 20, 2006

I have several clumps of Lady's Mantle (Alchemilla mollis) around my yard. Flowers are tiny, but a pretty chartreuse color. The leaves hold onto water drops from the sprinklers. The plants are very hardy and spread well in my yard. They look great with annuals planted in between, but I just haven't gotten around to planting the annuals yet this year .....

backyardflowers

Kayaking

Yesterday we did some kayaking in Plum Island Sound. We made The Crossing from Pavillion Beach, Ipswich, to Plum Island. At low tide, there are many sand bars where dogs are allowed to play. It was great fun! I love Google maps. The satellite image shows the sand bars (which are different every year) and the beaches. The weather was just beautiful - hot and sunny. Water was great for swimming.

June 16, 2006

My climbing hydrangea (Hydrangea anomala petiolaris) is in full bloom.

"Like a huge Python, winding round & round
The rugged trunk, indented deep with scars,
Up to its very summit near the stars,
A creeper climbs, in whose embraces bound."
-Toru Dutt(1856‚1877)

from http://www.paghat.com/climbinghydrangea.html

backyardflowers

June 14, 2006

This is spotted deadnettle (Lamium maculatum), a weedy groundcover with a nice varigated leaf that does well in my shady garden with poor soil. Its tiny flowers are really pretty when you look at them closely.

backyardflowers

June 13, 2006

A close-up of Skippy. Isn't he cute!

June 12, 2006

Here are some backyard pictures. I always like the lawnmower stripes. Things are pretty lush this spring.

backyardphotos

June 11, 2006

On our walks, Skippy runs through the flowers and I stop and photograph them all. Here is what is blooming in Massachusetts now. From upper left: annual fleabane (Erigeron annuus), meadow buttercup (Ranunculus acris), sweet purple clover (Trifolium pratense), wild rose (Rosa multiflora), shepard's-purse (Capsella bursa-pastoris), yarrow (Achillea millefolium), wild geranium or cranesbill (Geranium maculatum), common chickweed, (Stellaria media), rough-fruited cinquefoil (Potentilla recta), Skippy with yellow hawkweed (Hieracium pratense), bladder campion (Silene vulgaris), and raspberry bramble (Rubus idaeus). Some larger photos are at http://carletonwildflowers.blogspot.com/ Most IDs I have found at http://www.kywildflowers.info/index.html

Only three of these wildflowers are native to Massachusetts. Do you know which they are? Answer: plants 1, 7 and 12.

wildflower

June 10, 2006

Skippy got lucky with a 2 hour walk today. He loves the rain. I plodded along in full rain gear: rain pants, boots, umbrella and rain coat. But not Skip. With no golfers around, he got to run through 18 holes. What fun! He made some new friends, raced them all (I think he's the fastest) and got to splash through all the puddles.

Fresh Pond

Grilling salmon

The grill-chef was busy last night. We had Copper River salmon that we recently brought back from Seattle, a nice piece of steak, chicken, and grilled potatoes. It was delicious.

C-Lion Link

I have added a new link to Skippy's breeder's website. Its great! Lots of pictures. Take a look. Clio (CH AZEITONA ROSA DO PRETA) is Skippy's mom and Brisco is his dad.

Dutchman's Pipe

A very strange plant! This is Dutchman's Pipe (species Aristolochia durior), a climbing vine of the birthwort family (where do they get these names?) I planted it at the base of a downspout 5 years ago and it has now grown up onto the roof 3 stories up - probably 30 ft high! It looks like something from Jack-and-the-Beanstalk with odd little green flowers. But it does do a nice job of decorating the downspout.

backyardflowers

June 9, 2006

Skippy now has very short hair. He loves it. He has been bounding around all morning, racing all the other dogs and generally having fun. He is a good fast runner. He has an impressive flag (tail fluff) that he waves around. Also he looks very slim. I keep telling to eat more - he needs to put on a few more pounds. At 14 months old, he is 22 inches high at the withers (the ideal height for a Portuguese water dog!) and 49 pounds (the standard male range is 42-60 lbs).

June 8, 2006

Skippy is getting his hair cut today. Here is one last picture of him with long hair. He will get a nice short summer clip. I'm sure he'll be relieved because he has been very hot already, even with our relatively cool spring weather.

June 7, 2006

Flower pots.

backyardflowers

June 6, 2006

Frogs by the pond: Bullfrog (Rana catesbeiana), copper-painted frog (Rana cuprum) and cement frog (Rana caementa). Well, actually, only the second two frogs are by my backyard pond. The first is at the town pond. Every year my son catches tadpoles and puts them in our pond, but we never get frogs. I suppose the tadpoles become koi snacks.