Dark Side of Eden

Turkeys...we have plenty of them on this park, but today I'm not talking about the human ones.  Out of nowhere, three hens and sixteen chicks have materialized near the pond area.  The adults are scratching wildly around that large dirt patch, chunks of soil flying in all directions, sashaying their bodies back and forth as they flip dirt on themselves before settling into a nesting type mode on that bug quenching dusty mound with wings outstretched.  The chicks settle in to the same routine after the hens have risen and pecked their food picking way over to the pond.

After a while a few of the chicks rise up and join the hens, but most of those chicks are content to just stay put with wings outstretched in their huddle of bodies on that dusty patch of ground.  The biggest hen moseys over to that display of lovely young bodies, and starts kicking the hell out of the dirt sending the rest of the chicks scattering to the pond.  She settles down to a second dust bath before rejoining the gang.

Eventually they begin pecking their food picking way into the tree covered beyond and become invisible to my eyes.  I'm looking at all those 'weeds' out there.  Most people hate them with a vengeance, but the turkeys need them for the seeds they provide and the insects their green leaves hide.  Turkeys would starve if we had our own way and herbicided all those pesky weeds into oblivion to satisfy our need to have nature wrapped up tidily in a straight jacket of neatness.

Do gardens have a dark side to their personality?  Mine do.  Baby thugs hid in the greens I've planted, silently becoming tomorrow's teenagers of destruction.  Maple, elm, bradford pear, eucalyptus, chinese redbud and japanese/chinese honeysuckle seedlings become six foot monsters before I discover their existence.  Bermuda grass, yellow nutsedge, japanese knotgrass and stiltgrass, and who knows what else, busily tries to smother my natives and non-natives into oblivion; and this is all with the courtesy of mother nature and my lovely neighbors; both whom I have no control over whatsoever, kapoot, zilch, nada nada nada, zero baby zero.

Neighbor to the left has a healthy patch of bermuda grass mingled with another coarser grass on steroids.  Always a day late and a dollar short on the mowing time table, those grasses are trying to set up housekeeping on my grounds and are succeeding quite marvelously much to my horror.  Neighbor to the right has developed an allergy to yard work beginning some years ago, and has become the living manual of all that is so wrong with life among the lazy elite.  He has every known obnoxious entity the world has ever harbored proliferating wildly away in his reserve of dubious origins and questionable motives.

I've even become my own worst enemy and have begun to sink in a losing battle with the eradication of that oh-so-cute native river oats crap that I planted three little tykes of some ten years ago, and now at last count have cut down more than fifty clumps of that baby-faced monster.  I need some time for myself outside of the gardens and have deserted the healthy and gone over to the dark side.  It's spray, baby, spray...kill, kill, kill.  I'm on a mission...I need a life outside of my gardens..so sorry National Wildlife Federation, Audubon, and Wild Ones...my bad.

Japanese Stiltgrass

River Oats

Dwarf Joe Pye Weed 'Gateway'

5 to 6 feet tall

Part of cicada damage where eggs were laid

in the stems of Spicebush - after eggs hatched,

stems are warped and split open

Miss No Name

Was given a piece off a lily bulb

at a Master Gardener Meeting.

Took about seven years for it

to become big enough to bloom.

Love it - whatever it is.

Keeper of the Pond

Beautiful blue dragonfly

Blackhaw Viburnum berries

after the rain

Blackhaw Viburnum berries after a short drought -

they all fell off the tree

Hosta 'Halcyon'

Have to water this baby everyday, or

it refuses to bloom. 

Hairy Sunflower

Giant Coneflower

Rudbeckia maxima

against a 6 foot high fence

Too hot to actually use this deck

for anything but a collect all

Dustin's stamp of approval is lacking on the front yard.

It's leash territory for him, as he is so addicted to

running down the street with his owner

hot on his trail, her arms wildly waving,

yelling 'come back here, you little sh*t!'

Glossy Black Chokeberry

I tried one of these...only a bird could love it.

Clematis i. 'Hendersonii'

Royal Catchfly

After five attempts to get a completely undamaged

85 pound  umbrella stand, I gave up.  The only piece

lacking is a screw tightener replacement, but UPS

keeps insisting on using the straps for handles

even though it is printed on the straps that's a NO NO.

The last shipment for me to just remove a tightener

from the tube and have the rest returned, was actually

missing the tube...it fell out somewhere along the route. 

I'm buying a large bolt from the hardware store,

and will just live with that conversation piece.

Blue Star Threadleaf

Belladonna Lily

I'm in love!

Beautiful pinks with golden and bluish highlights.

Fat strap leaves in the spring disappear,

then the flower stems shoot up later in summer

two feet tall,

and produce these deadly sweet blooms.

July 28, 2010

Birth of my little baby

Perfection...More or Less

and

the beginning of

my descent

into

blogging

addiction 

most sublime

with my first post

"Just Perfect".

Thank you, Tracy,

It's an Average Life,

my first follower

outside of family...

although,

 I do sort of think

 of her as distant family.

She encouraged,

plugged my blog,

wonderful comments

 left and right,

she's a sweetie!

Thank you all

for reading

 whatever I throw at you...

normal,

near-normal,

abnormal...

you're awfully good sports.

And

to all of my friends

who post more than once a week,

you're killing me...

it's like running a marathon

 trying to keep up

 with all your posts,

lol.

Love you all.