Out and About Close to Home

I took a late afternoon walk through our neighborhood recently. When I got to the pond, I didn’t see our resident green heron but there was a lot of bird noises. I thought maybe it was the birds finding good roosts for the night…then I saw the reason: a red-tailed hawk in the pine tree near the pond…surveying the place.

He was still for a few minutes then started looking around more…then flew away and the area got quieter almost immediately and I headed home.

As I walked up to our house, I noticed that the bush near our garage needed trimming. This would be the second time for this year. The next morning I went out to trim it – remembering to take the ‘before’ picture. It started out looking like a porcupine…then became a bush with a mohawk trim…

Then an asymmetrical bush. I cut some branches from the inside because I want it even shorter. The step stool I have that is easiest for me to carry around to trim bushes does not give me quite enough height to reach the top easily. Note that I used a lot of different tools: electric hedge trimmers, long handled pruners, and saw. I will do more with the pruners and saw to make the bush shorter!

Our Yard – June 2017

There were a lot of rainy days in May and June – so far – has been relatively cool here in Maryland. The plants seem to be thrilled. I’ve already trimmed the bush beside our garage and it already needs to be trimmed again. My husband parks his car on that side of the garage and is keen for me to do the job ASAP.

The milkweed in the front flowerbed looks great – and there don’t appear to be any more caterpillars on it. Pooh!

I might cut down the plants toward the front of the bed so that the ‘predator’ lights will be more visible to the deer. So far the gizmo has kept them from eating the day lily buds.

The trees are still getting a lot of new leaves. The new maple leaves start out tinged with red.

The tulip poplar leaves are miniature (somewhat streamlined) versions of the larger leaves. Most of the flowers are fading now and the seed mods are forming.

Our oak tree is trimmed up so high (it’s close to the street and the country trimmed it high enough that fire trucks would not be damaged if they needed to come down our street) that I decided to take a picture of a leave that had fallen. The tree has grown a lot since we moved into our house 20 years ago and I like the shade it provides to the front of the house on summer mornings.

Around my Yard – April 2017

April has been a rainy month for us – so far. I managed to walk around the yard on one sunny afternoon. There is a lot of trimming and cleanout work to be done as soon as we have a few dry days in a row. I am not a gardener so it is a chore that requires some will power to accomplish. I cheered myself up by taking some pictures of little things I noticed as I was assessing the yard: a wasp exploring a past-prime daffodil,

A dandelion – one of the first to bloom this season (pre-emergent is never totally effective),

A self-fungus on one of the larger pieces in our brush pile,

Violets beginning to bloom,

And a scruffy looking robin!