Parched jungle
Can a garden be an overgrown jungle and parched at the same time? It's August; judge for yourself.
Can a garden be an overgrown jungle and parched at the same time? It's August; judge for yourself.
Maryland's state flower is the Black-Eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta), a drought-tolerant perennial and member of the daisy family.
It was so overcast when I shot this before heading off to work this morning, that the auto-flash was set off. Columbine and Lily of the Valley in a raised bed, from above.
See that small, unpainted ramshacke structure between the two red buildings (the barn and the workshop)? That's the incredibly decripit outhouse. I like having it around, even though it only has three walls nowadays.
Sometimes plants just pop up and we've no idea where they came from. This Bleeding Heart was an unexpected surprise in a shady nook of our garden this year.
We get tons of purple and white violets. They are so invasive, they are actually a nuisance. But a pretty one.
Here's a front bed.... and there were tons more. Someone worked hard. Ah, but now they need dividing....
Dramatic skies make ready for spring showers. The splashes of yellow are daffodils.
Storms cleared up briefly on Thanksgiving morning. The light and the clouds were something to behold.
Mr. White enjoys sneaking a drink from the donkey's trough, which he prefers to his water bowl. The trough is filled with rain water, so there's no chlorine taste and he likes not having his whiskers touching the sides of his bowl while he drinks. (Believe me, he has a thing about his whiskers.)
I loves me a red barn. Barns must be good for the soul.
This style is known as a "bank barn" because of the embankment that leads to the main level. It was built with wood pegs, but has since been shored up with lots of metal bracing.
It feels good knowing that we've got enough wood squared away to heat the house this winter. We'll put some more up, if for no other reason than we have it already down out back, courtesy of last summer's storms. The plastic sheeting on the ground is in preparation for a delivery of gravel to help level out the area and make way for a parking pad at one end.
The accursed groundhog re-opened the burrow that I plugged up with paving stones last year.
I haven't had nearly as much time for it as I'd like, but I'm loving the garden this year.
The entire front of the house was awash with daylilies earlier this summer.
The cedar, the old silver maple,and part of a crabapple frame our barn and show off their flocked limbs in the bright morning.
From the outside, our barn looks solid and massive. From the inside, you can see just how airy it is. (And you can see our kayaks, too.)
The sunny blue skies after the snow were like a gift. See the snow on the clothesline, making a "smile" across the front of the barn?
We took this photo during our first visit to the Ol' Farmette as prospective buyers. It was Spring 2002, the daffodils were spent, but the dogwood was in bloom, and the Japanese iris were about to come into their own. Everything was postcard beautiful. Our hearts sang. We were home.
Our much-loved and much-missed cat Sofie loved lounging with the pansies in the window box on the side of our summer kitchen. Spring 2003. She disappeared a few months later.
The largest of our three fenced paddocks behind the barn. The area beyond the visible fence is ours, too, and is also fenced. This photo was snapped in early summer of 2002. One of the large trees in the background fell after a storm on September 1, 2003.
From the lower part of our bank barn, you get a view of the track made by the llamas who used to live here. The manger is the small, open building to the rear left. This photo was snapped in Spring 2002, before we moved into the house.
