April Goings-on -- Random photos

 Barry enjoying Spring with our new cat, Snowflake.

 My mother's Bridal Wreath.  It was dug up in Westbrook and left to die, so I brought it back to Oakland.  Then it moved to Waterville with me where it blossomed twice in one year.  Then we brought a small slip with barely no root to our first house in Kentucky.  Then we moved it here.  Apparently it likes it here in the Bluegrass.

 One of our three Dogwood trees.  The "petals" are actually modified leaves.  They are iridescent at night -- wonder what they would look like under ultraviolet light...  In the fall, the red berries are prime food for the starlings!

 Kwanzaa Cherry -- sure wish it fruited, but the blossoms are gorgeous.  With the wind today, the ground is covered with pink petals.








Strawberries are blossoming, so it won't be long now.  They are almost gone by Memorial Day.

Apple Blossoms.  We have three, but all are on the same tree, so we don't know if they will pollinate.










Our Tennessee Iris.  We bought this in 2008 on a trip to Knoxville and the University of Tennessee Botanical Garden.  It actually blooms twice a year down here!









OK, can you see the white cat?  That's Snowflake, sitting on a stump, just watching the world go around!

Here she sits on the grill cover, hoping we're not doing steak for dinner.










Not everything happening is going on outside.  I decided, after Barry did some baking, to do some of my own.  The oatmeal-raisin cookies and the blueberry scones are to be RATIONED!








Normally, he won't eat "people food."  Well, this evening was no exception.  You can see him sniffing and saying "Hey, this isn't Purina One!"

Now, we took a little tomato plant in for the winter.  This is the result.  Grown in our own living room, with snow outside!

The other night, and apparently, MANY nights, we've been visited.  This is a Virginia Possum.  And we are NOT going to feed him.  Bought a trap today, and plotting on where to let him go when we trap him!

Spring in the Bluegrass

Barry and I worked outside today.  Temps were in the low 70s, and the sun was shining brightly -- yeah, he DID get a sunburn.  Pruning the crepe myrtle and purple lilac, transplanting a hosta into a more shady area, mowing the 1 acre of lawn we have here.  We went to Wal-Mart and got a "Bruce" plum tree to replace the Methely that died, and in general enjoyed Spring!

This past week, Sunday and Monday, we were under another tornado watch, with a warning in the next county west.  The winds were fierce for two days, but no tornado here.  About 2.5 inches of rain, then it turned off cold, 45 for a high, but that has rebounded.

The citrus trees in Barry's bedroom and the living room are covered with scale, so we decided, reluctantly, to part with them.  He picked 4 fruits off one -- sort of like a pomelo, but we're not sure -- then cut them all back to the stump.  They are beautiful and comforting in the winter, but they've gotten to the point where we simply can't afford new, larger pots, and more potting soil for them.

We also had a tomato plant we took in last fall, which was about 6 feet tall, and actually produced 4 or 5 green tomatoes -- maybe they will ripen.  He pruned that back too, and when we plant what's left in the garden, we should have tomatoes about a month earlier than otherwise.

The lettuce, buttercrunch and bibb, are all in, the peas are up, he's had a "mess" of collard greens, the chard is growing well, the horseradish is producing great leaves which he likes for sandwiches, and the rhubarb is up far enough to make a pie tomorrow -- with the frozen strawberries from last year.

The blueberries are budded and hopefully we'll get a good crop this year.  The raspberries look very weird -- cut down to the ground in half the bed, left to grow in the other half.  That way, the ones we left should produce summer raspberries, and the others should produce fall raspberries.  Last year we were eating them from June until November, and actually had enough to freeze, and to make loads of raspberry jam.

Now, all the trees are pruned, including "Bruce", and we're awaiting the next round of severe weather coming in this weekend.

We went up to Frankfort yesterday.  Rick's website and phone ads for his law practice had to be submitted to the Kentucky Bar Association, so rather than have him mail the info up to them, we just drove it up.  It was a beautiful day, an we enjoyed downtown Frankfort, including the Kentucky Coffee Tree restaurant, rated by Tripadvisor, as the number one restaurant in Frankfort.  I've been working on the website since December, and now it's in the hands of the KBA commissioners to tell me what I need to change in order to comply with the 35 pages of advertising rules for lawyers!

Anyway, it's been a long, but productive day, the kind of day when you lay your head on the pillow, you can say, THERE, I accomplished something!