May Rain ~

 Today, we enjoyed a really nice rain!  Just enough thunder & lightening to scare Nika.  Today is also her tenth birthday.  Butch called to wish her a happy birthday & she's had special treats all day long...''

8-14-2012 When the ferns are bigger than you are!

It doesn't seem possible ten-years have gone by since we brought her home from Trout Lake, WA as a tiny puppy.  We sat on the porch together & watched the rain.  The smell alone was so wonderful, we stayed until the wind came up out of the north & resulted in a torrential downpour.

Original flower bed~

My timing couldn't have been better!  I'd spent the morning weed whacking along the creek.  After lunch I planted the blue iris starts I'd won at our Garden Club white elephant sale yesterday.  I also planted the last of the hosta's Clara had given me on Saturday.  They had broken off the main plants, so I'd soaked them in a bucket of water to revive them.

The Cabin~

Clara, with her beautiful gardens, has been a godsend to the Home Place woods.  My very first friend in the neighborhood.  Every year she has invited me up, then sent me home with wheelbarrows full of plant starts.  Even though I hadn't caught up with the mowing, she walked the place with me on Sat. & could reconize how those early starts have gained a foothold.  It's great to see them starting to add so much - to what had been a invasive brush covered no-man's land.

I took the video above during the first bout of rain.  The second was even stronger & we're due for more tonight!  

A once barren hillside~

Last season, another friend, Laura had purchased a house in town & offered me all the Hosta's I could dig.  They were in flower beds, so overgrown over the years they were stunted.  I filled every feed tub I had & made several trips.  They looked miserable last year & I could only hope they would survive.  Not only did they survive, but are now thriving!  

Bleeding Hearts~

The bleeding hearts have had a tough go of it.  Most of them came from one huge specimen growing along Clara's driveway.  I saw it this year & you'd never know it had been touched.  Last spring, a late frost had burned them back, no blooms at all.  But this year - they've doubled in size!

Hyacinth & Violets

Our first spring, when Butch & I fought our way around the woods, we found two little spots of Hyacinth's.  This year, for the first time, there was a nice large patch of them to the side of the trail behind the cabin!   Combined with the wild violets, they are the perfect spring ground cover.

Lily of the Valley & ferns~

The photo above is a product of two-years of waiting.  My friend Jean gave me the Lily of the Valley starts & it's taken them a couple years to establish.  I've planted I don't know how many ferns.  This spring, they are emerging.  I don't know if they're what's called "Common" or not, but I love ferns & have missed them so much. 

Just since the fist of the month & even with the strange weather, it's wonderful to enjoy such a beautiful seasonal renewal.