A Feast for the Eyes

"When weeding, the best way to make sure you are removing a weed and not a valuable plant is to pull on it.  If it comes out of the ground easily, it is a valuable plant."~unknown

It’s an astonishing morning. After days and days of dreary gloom and drizzle, the sun came up this morning to a breathtaking array of colors.  The cobalt, powder blue, burgundy&cream and butter yellow iris all stand high above the boulder in the back yard surrounded by sky blue flax. The pansies in my water trough/planters are now peeking above the rim with the white alyssum and bacopa starting their spill over the side. The shrubs and creepers against the rock wall stand out in contrasting hues from wine colored barberry to lime green trumpet vine. The smell of newly  mowed lawn wafts around my head as the hummingbirds zip in and out around their feeder on the end of the porch.

Even the most simple of combinations make me happy when they are in a pot or basket. There is something special that flowers do.

 Beyond, I can see Thomas, his bright white feathers setting off the red, buff and purple blacks of the laying hens. Buffy struts around proudly, in motherly fashion around her lone chick.

The sheep are grazing in the corral with the Maremmas laying about keeping an eye on all and the seedlings in the vegetable garden are stretching and muscling their way up toward the sun and out across the ground with a promise for tomorrow.

I prepare to put bread in the oven and make some notations of additional seeds I want to buy to start in the greenhouse for next summer. Iceland poppies and petunias are two I would like to get established earlier next year than this. It’s a good day to be alive.

Still recovering from over 2 weeks of being incapacitated with a back injury, I try to keep my bucket list small. Having mowed the lawn already, I add weeding around the corner of the house so my morning glories don’t get choked out before they have a chance to take hold. 

We moved the meatie chickens out of the brooder. They have outgrown it in just 3 weeks. There was hardly room for them to move around in there anymore. We put up a "Club Meatie" with 6000 sq feet of pasture and a 120 sq ft of shelter for them in the orchard. Bruno is currently living with them to provide security from any hawks or owls who may think of making a quick meal of them day or night.

 There are tomatoes and peppers, potatoes and cabbage, brocolli, lettuce and cauliflower up in the garden and the corn and green beans go in this week. Two lambs are ready to come home from freezer camp, a steer is on his way in and the chickens will be ready to process this summer.

Nourishment for our bodies is pretty much assured, but for now, I will continue to marvel at creation, and revel in the flowers and let them feed my soul.