Flashback Friday...

Once again, I am joining Suzy, Kitchen Bouquet, for Flashback Friday. I usually combine it with Foodie Friday over in the kitchen blog but I am skipping that this week in order to have time to work on my Mother's Day event post which will be up tomorrow.

My Flashback today is from back in April when we took a cycling vacation in Texas Hill Country. There is nothing Jeff & I like better than back roads, state parks and natural areas...they are guaranteed to be scenic, there are hiking and picnic spots...what's not to love?

This is the view of Enchanted Rock State Natural Area near Fredericksburg as we approached on a beautiful windy, hilly road. The website linked above describes the rock formation in these words, "The Rock is a huge, pink granite exfoliation dome, that rises 425 feet above ground, 1825 feet above sea level, and covers 640 acres. It is one of the largest batholiths (underground rock formation uncovered by erosion) in the United States".
We parked in the lot and hiked to the trailhead to this view. If you click you might spot the tiny hikers high up on the rock. According to the sign it was a 4 mile round trip to the top of the rock and back so we decided to go for it.
The views as we hiked were amazing...

but soon two out-of-shape and middle aged hikers were out of breath from the climb and decided we had enough. We made half-way up the dome and sat on the rock to rest and enjoy the views from this point.
Many others decided this was as far as they were going as well ;) There were lots of families taking photo ops and enjoying the view, we are about a mile from the trailhead and if you look closely you can see the roof of the shelter in the center of the photo.
After resting and enjoying the view, we decided it was time to hike back...who knew hiking down this slanted rock surface was much harder than going up?? Your toes push to the front of your shoes and soon your knees are pushed to the limits. About half way down my bad knee was reinjured when my kneecap slipped but after another rest we ventured on...
and things went well until we faced this at the end of the trail ;)
About now you are probably wondering if there is cheese with all this knee "whine"...Don't worry, the knee recovered quickly after the trip and last week when it came out once again gardening - it is almost 100% again today (So with the ortho referral I got he'll wonder what I am complaining about). It's the pits getting old :-)

today's happenings....

I was excited to welcome two more new visitors to the garden today. This morning I spotted the Harris sparrows and there are at least 10 of them at the feeders at one time.

The yellow rumped warblers are still here...
but look at the handsome fellow that arrived at dinnertime tonight! The Rose-breasted Grosbeak is one of my favorite birds...
and this one fed for quite a while at the barn feeder.
Speaking of barns...Charlotte and her web have finally joined Harley, the horse on the back of the barn...and like the old painted advertising of years gone by...
Hershey and I thought we needed some advertising on our barn.
I took all the photos for the tulip post yesterday late in the day so I was pleasantly surprised to see what the orange ones in the second photo looked like in the middle of the day today. Tonight they are closed back up into tight tulip shapes.

May...

Allow me to hold May to my heart,
This delightful month of blooming flowers
And birdsong that awakens me
With drifting melody for hours.

The greenest month of all the year
Comes to an end too soon,
But leaves rainbow flowers everywhere
As a welcome in, to June.
(May, by Marjorie Martin)






After a long winter's sleep the garden awakens in May, and I am loving it!

followed me???

Remember how last week I blogged about the yellow-headed blackbird saying one has never visited the garden? Well, I think one followed me home...look who has been visiting this weekend.

We had a busy weekend doing some much needed yard work and Gabi was so happy it involved the ranger. She is doing so poorly these days and even though she can no longer see, she hears the ranger start up and is soon riding co-pilot. I took her on extra rides just to make her happy. Many of you know that I work from home and so I have lots of extra hours to garden as long as I have the business phone and message pad outside with me. This year, I forgot we had a puppy...
at least it still works ;)

May 1st garden walk...

I loved looking at what Darla, Family and Flowers, posted this week showing the monthly update of her full sun garden. Click on her name to see it.

Since I am always showing close up shots of various things in the gardens, this gardening season I would like to take you on garden walks sometime around the first of each month with links back to see how the gardens have grown/changed with time.

May 1st is just the beginning of the gardens coming back to life. They are mostly bare and waiting for warmer soil for the perennial plants to sprout up or to be planted just as the farm fields you can see in the background are. In these first shots of the angel garden, some of the angels have not even made it out of their winter home in the shed yet.


In this whole area, I could only find one early tulip cluster about to open.
Next, is the front landscape. The iris and rose garden is starting to green up and it looks like all the roses have survived their first winter.
In front of the house, the shrubs are leafing out...
and some early tulips have blossomed.
The roundup I sprayed around the little barn is starting to work and hopefully next month you will see a path and a new little flower garden.
As we enter the backyard, I just have to show you my new little garden flag that Jayme & Scott gave me for my birthday last Dec. Isn't it just the cutest?
There are a few little sprouts of green on the path to the pond...
and one little blooming clump of tulips in front of the cabin.
These red beauties are always the first to bloom each spring.
The back of the garden looks pretty forlorn as well. The bare area to the left of the path is the area behind the rock fountain. I have been digging out purple coneflowers and planning to find some shorter flowers for this area to not overwhelm the new autumn brilliance serviceberry I planted last fall.I did find a few frost damaged grape hyanciths in front of back arbor.
The path to the satellite gazebo is looking pretty bare...but I did get a new bistro set. Since I don't have the rest of the patio furniture out of storage yet, I have been enjoying sitting here and watching the birds come to the feeders only a few feet away.
The rest of the paths are just as bare with no blossoms to be found so I went back to the patio for a wide shot.
I cropped this photo so that you could focus on the background cottonwood trees. Do you see the one in the center? At the very top it bends to the right (leaving a stump platform with a hole on the left) and this is where the kestrels are nesting.
Did you notice I had companions on this tour? Gabi doesn't leave the front of the house anymore but Ruger & Hershey think they have to be right with me. Every day I tell Jeff that I don't know how much of a garden I will have this year, because Hershey is not learning the word "NO" very well.
She loves nothing more than playing and a plant (live or dead) is just as much fun as a squeaky toy.
The new front landscape seems to be her favorite place to dig and lay but she is happy to dig in all of them. Hopefully she learn's what "no" means before I have to rename the place "Hershey's Garden". I'm looking forward to showing you these same "views" on the first of every month until the first frost, in MN there are always changes ;)