House and yard

I decided to take a picture of our home while the yard was freshly mowed. It looks a lot better. Now if we could just win the lottery we could afford to finish replacing windows and paint the place... oh and get the shutters back up. I took the shutters down years ago to repaint and then I went back into the work force and they have been living in the garage ever since. In time we will be able to catch up on repairs... and as soon as repairs are made a for sale sign will go up out front so we can move to our property. Until that point I will do what I can to at least make the lawn look presentable to keep the Neighborhood Association and City happy.

I moved the feeders and bird bath to a new location to let the ground recover where it had been all winter. And I decided my little gnome needed to seek refuge under the bird bath. Poor little guy is really starting to show his age; but then aren't we all.  The raised bed in the front yard contains my blackberries and mint. I've got to come up with a way to install arches to tie the blackberries up to make them easier to pick in the future. As I walked to the lower side of the house I saw a mocking bird feather in the grass and am hoping it was just a shed feather and not one lost to a near miss with one of the felines.

I walked around to the back yard which thrilled the dogs as they knew it meant fresh cold water and a couple doggie cookies. The garlic is starting to bloom and the stems to the blooms change with the direction of the sun. Sometimes it looks like they are in marching order and sometimes they look like they are just standing around talking in a group. Their leaves have started to brown and Scott is talking about harvesting them soon. We will have so much delicious fresh garlic... I can hardly wait

The potatoes are growing nicely and need to mulched heavily; perhaps I will get to the this week. I still need to get those iris back in the ground - I was just to tired to do it today and spent the time after work adding more to the secret project I'm currently putting together for a friend. All was going well until I ran out of adhesive. Isn't that how it goes sometimes?

Scott is hoping to gather seeds from this onion and is watching this bloom develop; it's going to be HUGE when it's fully open. And the last neat thing in the yard today was the appearance of the "dreads" - blooms on the chestnut tree. They always look like dread locks to me.