I’m so politically correct I can hardly stand myself. The old door I removed from the garage did not go to the dump. Oh, no! It now has a new home on the garden shed on the mountain. Once I removed the old joke of a shed door, I had to totally reframe the opening. There wasn’t a plumb or level surface to be had. $18 of 2 x 4 lumber and some screws and it fit. While not beautiful for inside the house, it has a certain style on the shed. We no longer have to use a piece of rope to hold the door closed.
The roses are really starting to pop after a very late start. This is the Joseph’s Coat that is planted at the rear of the green house. It is really showing its multicolored phase. When the buds open they are bright yellow. As the flower matures, it gradually turns to a deep raspberry color.
Here is a ‘linear’ panorama where the camera is moved on a line parallel to the subject material. I’m not sure which I like better. While the ‘one point’ version is distorted, it has interest and movement. The linear version looks like a severely cropped photo.
These are two of the many roses that are really starting to take off. Most were late because of our cool spring and late summer.
This panorama of the back garden illustrates the large variety of colors there. 99.99999% of the credit goes to Bonnie for planning and choosing all the plants and locations.
The previous owners abandoned a porch/patio glider because they said it was too far gone to save. We kept it and Jeff and I refinished it in April, 2006. It looked practically new.
Two years of rain and wet winters took a toll on the finish. Once I had sanded it down, the wood was too weathered to varnish it again. I decided to use Rustoleum Outdoor Furniture finish (paint) instead. I think it came out fairly well. The next time it needs finishing, I’ll probably replace all the wood with redwood and start over. The frame is still in excellent shape.
Well, OK; Birds in the backyard.
We have many varieties of sparrows, finches, jays, robins and such that hang out in our back yard. Two of our favorites are the American Goldfinch and the Humming Birds that visit us frequently. Both are bright and interesting visitors.
We had a plant sprout this year that was planted by the previous owners. For some reason it did not grow last year. Its formal name is Dracunculus Vulgaris. Its common name is Dragon Arum or Dragonwort. It is a most unusual plant as shown below.
It comes from Greece, the Balkans, Crete and Greek Isles. It looks tropical and its pollination technique is definitely tropical. When the flower opens it smells of rotting meat for a day. Its away from the house so we didn’t notice the smell. However, I did notice an abundance of flies day before yesterday. It is odorless today.
The previous owners left an artsy-fartsy bird bath for us. It’s made of solid copper, so it couldn’t have been cheap. The person who designed it may have been an artist, but he/she had no concept of physics or engineering. The bowl was held by one thin copper strap to the upright. When full of water, the weight of even a sparrow would tilt the bowl causing the water to slosh out scaring the bird in the process.
A brilliant thought, some brass chain and copper wire and the bath is now stabilized. It looks pretty sharp if I say so myself. (Which I do.)
The front garden has come a long way in just one year. Last year we dug out grass, weeds and a stunted cedar tree to create a flower garden in the front of the house.
This is a picture of the construction of the garden in July, 2007.
The following are pictures of the front garden from various angles taken today.
This is a twofer. I got Bonnie a new point and shoot digital camera today. It is a Kodak 883, 8 megapixel, SD Card memory, 38 - 114mm zoom with facial recognition software and the ability to charge the battery from any USB device. It was on sale at the Exchange for $90. While it’s not a Cannon or Nikon, it shoots pretty good pictures for a P&S. Of course it’s red.
The Lupines are bee and humming bird magnets. The clematis climbing the rose has flowers almost the size of dinner plates this year.
