Monday Morning

I'm tired of looking at sad news.  Unfortunately I have no good news, so here's a photo of the iris in the back yard.  The columbine are also blooming and the dianthus is lush.

Tim was able to get a lot of painting done while he was here last week.  (This is the painting necessitated by the hail storm, undertaken last fall, and interrupted by bad weather.)  I've contributed to the effort by finishing some windows and second-coating a section over the weekend.  One last push today should finish it.   I guess you could call that good news...
Having seen the new house I have been able to go through some boxes of packed stuff and eliminate a few things, which probably qualifies as good news.  I can also say that so far I haven't regretted any previous eliminations - more good news.
You could also call the fact that I didn't have to mow this weekend good news.  Our realtor arranged for someone to mow - and I reallyreallyreally appreciated the gesture.

Apparently I was wrong about the dearth of good news - which has raised my spirits considerably, so I'll close with a cute story:
I took Charlie for a walk yesterday morning and let him swim in the irrigation canal at the park - he loves it!  You throw a stick, he launches from the bank and lands with a satisfying splash.  He retrieves the stick and gets ready for the next round.  We then take the long way home giving him opportunity to dry.  Unfortunately he stays damp for quite a while...
I had some inside puttering to finish before I began painting so I fastened Charlie outside to finish drying.  He has a choice of sun and shade and was just lolling about waiting for me.  At some point I saw our (elderly) next door neighbor coming toward the house (which is odd because she always just catches us over the fence for a chat) and wondered if there was a problem as I waited for her to reach the door.  She never did.  She stopped to talk to Charlie.  Petted, patted, chatted, turned around and went home.

long weekend/gloomy morning

i left friday for iowa. i left my camera home. for those of you who need illustrations to keep your attention you can quit now - no hard feelings. i understand.

for the rest of you - i started at my sister andrea's: love what she and mike are doing/have done to the house. such beautiful work. naphtali and aidan arrived late and we had a fun morning with a kitten, trampoline, sunshine, conversation, garden plans, dog baths and a car washing (thanks again!). she left for work. we (naphtali, aidan and i)went to the cemetery in hampton and then on to fort dodge. more visiting. another late night. sunshine again the next morning, actually it was a lovely spring morning. we did a few outside projects for this grandma, who then left for des moines. we went to the cemetery and on to visit the other grandma. another late night.
the trip home was uneventful. tim had been busy here. i came back with a sore throat which quickly blossomed into a full head cold and spent much of yesterday on the couch. it had rained several times over the weekend,
all day tuesday and should again shortly.
my iris are in full bloom.


everything is green and vibrant.
i work at noon......
the columbine are especially lovely this year. they need some sunshine to show their best in a picture.

new growth

in talking with my sister last night she was surprised to hear all that was growing here so i thought i'd put out a few more pictures. i found delphinium poking through yesterday. the peony tree is showing leaf bunches. my rosettes and dragons blood sedum are looking very healthy. autum joy sedum shares this long bed with iris and they are both up. another iris bed. columbine. and we're expecting a warm day so tomorrow they will all look different...i haven't cleaned out all the beds yet because we are still predicted to have some cold weather early next week. but i may try to get a start over the weekend.