Blooming To Life

Life continues to bloom all around, as spring unfolds it's many colors.

Monday 4/8 - After a night of storms off and on, it continued to rain most of Monday, often quite hard.  There were a few hours in the afternoon when it stopped for awhile.


I got started on painting the remainder of my bird houses.

I took photos of the morning flooding just after one downpour / and others in the afternoon when it had stopped, for a comparison.  It was still very wet out.

 

 

I had hot soup for lunch and walked the dog during the break in the rain to check out part of the library trail.  I also continued work on painting bird houses, took a nap, and went to the gym for a few hours.









Joe was watching the end of the NCAA tournament so I watched a few episodes of Blue Blood from season one.

Tuesday 4/9 - The rain had finally stopped sometime overnight and the day looked to be better than originally predicted.  I heard we had gotten five inches on Monday.

I went to the gym at 9:30 and did some rowing before the Senior Fit class, which gave me a good workout.

After Bible study I went to the barn and started working on putting my new cinch straps onto my saddle.  I struggled because the leather 'strings' for tying were too wide and I couldn't get them through the holes in the cinch strap.  While I worked, people came and went.  This is Yvonne with her mare Sadie.




By the time I had finally finished with the saddle, Jan and Yvonne were off on the trail.  Amiga was very dirty when I got her, so it took more time getting her ready.







Emily was saddled and ready to ride when I was, so we hit the trail together.  Here she is on her appaloosa Tasha.  And she got a photo of me on Amiga.

Amiga did well but had slipped stepping up an embankment and then felt off for several minutes.  By the time I got back to the barn she seemed ok, but I gave her a Prevocox in case there was any pain or swelling in her stifle area.

Joe had hamburgers and tator-tots ready when I got home at 6:30.
I took Maggie on a long 90 minute walk after dinner.  These tulips were just blooming.  It was dark by the time we got home.
Joe and I watched TV together.

Wednesday 4/10 - The view out my office window of Allen's pretty Pieris Flaming Silver.  The leaves appear bright red in early spring, so it is not the flower blooming that is colorful.









My pansies are looking better now that they are over the shock of transplanting.  Below, I love the color of this pink dogwood.

It was a beautiful spring morning and the day was warming up nicely.  I got done here at my computer before I was ready to go to the gym, so played way too many solitaire games.  Next time I will plan to work on my Duo-Lingo Spanish lessons.  It has been eons since I have done that.




After a rigorous workout at the gym, I ate lunch out on the deck and caught some rays while reading.



These late booming daffodils are in a side yard bed and these others are by the side garage entry.

I wore a sleeveless shirt to the barn because it was so hot.  It was a hike to the far back of the mare pasture to get Amiga.  I was able to jump up onto her back, swing a leg over, and ride her back to the barn.  Right away I could tell she was feeling good, she was full of piss and vinegar.



Once tacked up, I joined Jan and we rode around the gardens and into the pasture across the road where our obstacle course had been.  This time Jan took photos of Amiga and I.


I guess I am riding a little dangerously without the helmet, but am really enjoying my new hat.  It keeps the sun out of my eyes.

Amiga was very animated during most of our ride.  I thought being out in the open was the reason, but when I took her on the trail to the bean field, she was still fairly revved up.




When putting the evening corn out, Mr. Mallard came right up from the pond to eat before I got fifteen feet away.  I am a little concerned that I haven't seen the Mrs. is a few days.  I hope it's because she is sitting on eggs.










I don't know if asparagus blooms, but new shoots keep shooting up from the ground and I am glade to see my patch increasing.  It still is not old enough to start harvesting.  Maybe next spring.

I met a small group (three barn ladies and two husbands) at Legends for the chicken pasta buffet.  We enjoyed libations while conversing and then ate to our hearts content.

I was so full when I got home, I walked a little extra with Maggie, even though it was dark out.

Poker Joe got home rather late in the night.

Thursday 4/11 - The buds on the dogwood in Brian's yard were just opening up as it was blooming to life.  I love the lacey look of the branches.  It was a little cloudier and much more windy throughout the day.

I had planned to go to two workout classes, but then remembered we had booked a tour of the recycle center.  It was probably just as well I took a day off because I was quite sore from upping my weights the day before.














The tour was very informative.  The (minimum wage) workers on the line hand sort the recyclables coming in and then the containers are dumped into a press that makes these (over 1000 lbs) bales.  I remember telling my goof-off students thirty years ago that they could end up sorting trash (before it was even done) if they didn't apply themselves.


The first photo is of the cardboard bales, the largest volume of recycled material.  The last photo is of the colorful aluminum bales.

From the recycle center Joe and I went to Walmart.  I picked out flowers and groceries and then Joe and I combined our items into one cart and were out of there in under an hour.




I spent a couple of hours planting flowers into my pots.  This included mixing up new soil for them.







I added a few to this really large spike plant (bottom left) that was the size of the one in the above left photo last year.  It had over-wintered in our garage.


I love a mixture of orange, purple, and red flowers and used this theme in all of my pots.







My late afternoon trip to the barn included collecting manure, chatting with Judy, and just hanging out until Amiga had come in and eaten.  Then I saddled up and rode her for about an hour.  She occasionally felt a bit off on that back right leg so I kept her at a walk or slow gait and then gave Provocox when we got done.  It was almost dark by the time I got home.

Friday 4/12 - A 2:30AM storm woke me (and the dog) so I got up, closed windows, and tried to comfort Maggie.  Thankfully the PM pain pill I had taken allowed me to go right back to sleep.

I took this photo from Flossmoor, of the pretty redbud at the dip on Lakeview.  You can also see a white flowering dogwood deeper in the woods.


After a tough weight workout, I ate lunch and rested in the sun on the deck with Joe.

Then I went down to work at the pond's edge, moving sand and saturated rotting leaves out of the water and onto the 'oasis.'

I wanted to re-expand water front that had been lost in the pond due to all the debris washing down stream from the creek.  And I also wanted to fill in all the low spots in the oasis that were getting flooded.









After raking level the sandy gunk from the pond, I spread a thin coat of manure (black soil), applied grass seed (green specks), and then covered with a chopped seedy hay mix I had collected earlier, that is always left under the large round bale in the barn (yellow in photo).

After getting this first section done, I had run out of grass seed.  Because Joe was leaving with the SUV for three days, I had him go get me some more manure.










I got back to work dredging more gunk from the pond and spreading it in the low spots.  I really only made a small dent in it (seen left).


Once Joe returned with more manure, I spread it so I could fill the empty bins one more time the next morning, before Joe hit the road.  By this point, exhaustion and sore muscles convinced me to quit.

I found a tick on me while showering and was sure to scrub extra hard and look again after my shower.





Then Joe and I headed to Stonehenge grill.  The pretty walkway was blooming to life.  We elected to sit by the firepit and have a beer while waiting for a table.  Later we had to remind staff that we were still out there waiting.




We both enjoyed delicious meals, so were forgiving about the slow service.  This is a view of the course from our table.

We watched two episodes of Blue Blood after arriving home and putting on our pj's.

Saturday 4/13 - It was a gloomy morning with spotty rain overnight and until noon.  I had gotten drizzled on when getting more manure at 7am.  Joe left for Cherokee and I switched out our flannel sheets and heavy blanket for lighter weight.  I worked on this blog and did laundry while waiting for skies to clear.  I also tried Spanish on DuoLingo but did horribly.






This photo of a redbud at the Lutheran Church, with our house in the background, was taken earlier in the week.  And I like the flag and steeple with this ornamental cherry.









Looking at the weather forecast, I decided to run to Ace Hardware on Peavine to get grass seed.  Well they didn't have what I needed, so I drove all the way into Crossville and got some at Lowe's, along with some shade loving flowers.


I wanted to get more of the low spots in the oasis filled in and seeded.  So I dug out more pond gunk, used up what manure I had brought home, spread seed, and had to switch to grass clippings to cover the seed.  The dark black areas is pond muck that still needs manure on top and to be seeded.







The three hours of work helped to relieve my sore, tight muscles and I actually felt better having done the physical activity.  Salad for dinner and three episodes of Blue Blood ended my day.

Sunday 4/14 - Again there was rain in the wee hours of the night, with high winds.  This continued into the morning and I had to watch for breaks in the downpours to walk Maggie.  A look out the front window.


Newly potted impatience.






Stevie is the tan girl and Monita the silvery one.




The rain actually stopped while Shirley and I were going to and from Church.  I walked the dog once home because she hadn't pooped yet.  Halfway down the street it started to rain.  Maggie had peed but not pooped, but I turned for home anyway.  Just before Brian’s house the skies opened up.  We sprinted the last 30 yards to home, but still got pretty wet. Ugh.  This old girl can still run, just not as far or as fast as I used to.

The sun peeked out a few times during the day, but there were also several little pop-up rain showers or sprinkles.  I finished painting the remaining bird houses.  I also ran to Food City after a decent workout at the gym.  I grabbed a Jello mix along with some other items I could have Tuesday with the clear liquid diet I would be on.







Maggie still hadn't pooped during her after dinner walk, so once I had my dinner, made Jello, and got chores done, I took her on a long sunset walk.  First photo, looking SW at practice green on Druid.


Maggie finally got her business done.  This was taken looking NE down the fairway from the 18th green.














The dogwood by the pond, down the hill from our house were blooming to life.  I was watching Blue Blood before retiring, when Joe came home from the casino a day early (and a dollar short) having given up on a successful poker weekend.