Warm and dry -

Sunny and warm with low humidity, so it didn't feel all that bad with a high of 86.

Watered in the AM, boy do we need water. It's getting very hard to keep the lower grass watered that's on it's own. I wish now we would have put sprinklers down there, but at the time we could barely afford sprinklers in the upper yard.

Mowed the upper side and back in the PM, but had to double mow, which is what I call it when I can only mow half a mower swatch, 12" instead of 21", with each pass. This is painfully slow, and even then it's necessary to rake after wards. To mow full strips without raking I would be mowing some part of the yard every other day - I'd rather rake.

I decided to raise the level of my mower to the next notch because of the dry conditions. I will probably have to leave it there until September, unless we start getting frequent rains.

Again, warm and dry, it's like a broken record -

Mostly sunny and more humid, with a high of 82.

About noon I was walking up the driveway towards the house when a mink (it was black, and with the tail about 18 inches long) jumped from one of the trees by the creek and startled me. I could hear all the red squirrels .were off doing their "drums along the mill pond hollow" routine, so they must have been trying to alert each other to the danger. I'm going to guess he was after one of them? I didn't know mink could climb trees . . .

On the bright side, after the red fox killed a mink two weeks ago and I saw it taking the dead mink to the den, I was afraid he'd gotten all of them. But there are more on the property, yeah! Sometimes is hard to watch how harsh nature can be.

Then in the afternoon Punkin and I were sitting on the deck when a baby chipmunk ran up the Adams Crabapple tree and promptly scrounged every morsel he could get from the tree branches. What the little booger was eating is unknown to me, and I'm not sure I want to know.

I'm feeling less dizzy today, just a little tired still.

Warm and dry -

Spent the day watering the West side of the lower yard, high of 83 with low humidity.

It seemed warmer than it was for some reason. I called the doctor in between sprinkler settings about the adverse reaction I was having to the antibiotics, and she didn't think that was the problem.

After seeing the doctor at 4:30 and doing some preliminary tests, she sent me to the hospital to get a CT scan and an ultra-sound. The CT scan was normal, and the ultra-sound showed a very slight narrowing of the carotid artery on the left side. I am going to have an echo-cardiogram done Wednesday June 9th at 2:30. I am also to start an aspirin a day regimen.

I still felt a little dizzy today, but felt a lot better than yesterday. I'm afraid except for watering the poor yard got ignored.

Chance of rain turned out to be a sprinkle . . .

Cloudy day in morning gave way to a few showers in the afternoon, which were more like sprinkles than anything else. We had a high of 80 with high humidity in the afternoon.

Unfortunately, I believed the weatherman when he said rain, so I quick ran out and fertilized the lower half of the yard. Now I'm going to be stuck watering both sides of the yard trying to get the fertilizer watered in over the next two days.

By lunch I wasn't feeling very well, and by 4:ish I went to bed. Hopefully I'll feel better tomorrow. I think it may be the heavy duty antibiotics I'm taking.

I did get most of the East side of the driveway watered however, I'll begin again tomorrow . . .

Final day of holiday, woke to smoke in the air . . .

Sunny and nice, a little warmer today with a high of 80 and a morning low of 57.

When I went out to feed the birds first thing in the morning, I had to put a jacket on it was so chilly. At the time the sky was a deep blue, but it didn't take long until smoke started filtering through the woods from the East. Obviously there's a brush fire some where in the vicinity. I was afraid of this, I knew it was just a matter of time before we had one, it's been so dry.

I spent the entire day watering something, as the smoke continued. I just found out there are 60 different wild fires burning out of control in Quebec. So far, 160 acres have been burnt by noon, while New England is being covered with smoke, some places visibility is down to 3 miles. The fires started because of dry conditions and lightening strikes, 400 people had to be evacuated. Manitoba and NH have gone to Quebec to help fight the fires. Unless we start getting rain, this will be duplicated all across the region. This is the reason I got my property logged, to get rid of the brush and dead trees.

On the bright side, all the Mountain Laurels are in bloom, so I took a bunch of pictures. To the left is a VERY old Mountain laurel, it's over 10' tall and about 5' wide, it's white. We have 3 of this size on the property.

To the right is a picture of a group down by Mill Pond Stream, also white. We have very few of the pink, why I don't know.

The second picture on the left is an up close view of some of the Laurels by the shed. I wish they had a fragrance, but the don't. On second thought, we have so many of them, it would probably be over-powering :-).

Another gorgeous day for Memorial Day weekend -

Sunny, low humidity with a high of 78.

While I'm really enjoying the low humidity, I'm afraid it's a killer when it comes to trying to keep everything watered. Boy is everything dry, we need rain badly, everything is showing stress, even the grass I'm watering daily.

After watering in the morning, I set sprinklers all day long along the East side of the driveway, which has no in ground sprinklers. While I watered, Don helped me fertilize the upper yard. Because of the hills I can't see where I've been, so Don helps guide me.

After fertilizing I mowed the West side of the driveway, which finally completed the mowing for the weekend, which I had anticipated would get finished Friday. That is, before sticking my finger in front of the power trimmer, dah! After mowing it was pretty much an uneventful day, just lots of sitting on the deck to enjoy the fruits of our hard labor.

At suppertime we went out to start the BBQer to see if we had any unwanted bird nests, thankfully none yet, when Don noticed something blooming on the either side of the duck pond. I didn't want to go over there since I had just gotten out of the shower, so Don went, and saw the prettiest Mtn Laurel in bloom. He came back to get the camera and took a picture for me. To the left you can see what a full head of blooms it had. We are very fortunate to have many Mountain Laurels on the property, some white and some pink. Obviously they must like moisture and shade if they like our yard.

I took another picture of one of my Elf Mountain Laurels which is just prolific right now. It's the most beautiful baby pink, very delicate and pleasing to the eye! I have three Elf Laurels, two pink and one white, the white isn't blooming as well, maybe next year will be it's turn.

The semi-official start of summer, Memorial Day Weekend - we opened our pool for business too!

It was a little more humid today with a high of 79. Gorgeous morning though, I sat on the deck in-between setting sprinklers for FB's 6A, 7 & 8.

We started the fountain for the birds today, so it's official, summer has started! Birds love the sound of running water, and the finches like to land on top of the frog heads to get a drink from the stream coming out of their mouths.

We learned something new today about our Ruby-throated hummingbird. When I went to fill the watering can from the house faucet, the hummingbird would come and chip at me, then get a drink of juice, which is right by the faucet. He did this every single time, until Don figured it out, the hummingbird was trying to establish dominance of the feeding station. We've seen two males at the feeder fight, one of which is the alpha. Just wait til the female gets off the nest though, guess who will own the feeder then?

For the very first time we saw a Rufous Sided Towhee, it was on the ridge of the backhill eating under the small pine trees. He must have stayed to eat for at least half an hour, I have no idea however, what he was eating, but he sure was pretty. Every time we go to sit on the deck we take our binoculars and bird book, it makes identifying birds easier.

The Jacob Ladder's are in bloom. About the time they bloom we get a bad thunderstorm and down pour, so we must be about due. They're so fragile it usually beats them down, poor things. I should try finding something that would stake them . . . . If you click on the picture, you will see the hummingbird feeder in the background.

After lunch I finished trimming the upper yard, which is what I was trying to do yesterday, when I cut my finger and had to go to the ER. After trimming I raked, then mowed the East side of the lower yard. I had just finished mowing and was raking when a small cloud burst went over. It did nothing for the flowers or grass, it just got everything wet enough I couldn't mow anymore.

Oh well, I'd probably abused my finger enough on the first day of back to gardening.