Pop! Goes the Weasel...

All around the Mulberry Bush,
The monkey chased the weasel.
The monkey stopped to pull up his sock,
Pop! goes the weasel.
I had a wonderful time last night listening to Benjamin play at his first recital. We spent many years going to recitals when Jayme was learning to play but this is the first time I've heard a first year student play seven songs!
The program was divided into categories and these were Benjamin's choices...
Favorite Song - Pop Goes the Weasel
Well-Known Song - Take Me Out to the Ball Game
Duet (with teacher) - Home on the Range
Parent's Choice - O! Susanna
Student's Choice - Yankee Doodle
Hymn - Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee
Musical by Classical Composer - Turkish March (Beethoven)

As you can see, it takes a lot of concentration to play all those tunes.
Playing all those songs works up quite an appetite so his teacher provided lots of snacks afterwards.
Benjamin did a GREAT job and I was so proud and happy to be in the audience. Look at that smile of accomplishment!
Thank you Heidi & Benjamin for inviting me!

"over-brimmed with spring"

The spring is fresh and fearless
And every leaf is new,
The world is brimmed with moonlight,
The lilac brimmed with dew.

Here in the moving shadows
I catch my breath and sing --
My heart is fresh and fearless
And over-brimmed with spring.
(Sara Teasdale, May Night, 1920)
The lilacs are finally in full bloom and it is a late May morning but my heart is over-brimmed with spring. Yesterday's rain left the garden covered in water droplets...on the lilacs and the ribbon grass...on the tulips...
and the begonia.
The allium leaf was heavy with droplets...
and the newly opened fern peony.
There were even droplets on the bleeding hearts or as I learned from Susan on another site, "diving turkeys"!

Q & A, part 2...

It's raining today so I have time to answer a few more questions. On May 20, BirdGirl asked what the little log house was. We jokingly refer to it as "our cabin up north" (it is 40 ft north of the house!) but it is my working garden shed as well as a place to store all of my antique treasures. I found a similar one on the web a few years back and Jeff & I built it off a photo. It is small but just the right size for the garden and yesterday I swept out a winter's worth of dead asian beetles to take a few photos for you.

When you enter you see the shelves. I keep seeds, fertilizer, twist ties, etc. in all the misc. containers. Birdseed, fertilizer, etc. are hidden behind the faux quilt.
To the left is a storage hutch built from a chest Jeff brought home from a job site attached to a goodwill find. This is used to store seasonal decorations for the garden and the seasonal wreaths, etc. as well as drying flowers are hung up in the rafters. The old steamer trunk was another job find (people actually pay him to haul away or bury this stuff!) and in that I store all my pond care supplies.
To the right is his BEST FIND ever! I told him if he ever ran across an old stove I would like one for a potting bench. When he was offered this one it was too nice to just sit outside so we built the cabin just to house this beauty. As you can see it houses my enamelware collection and other vintage treasures. I do love our "cabin up north"!
Rox asked on May 21 what I had for pond plants. That day the cardinal flower (burgundy foilage) was visible as well as one of the floating islands. I have several floating islands filled with creeping jenny (lysimachia), joseph's coat (can you guess why I'm trying that one this year?), fiber optic grass, and sweet potato vine. I also have floating water hyancinths and water lettuce, several colors of lilies, variegated rush and arrowhead. I have 2 elephant ear bulbs planted in pots and as soon as they get big enough they will be put in as well and I will be adding an annual dwarf papyrus and other annuals that capture my attention when I go to the nursery. Each winter I have several casualities and this year I lost one large lily and the marsh marigold.
Good questions from my newer readers.

Catching up...

Sweet flowers are slow and weeds make haste.
(William Shakespeare)
I'm behind on blogging after the busy weekend and spending hours in the gardens. Why is it that the weeds grow faster than the flowers? I haven't had time to take any new photos but got quite a few of the Tennessee Warbler last week. He checked out the plum blossoms...
made frequent visits to the rock...
and enjoyed watching the goldies.
These red & white beauties were the last tulips to open for the season.

In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.
(Margaret Atwood)

Memorial Day...

Your silent tents of green
We deck with fragrant flowers;
Yours has the suffering been,
The memory shall be ours.
(Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
As we honor those that have fallen for our country and our loved ones this weekend I am honored to live in such a small community where this holiday still means something and not just an extra day off work.
The cemetaries are filled with flowers and flags and the whole town comes out for a parade that goes from one cemetary to the next with addresses and programs at each.
Jeff's family has always ridden their horses in the parade and go one step further and ride out to the country cemetary where their grandparents, parents & now brother-in-law are buried and do a private family ceremony.
Then it's time for a picnic meal and for years a huge softball game with the siblings and then grandkids when they were home.
This year there is talk of resurrecting the ballgame...hopefully, there will be no emergency room visits for the middle aged like there was the last time!
Memorial Day...a time to honor, remember and have fun - I hope you all do too! As a side note, this is the first Memorial Day that I remember that the tulips are still blooming and some still opening,the first daffodil just opened yesterday, the crab apple is finally blooming and the lilacs will probably open sometime this week. It is definitely a late spring here in MN.

I've got the blues...

at least three of them to be exact! I've been seeing one for the past few days but this morning there are 3 at a time at the feeders. Enjoy!



Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps a singing bird will come.
(Chinese Proverb)

plum blossoms...

Sprigs of plum by the corner of the wall
Are blooming alone in the cold;
If not for the subtle fragrance drifting over
Who could tell this from snow on the boughs.
(Wang Anshi, Plum Blossom, 1060)
It was nice to work outside yesterday as the scent of wild plum blossoms filled the air. Thanks to the birds we have many trees surrounding our property. While enjoying them I see that the tail-less chickadee still has not grown new tail feathers. He is such a round little butterball!
I also captured a female american redstart in the garden yesterday.
She sure liked to display her pretty tail feathers.

and finally, I just have to show you how huge this red/yellow bunch of tulips are. I never saved the tags last fall so I don't know the variety but compared to the normal size purple ones you can get an idea of their size. They are beautiful!

It's time...

The serviceberry (also called juneberry) is in full bloom this week. I read this interesting tibit posted by Marie on another forum...Do you know the story of why it is called "Serviceberry"? It seems that once it blooms, spring is well enough established that the traveling minister can show up to bury the dead and also marry and baptize the others. In other words, perform all the "services". I planted this shrub after reading that it attracts birds. The robins will clean off all the berries in one day before they are even fully ripe so I guess it does live up to it's reputation. I watched for 2 days hoping to capture a beautiful bird perched in it's branches with no luck so instead I'll show you the goldies swimming through it's reflection.
The white crowned sparrows are still around but did you know...
that the back of his head shows a perfect cross?

Q & A...

First of all let me say that I really enjoy each and every comment that all of you make. Secondly, remember that resolution I made in January about responding to them...OOPS! When I post my blog for the day that is the only time I go back to it. All of the comments made on it are sent to my email inbox and that is where I read them, if there is a question I will respond back via email but most are sent through "no-reply.blogger" so I cannot reply that way. So I decided to do an occasional Q & A post to answer some of the questions or you can also email at the address listed at the bottom of my profile.
BG & Jalynn asked if the Harris Sparrow was rare for me. No, we have them every spring and fall. They have been here since the last week of April and there are still quite a few here. On Saturday night, I saw 15 feeding on the ground under the feeders and thought about taking a photo but didn't, now I wish I had!
Lynne asked about my bird bath setup, if it was part of the pond and if we made it. Well, we call it "THE ROCK" and it is a huge limestone boulder. I actually went out and measured it this morning. At it's longest point it is 7 ft 2 in and at it's widest it is 4 ft 2 in and it is 24 inches tall. Jeff unearthed it while moving some dirt on our property. As soon as I saw it I knew it had the potential for something! Most people wouldn't have the means to do something with it but in our line of business we have all the heavy equipment necessary. We pushed it up into the yard with a bulldozer and noticed it had a natural slope to the top. I wanted to make a fountain for the pond with it so we used a hydraulic jackhammer to drill a hole half way through it, then used a backhoe to turn it over and measured our spots and drilled the 2nd half through it. It took an excavator to place it in the garden and lift it for the piping to go underneath it. It truly is our "bird magnet" as they just love to be splashing around on it or just stopping by for a drink. It is close to the house and most of the photos I take through the window including the swim meet ones. The garden is pretty bare right now so I looked up some past posts for the overall picture of how it looks with the pond. Check out the link HERE for one from last fall and HERE for one taken in the summer. We also unearthed a second boulder and all of its nooks and crannies make an excellent sedum planter.
Yesterday started out rainy so I took some raindrop photos...this tulip was a bright spot on a gray morning.
But then I spied an even brighter spot of color...an indigo bunting has arrived! I looked up last year's post and it was on May 23 that I showed one bathing on the rock and told how they can sing as many as 680 songs an hour to entice a mate.

More color was spotted in the afternoon when a male yellow warbler came to the pond for a drink.
I think this might be my "wordiest" post yet :-) It was fun to answer some of these questions and I'll try to keep up with any future ones. I really enjoy the blogging friends I have made!