My First Bloom…

…on “Golden Celebration” from David Austin Roses.

A very rich(antique?) sort of yellow.

Hhhmmm now I need a bright, lemon yellow one, and a couple hundred other bushes from this company, maybe.

The Long Garden

I am sitting here with the dearest little red rose in front of me. I am so in love with David Austin roses. This is from one of two new bushes we put in this year(and it’s the first of the two to blossom). The other one is “Golden Celebration”.

This is “L.D. Braithewaite”. I put a cage around this ‘til it opened up, so I wouldn’t lose the little guy to a deer.

We hope to make a long bed for the roses this year. I’ve put a bit of bar-dial soap next to each bush to try and deter the deer. I plan to plant rosemary with them when we have the more permanent bed.

“This rose has the brightest crimson coloring of all the English Roses; standing out when viewed from across the garden.” say the professionals. Bring on a bushful! :)

Lovely fragrance too…

Iowa Birds 6: Eastern Screech-Owls

I was surprised to discover that the last bird post I did was April of last year. How the time doth fly. I certainly haven’t forgotten about it though, and have art in progress.

The little Eastern Screech owls(less than a foot tall) have a very interesting call—which is not actually a screech. Sound clips can be heard on allaboutbirds.org.

They can be either of the two colors pictured above…

“Gray morph”…

or “Rufous morph”.

If you here a mysterious sound in the night, it might just be one of these cuties!

Sweet Pete, Big Mitt, and Bo-Bo

Peter, Jasper, and Bo hanging out in/on random stuff. :)

 

Garden 2015: Root Vegetables(and a new writing platform)

The purple ones were my favorite. :)

They had a stronger flavor than carrots from the store.

First time growing sweet potatoes…

Two varieties—quite tasty.

Gold…

…and red potatoes

Just discovered that Windows Live Writer is no longer compatible with Blogger and was able to switch over to “Open Live Writer”. So far so good! :) I hope to get more birds up here soon. :)