Another week has gone by.  Things are really looking green around here now.  More and more trees are leafed out and we have had to mow the lawn a couple times already. Still a little on the chilly side, but you can’t have everything.

Maureen tulip:

Queen of the night:

The make such a nice combo together.

More teeny daffodils.

One of my clematis (clemati?). This is the Multi Blue.

I moved it to the side of the house to see if it would be more vigorous.  It gets much more sun here, but doesn’t seem all that interested in becoming a real true clematis.

This is Iceland Tulip.  I only got 1 up this year.

I also bought some bleeding hearts a few weeks ago.  I didn’t think I would get any blooms on them this year, but there were a couple!

I love these.

They are in the shade part of the garden.  See how the daylilies are totally overtaking everything?

I have to thin them out.  It’s only May and they are all over the place. If anyone wants any, please let me know and I can dig some up and send them (if okay to your location).  They are the the tall old fashioned orange ones.  The liriope has not come up yet.  Those are late to start in the spring and where the empty spot is 😀

The Shirley tulips are getting darker now:

Getting on the last legs of those.

The passionale tulips are still going strong.  It was hard to take pictures today as it was windy LOL!

I spotted a new bloom coming, too.

This is one of my bearded irises.  A new to me plant.  I have never grown irises before, so I am all excited about that!

Have a great weekend and a Happy Mother’s Day!

More tulips today 😀

I did go to someone’s house today for our monthly garden club meeting.  I have total house envy.  It is newly built in the Adirondacks on a lake.  I am soooo jealous!  I would have taken pictures, but I didn’t want to do that and plaster them on the internet LOL.  She had mostly just stonescaping done as the house is less than a year old, but so pretty.

Instead, I just have photos of my garden today.  Small as it is, I do love it so.

The Passionale have opened up:

I love the deep color of these.

The Shirley tulip.  These are the ones that start out white and the purple gets darker the older the bloom is.

I planted more of those last fall.

The Golden Parade are on their last legs, but I wanted to show you how giant the blooms are on these tulips.  Compared to my hand:

The Queen of the Night have also just started to open up.

These will get even darker.  The white tulips with them are not quite open yet.  They still look a little green.  Next week they will be purty!

Our area has just gotten the wave of Red Admirals coming through.  There are tons and tons of them!  They are all over the lilacs and even just landing on our house.

I have never seen this many butterflies in one place outside of a butterfly conservatory.

And yes, I was all up in their grills 😀  Macro!

This weekend is going to be good weather wise, so we will be ride, ride riding!

Question:  Are you experiencing the Red Admiral wave?

The weekend.  Hooray!!  The weather was truly spring-like this week with very fickle weather.  Windy, rainy, cold with peeks of sun.  Today was just  a walking day for exercise using my 10 minute walks interspersed throughout the day.  No biking in this wind.

Made up a new breakfast:

This is 1/4 cup of part-skim ricotta mixed with 1/4 cup pumpkin, 1 egg, 1 teaspoon of honey and some cinnamon.  Baked for 25 minutes.  Topped with 10 grams of dried cranberries.  This was interesting.  It’s kind of like my ricotta puffs, but with pumpkin and a single serving.  It is sort of like a pumpkin pie, but firmer and not as sweet.

Busy work day today.  Good for a Friday. I buckled right down and busted out a lot of work, which was a nice change from my usual Fridayitis 

I got a little hungry before lunch, so I had a date with crunchy peanut butter.

My old favorite snack is back!  More dates in the house since it is riding season.

Lunch time:

PB flour with a coconut flour biscuit.  Quick and easy.  I wanted to get back to work and continue busting it out.  I did take a 10 minute walk after lunch though.  The garden is blooming nicely now.  The mid season tulips are up.

Princess Irene. I love the 2 tone color on this one:

Golden Parade:

Also, my fritillaria is here.

I actually got 3 bulbs and only 1 came up.  Figures because each bulb was about $5!  Gahhh!!!  The problem was that this part of the garden is a bit of a depression and we had a rainy winter and the water pooled there. Then it froze all the plants with ice instead of just frozen ground.  Not so good.  I did lose a fair number of bulbs this year, but all the more reason to order more!!

Lily of the Valley.  I just adore these!  So tiny, so fragrant.

I worked hard today and finished up all my lines early.  I have a set amount of lines that I like to get per day (since I am paid by the line). My goal is to finish them in a certain amount of time.  Some days when I finish them “early”, I just knock off.  Some days I work in the amount of time I normally do and get the extra lines.  I decided to walk with John to the post office and then do a bit more before dinner.  That was a nice 1.5 mile walk to the post office and back.

Then I did another 30 minutes of work and really called it a day!  All before dinner.  Sweet.  Speaking of:

Baked clam strips.  My day ended up pescetarian.  Not planned.

Another 1/2 mile walk after dinner and I had a little over 3 miles on the day. It feels good to get in that broken up activity and it really hasn’t hurt my work production, so I need to remember that.

I am out of here early and John and I are headed out for a Friday night on the town!

Welcome to Friday and an official What’s Blooming post because I actually have blooms!

Just a nice short post today since it is a holiday weekend.  I did have to work today, though.

I do not remember purchasing these, so I imagine they were some bonus bulbs in my last order.  Daffodils!

But – teeny tiny daffodils!  Here is my hand in comparison.

I have never seen such tiny daffs before.  There is just this one little cluster.

Also up early are my early tulips.  Only really early.  These guys didn’t bloom until late April last year, so it goes to show what a mild winter is has been.

I can’t remember the name of these, but maybe Lady Jane?  They are also very short.  Here you can see how short:

I like the leaves on these, too.

So, tiny dots of color in an emerging garden.  I think everything is coming early this year, unless the colder weather we have been having slows it down.

We are hoping to bike to Lake George tomorrow.  Lots of hills!  Still colder than I would like, but we are just going to do it.

Hope you all have a good weekend!

Well, we are off to see the mouse!  Pixie has to stay behind and have a sitter, as does the house.

I am bringing my netbook with me as I have to upload my paysheet for work this week, so I might post if we are relaxing.  I also have the flourless chocolate cookie post queued up as well.

Since we are headed to warmer weather, I thought I would give you a video of warmer times.  This is a slideshow of my gardenfrom 2011.  From the first tulips to the mums!

I can’t wait to see how it grows this year!

And if you haven’t seen the Healthy Heart Weekend sign up – here is the link!

Welcome to What’s Blooming this week!  I am off to my Becoming an Outdoors woman today. Hopefully a dry outdoors woman.

A wet and rainy blooming time this week.  Rain drops always make for some nice shots.

This is the giant clematis climbing up our porch. It’s called heliopsis and these will open into yellow lanterns.

My new annuals – dianthus:

Daylily.  Next week will be a daylily bonanza!

Here is the garden from sidewalk level.

Note John in the background.  This  is the extent of any gardening he does – just looking at it.

One of my new cone flowers has a bud on it. This is the milkshake  one.  I can’t wait for it to open!

This is some lobelia.  Very low growing, but such a pretty blue color.

My giant milkweeds.  I let these grow on the south side of the house hoping that monarchs will lay eggs on them.

Have a great weekend!

Thank you Friday! I don’t know about all of you, but I am ready for it!  Thanks so much for your comments on my running dilemma.  It’s nice to know I am not alone with that.  I probably won’t run much anymore, but then again, I keep saying that and then I go do it again.  Guess that is why I am a Gemini

I had a good night’s sleep last night for the most part other than being a little hot.  I told myself I could sleep in this morning and I did until 7:15!!  John still says that is early, but heck – it isn’t 6 am and it was almost 8 hours of sleep!

I did some work and then made breakfast.  I played around with the pumpkin breakfast cake and did it with banana instead.  I think I need to play with this a bit, but could be a keeper!

It’s kind of like banana bread pudding.  I topped it with coconut butter and a drizzle of chocolate sauce that John made.

The garden isn’t doing a ton right now.  Just a bit of rest before the long-haul perennials start blooming.  My astilbes are up and running:

This is the deutschland variety.  There are other colors of this and they do really well in shaded areas for some color.

Geranium with some fresh rain on it.  (Hello car).

More virginia spiderwort.

The back of the house on the side is something I am going to work on for the next couple years.  I have about 10 feet done, but the rest is a mess of these spiderwort by the shop:

There are some other bushes in there, too, and most of this will go and become garden bed.  See the nice dumpster my neighbor’s have just to the right? It is *enormous*!  And we look directly at it when working in the shop.  They just had it delivered. You can also see the repair done on our shop wall behind that greenery from where the snow plow guy ran into it this last winter.  Obviously still need to paint that.

Potted Argyranthemum with another flush of blooms:

They are so happy and colorful:

The bushes are blooming on the other side of the house.  They are the other neighbor’s bushes, but I get to enjoy the blooms.  I think they are boxwood, but they are soooo tall!

They really smell nice, too.  I just wish the neighbors would actually trim the hedges once in a while…

Next week should be day lilies and possibly some butterfly weed.

Even though it was drizzly, I still had lunch on the porch so I could oversee the garden. Shrimps!

You can see the heliopsis clematis starting to creep up in the background. That is a monster plant and has been slow this year.

John brought me my latte this afternoon while I worked feverishly.

I got a slice of dried crack pineapple. Love that stuff.

Did a quick smokehouse trip to pick up some ground beef and pork.  I have been missing meat for the last few days!  John grilled up some burgers for dinner.

So tasty.  I topped mine with the laughing cow and caramelized onions.  Need to make more of those.  Had a peach on the side.  I am going to make some jam this weekend with the rest, hopefully.

I will be doing some soapmaking tonight:

This is black cherry, which I actually cannot stand!  I have to make 25 pounds of it, too.  But, that is money that gets socked away towards our Disney trip – yay!

The rain should clear out by tomorrow morning and that means long ride day!

Have a great weekend!