Dandelion days

Sunday was another beautiful day. I got up early and fed all the dogs of course, but then went back to bed and even went back to sleep because I hadn't gotten to sleep until after 4:00 a.m. the previous night due to prednisone that I'm taking for a nasty case of poison ivy. When I re-emerged mid-morning I eventually made it outside with the goal of finishing the container garden cleanup that I didn't do last fall (I never do).

I took Greta outside with me for bonding time. I fitted her with a harness and set her up in an outdoor crate that really isn't suitable for indoor use any more. I put her in the shade next to the flower bed in the center of the driveway, which was my focus for today's clean up efforts. There were a lot of flower pots in that bed but once I started on them it really went pretty fast. I moved most of them out of the bed onto the driveway so I could rake out the leaves, leaving only a few of the heaviest pieces to clean around.

Greta was happy enough to just sit and watch. Serena, Max, and the fosters, Thor and Betty White were running in the pasture. Sometimes Della was with them and sometimes she'd jump the fence to be with me. When I had finished the shade was about gone from Greta's crate so I took her out and walked her around the yard for a bit while I took some pictures of what's currently in bloom. 

Greta coming through a patch of dandelions in the back yard.

Violets soon become victims to the mower, but where there are patches of them

I'll mow around them for a while. They are very pretty.

This is some variety of snowball bush (viburnum). It's so fragrant that you can smell

it on the opposite side of the house. This is in the final bed that I cleaned out last year

where my small pond is located. There's still some clean up to do this year but I think 

I had killed and removed most of the poison ivy from this bed last year.

Betty White and Thor playing in the pasture.

Della stopped for a roll in the grass.

These appear to be violets also, but they are a much lighter color.

There are patches of these in a shady area of the pasture.

This is a dwarf flowering crabapple in bloom right now. But it's really a 

botanical monstrosity. It appears that the dwarf tree was grafted onto the base of

an ordinary apple tree. The apple tree sent up some shoots from below the graft and

now there is an apple tree growing up in the middle of what is supposed to be a dwarf

flowering tree. I need to try to cut the apple tree out of the center of it this spring. After the blooms.

One of the pink redbuds I planted along the front fence turned out to be a white one.

I'm making some calls tomorrow about getting that fence replaced with something more

substantial and impermeable to keep in dogs after Greta's walkabout on Saturday.

Della enjoying the cool bare earth after I have removed most of the flower containers

from this bed and raked it clean. A lot of them will go back, but I'll make some changes this year.

She must have caught a whiff of something in the breeze.

Serena checking out the containers I had moved out onto the driveway.

Several things overwintered in their containers and have already started growing.

These containers are ready for planting now too.

The flamingo garden. Quite a few of the snapdragons made it through the

winter along with the dusty miller. I hope the cannas come back. My plan is to

plant mostly cannas and lantana out here this year. Plus the snapdragons, and sweet

potato vines, and probably some marigolds planted in the soil on the outside edge.

The solar lights shine on the pink flamingos at night. 

With a pink flamingo flower garden, we don't need a rainbow flag.

Della and dogwood

Can't talk now, doing farm dog stuff.

I have a hard time ever getting Della to come inside. When I'm trying to get her in,

she's trying to get me to come outside to do farm dog stuff. But Clay can call and get her

to come in right after I've tried and failed. If he's not around, I often resort to tricking her

by opening the back of the van and inviting her to hop in so we can go somewhere.

That trick has about run its course, however. She's stubborn but I sure love her.