Bloom Day

last day of January

Hopefully this ladybug will manage to hide from the hungry hens!
Had an olive tree decide to self prune on sunday. It scored a direct hit on one of my bird-feeder set-ups. Only one feeder broken, two slightly askew, one totally smashed weather dome and a broken pole, which later put a hole in the palm of my hand. Mess is all cleaned up now and a new pole is offering two feeders to the hungry birds. My greens cans are FULL of bite-sized olive branches and there's some future firewood for anyone who will haul it away. Guess I'd better start saving my money for another full day of tree pruning! (Olive trees should never get to be 40' tall anyway!)

fur and feathers

Let's try this again. (first time I tried this nothing happened. Maybe now it will post twice. Or not at all.) I have been down and out for the past 5 days with a nasty cold/sinus infection. I don't get sick often but seem to do a really good job of it when I do. Somewhere under the dog and the cat is I.

Felt almost human this afternoon so wandered outside with my camera and found this lovely grouping. Nobody was picking on Eyelean! She has "only" been with them for 9 months. Really, its Karla (who also chases the dog) who likes to run Eyelean off. Amelia has never been aggressive and Bette-the-Diva is only aggresive when she thinks about it. Nice to see the peaceful little feathered community.

deer in the yard

Jasmine is my "live-in" doeling. Her mama had babies here for 9 years but then fell victim to an auto.
The is the biggest buck. He's probably Jasmine's daddy.
Four more does and a fawn joined Jasmine, the big buck, a 4-point buck, a forked horn and a spike on Thanksgiving. Lately it has just been Jasmine although the spike wandered through the front yard this morning. Wish they'd eat all that leaft green chasmanthe. Or bamboo. Bamboo would be ok. Or baby Bunya-bunya trees..

Jack Frost's handiwork;before & after

The past three nights (or early mornings) have been in the low 30°s so the plant people are not looking so pretty good. Only half of the Brugmansia is frost damaged...

My favorite coleus! Fortunately, I have started many babies from this plant so it will begin anew come spring.

The Persian Shield went from glorious purple to black. In this case, black is not beautiful.

The baby banana didn't fare too well either. However its cousin, in the planter next to the house is just fine thank-you-very-much. Now we just need a couple of months of rain, followed by SPRING in March.

my chickens

Amelia is the adventurous one, the one who will inspect everything, enter any and all open doors, and who lays the bigest eggs.
Karla likes to tease the dog (and vice versa) They play "chase".. she chases Phoebe-the-dog.
Bette is beautiful.
Roostie is ancient.
Eyelean (she used to fly to my shoulder and peck, sweetly, at my eyes), is the "baby". She lays a nice greenish blue egg almost every day.

Stapelia

The Stapelia didn't bloom last year but more than doubled its size. Seems to me it suffered from some Jack Frost issues as well. Anyhow, it summered outside and only came in recently. I did not notice much of an odor.

yay! Flowers!

Blooming now; a double purple Datura
a Brugmansia that starts out yellow then turns pinky-peachy, then white
The stinky Stapelia
and a Canna, of which I have too many.

arghhhhh1

It just took me 20 minutes to figure out my user name and password for Blogger. Now that I have it,  its not wanting to post the photos I'd intended to post. I am SO technically inept!

Water hibiscus

YAY! Finally! The parent plant was dessert for Doereen the doe a few years back and this one has been struggling all belonely by itself in a pot ever since. This summer I stuck its pot in a big tub of water and that made it happy enough to bloom. There are lots more buds as well. (I was jealous of Phil's (Eastsidepatch) blooming in Austin months ago.)
Tomorrow my bank account will suffer a reduction but so will some of the over-grown 100 year old olive trees. Major reductions are in store.. this also means that the new shade garden will be in full sun after tomorrow. But hey, we never want to run out of projects do we! It will be Heavenly not to have tons of olive leaves and olives on the patio.. and a big relief not to have several tons of wood hanging over the studio and one of the little tin sheds. They will also obliterate the three big brush piles (yay, chips for the pathways!) and hopefully clean up the palm tree. Time to do a Happy Dance and go to bed.

datura, tomato horn worm

This purple Datura has been a joy. HAD been a joy. Was STILL a joy to the tomato horn worm that discovered it yesterday and devoured it in very short order. Apparently they are not concerned that Daturas are poisonous. I tossed the worm to the hens, who came running but then put on their brakes. They would have nothing to do with the large green thing.

Poor little plant!

plant ID

Though this is growing in the above ground tin pond and doesn't seem to mind wet feet, I don't think it is any sort of bog plant. Is it one of the gazillion campanulas?