flowers – Page 6 – grouchyfarmer

Photos and Stuff

It’s been busy here and it’s kept me off the computer. Between biking, gardening, trying to set up a new photo printer (more about that in another post), sitting down with ES to spec out a new gaming computer and other stuff, I haven’t had a heck of a lot of time, so let’s see if I can get caught up here.

Screen Shot 2017-07-20 at 6.43.06 AM We weren’t really sure what kind of production we were going to get from the old pear tree. At first it looked like there wasn’t going to be much fruit. With the cold, wet weather we had when it was in blossom we were afraid it didn’t get pollinated, and we didn’t see many fruits on it. but immature pears are almost the same color as the leaves so it’s hard to tell. Now that the fruit is getting bigger it looks like there are going to be fewer than last year, but more than enough for our use. This variety doesn’t ripen until usually about mid-September, and when they ripen, they all ripen at the same time and we have to deal with a sudden rush of fruit to can or freeze. This variety is best eaten fresh. When ripe they are incredibly juicy, ridiculously sweet and absolutely luscious, with a buttery, creamy texture. That also means they aren’t really suitable for canning because the fruit is too soft to hold up well. We tried freezing some last year and that worked out pretty well so we’ll probably freeze them rather than can this year.

I don’t know exactly why, but the flowers have been absolutely spectacular this year. Maybe it was the wet weather, maybe all the compost we hauled in last year. In any case, they’ve been absolutely amazing. Right now the lilies are still putting on one heck of a show. The colors on some are so brilliant they almost glow in the dark.

DSCF3811 Ah, the lowly thistle… It’s a weed, true, but it can be such a pretty one when it’s in flower. We have a lot of different varieties of thistle around here, and almost all of them are classified as weeds, and they can be pretty invasive and difficult to deal with. But my, they can be pretty…

DSCF3805 DSCF3804 DSCF3803

And then there are the grasses. I love taking pictures of grasses for some reason. There’s something about the complexity of the image, the different textures, the browns and greens, the developing seeds.

DSCF3814 And fruit — lots of wild plants are fruiting right now and it drops a bit of color into the scene.

DSCF3821

How about some ducks? I’ve been keeping an eye on this family of ducks down by the stone bridge all summer now and they look like they’re thriving.

And last but not least, this guy…

DSCF3817

My main camera right now is a Fujifilm camera I picked up about 4 years ago, and I love it, not so much because of the camera itself but because of the lens. It has this wonderful zoom/macro lens that lets me use it a variable telephoto lens up to 30X, or get close ups of tiny, tiny things like this bug, all with the same lens.

That’s all for now. I want to get out on the bike while it’s still relatively cool out. I’ll tell you about the new photo printer another time

Stuff, Nonsense, and More Garden Photos

Mr. Spiny, the cactus we rescued from the town compost pile, has gone totally goofy this year. He now looks like this:

I counted around 13 flowers, with about a dozen more buds ready to flower in the next day or two. I kinda, sorta knew that cactus flowered, but I had no idea they did this! We thought it was a really neat plant before, but now– Wow.

Mrs. GF picked up a packet of old seeds on sale for a few cents earlier in the season, threw them in one of the gardens, and then these things came up —

I had no idea she did it so I was astonished and delighted when these brilliant orange poppies started to appear last week. The color on these guys is so intense they almost glow in the dark.

With some plants you don’t appreciate their beauty until you get up close to them and really look at them. Like the oregano we’ve been trying to kill off for years now. The stuff turned out to be horrifically aggressive, taking over the entire plot of ground, and even taking over the lawn in that area. And while it does smell amazing when I mow the lawn over there, we would like to grow something besides oregano there, so we’ve been rather ruthless in keeping what’s left in check.

But that very annoying plant, well, even it looks neat when it starts to come into flower as it is now.

The Fuji camera I use has a pretty darn nice macro-zoom lens on it and while depth of field and focus is a pain to get right when I get this close to something, the results are worth it.

Heck, even the lowly cucumber looks pretty when you get close to it:

Other stuff–

We’ve been going to state parks this summer. Wisconsin has one of the finest state park systems in the country. The places are absolutely beautiful.

Or perhaps I should use the phrase “had one of the finest state park systems”. The state government has decided, in its infinite stupidity, to cut off all funding for the entire state park system. It does not get any funding from the state any more and is going to have to survive entirely on entrance and camping fees, donations, and any other money it can scrounge up. I wouldn’t be surprised to find them out on the beaches with metal detectors looking for change people dropped to try to keep the parks running. The new paradigm down in Madison seems to be that if it doesn’t make a profit for someone who can funnel ~~bribe money~~ [ahem, excuse me] campaign contributions into their bank accounts or fund their PACs, it isn’t going to get any of our tax money. Sigh…

Mr. Spiny Blooms: Cactus in Wisconsin

Mr. Spiny, the dopy cactus we rescued off the town compost pile is now doing this:

Screen Shot 2017-07-05 at 8.39.43 AM.png

He’s been absolutely thriving since we brought him home about three years ago, he’s more than tripled in size and this year he’s absolutely loaded with blossoms.

Screen Shot 2017-07-05 at 8.39.59 AM.png

I know absolutely nothing about cactus but apparently we’re doing something right if he’s growing like this.

We Have Lilies!

Along the Road…

More stuff along the roadside–

Well technically these were in a parking area in the wildlife area not actually on the road, but close enough.

This was along the roadside. They don’t look like much until you stop and look closely at the flowers. It isn’t until then that you see how pretty they really are.

Then there was this goofball–

This dopey killdeer… Not exactly a good place to lay your eggs, bird.

Beautiful Plants on the Side of the Road

I should do a coffee table photo book with that name because I keep finding things like this:

Bikes & the Ever Popular Stuff!

Even before I retired I knew I needed to seriously ramp up my level of exercise or I was going to end up looking like a blimp in very short order. At first I was just walking around town twice a day, but that got old pretty fast. So Sunday I went and got myself a bicycle and much to my family’s surprise, I actually enjoy it enormously and I’ve been doing about 10 – 15 miles a day.

We’re fortunate enough to live in a fairly rural area with a lot of paved back roads that have very little traffic. I’ve found it’s a great way to just get out and enjoy nature because some of the roads run through undeveloped land around here. I’m not exactly a power rider because I’m having too much fun stopping and looking at birds, trees, turtles, streams, taking pictures… You get the idea. Great fun

I end up in places like, well, this:

Or this:

What surprised me most about all of this was the smells. I can smell cedar, spruce, flowers… Along the trail I kept smelling an almost intoxicating floral scent that turned out to be this bush:

The air was thick with the scent. It was amazing.

But then there’s stuff like this…

Yes, more rain. We got 2 1/2 inches overnight according to the rain gauge in the backyard, and except for an hour or two this afternoon we’ve been getting light rain most of the day.

There are bright spots, though. Like these guys.

Another of the lilies is starting to bloom. The color on these guys is spectacular.

Lilies, Peppers, Water and Stuff

One of the lilies is finally coming into flower and it’s been worth the wait. I love these things and grin like an idiot whenever I walk past this plant.

For some reason MrsGf went pepper crazy this year and we’ve ended up with something like 30 pepper plants of various types out in the gardens. One of the raised beds is full of them, and then they’re tucked away in odd corners all over the flower beds as well. They’re all starting to blossom now.

This particular one is supposed to be a small, round, hot pepper called a cherry bomb if I remember right, although it’s hard to keep track of what’s actually planted where. There are at least 4 or 5 different types out there. Both of us really love peppers, especially fresh from the garden, but there’s no way we’re going to be able to use all of these this year. I think it’s a hint that the family wants me to make and can a big batch of pickled peppers this year. The pickled peppers were an experiment last year and turned out so good we’re down to one or two pints left. I certainly don’t mind, but damn, that’s a lot of pepper plants…

Now that I’m not working I’m going to blow up like a balloon if I don’t exercise, and walking around town day after day is pretty darn boring so I went and got myself a bicycle. Biked about five miles down to the old stone bridge outside of town.

the bridge goes over a shallow, slow little river that dries up into a mud hole by mid-summer usually. I never really paid much attention to it before because usually I’m going over the bridge in a car. I realized it’s really kind of pretty down there, especially with the sky reflecting off the water.

Four thirty in the morning? Really? Ick… Why do I keep getting up this early? I have turned into one of those most obnoxious of people, a “morning person”. As soon as the sky begins to turn light in the pre-dawn, my idiotic brain has decided I need to be up. Right now. I suppose there’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s annoying because I don’t want to be up at bloody 4:30 or 5 in the morning.

The cats are delighted by this, of course. Being the utterly annoying little goofballs they are, they’re generally all sitting outside of the bedroom door by 4:30 anyway because they want their breakfast. So I’m out here, bleary eyed, still half in the dark, trying to make coffee and tripping over cats, stumbling over cats, having cats butting against my legs (it’s not a sign of affection, they’re trying to trip you, you know) and having cats yelling at me. And trying to keep things quiet so MrsGF can get an extra half hour of sleep or so.

If they’re especially bored or hungry, they will drag their food bowl all the way across the room and put it directly in front of the bedroom door so I trip over it when I come stumbling out. One of them has developed the habit of going through the house, finding every cat toy she can, and depositing it in the empty food dish. Apparently she’s under the impression that if she makes some kind of offering the cat food gods will refill her bowl?

Come to think of it, it works, doesn’t it? She puts her toys in the empty food dish and like magic I show up and refill it.

Photos

How about a hosta flower?

Screen Shot 2017-06-17 at 7.22.56 AM.png

This is the last surviving iris. These are some of the most amazing flowers.

Screen Shot 2017-06-17 at 7.23.34 AM.png

The roses are finally coming into full bloom.

Screen Shot 2017-06-17 at 7.24.32 AM.png

Took the one below yesterday morning just as the sun was hitting it. Didn’t notice the fly tucked away in there until just now.

Screen Shot 2017-06-17 at 7.25.15 AM.png

This last one is, I think, a real gem of a photo. The lighting could have been better and I suppose I could tweak that with Photoshop, but the raw image is still pretty neat I think.

Screen Shot 2017-06-17 at 7.26.03 AM.png

Hostas and What is it?

One of the hostas up in the hosta garden is blossoming for the first time and I was surprised by how pretty the flowers are. I generally don’t pay much attention to hosta flowers because I’m more interested in the foliage and I have to admit I don’t think the flowers are all that attractive. But this one? Take a look.

When I was up at the state park I ran across this bush/tree:

MrsGF and I have never seen this one before, and neither of us know what it is. Anyone out there know?