Garden In Flower

Sunflower about to bloom

Pollinator Flowers

Hydrangea flouncing around

Butterfly bush

Everything is overgrown

Milkweed on the left

This spot used to be shady before the neighbor cut down the tree. Now I may need to move the ferns.

Catnip also attracts pollinators

Plants on the patio

Midsummer

The Solstice was hot and moody. I suggested burning a small bonfire, but before we could, it started to rain. 

It was a big cooling storm with lots of wind.

The sun made brief appearances lighting up the raindrops on the screens.

Today is midsummer's eve and another storm blew through, this time with some excellent thunder and lightning. Still no bonfires.

Checking in on the Garden

I did not do a lot of work on the garden this year. We painted the fence white and laid some slate tiles in a spiral. The rose bush did not do well, victim of the cats leaping around and breaking its canes in the early spring.

Luckily, the neighbor's morning glories climbed over the fence.

I trained a few vines from our side up the fence to meet the others.

We put a bin on the patio to gather leaves for mulch and weeds grew out of it.

A morning glory climbed up the bars on our window.

Out of the base of the crate sprouted the usual suspects that grow literally everywhere.

I love this little blue flowered weed and I am delighted that it sprang up. I had seen them out front last year and was tempted to transplant them. But I decided that transplanting weeds is like playing with fire. If I find some next year I may change my mind. The flowers remind me of lobelia, without all the fragility.

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This castor plant self seeded and came back from last year.

It was so pretty with its purple stems and veins. Unfortunately, I accidentally cut its delicate stem while trimming the grass and it withered on the vine.

I felt really bad, but then the scarlet runner beans, which had been a little depressed, suddenly got it together and bloomed.

Some things I planted this year are still settling in like the wisteria and the forsythia. The light is shifting and the plants seem to know that the season is winding down.

Christmas in July

I do like finding Christmas decorations out of season. We are in the middle of a heat wave and the reindeer are looking ready to salsa.

I have made a separate blog for my plant art: Urban Demeter. Please go visit if you have not already received a nagging email.

Summer Solstice

I finally managed to properly celebrate a solstice with a bonfire. I had old branches from the Christmas tree that I had used to protect the plants in the winter. They made the fire leap up and dance.

It was a jolly bonfire.

The needles from the old tree branches mad a little confetti along the edge of the flames.

Summer's end

There are summers that end softly, the warm days linger, the sunlight becomes slowly sharper. Other summers end abruptly in storms and darkness. This year we have the latter. Labor day weekend was a sorry affair. It was gloomy and cool, with the promise of bad weather.

In spite of this, we lit a bonfire and toasted marshmallows. After that, the rain moved in. On the last day of summer break, the young son and I had planned to go to the beach. The weather was not the best for such an endeavor, but we were stubborn. As we approached the shore, a storm moved in, the sky darkened, lightning crackled in the distance. We plunged on, even though Jones beach was closed, the town beach in Babylon was not. It was still raining as we picnicked in the car.

The rain tapered off, and we explored the deserted beach.

The sky was moody as the waves rushed back and forth.

The young son faced off against the surf, using the energy washing against him to fuel plots to anime style dramas.

The only sunny day this week was humid and too hot. Today we had two tornadoes, small ones.

Starting tomorrow, all the days will be beautiful, not too hot. It sounds like early autumn.

Looking for dream images

Although I still have a lot of photoshopping to do on my first dream series, I decided that the young son and I needed a break from the city. So we went out to an odd spot in New Jersey where my best childhood friend used to live. It was supposed to become a reservoir, but that plan fell through and the area was declared protected farm space or something. The dream I want to illustrate was about a part of Bed-Stuy where the descendants of freed slaves lived, farming on land that was given to them. The farmhouse in the dream was from this area in New Jersey. We hung out near the canal, everything was so green and calm.
 

The surrounding nature did not deter the young son from his video gaming.
 

This is the house from my dream (with son crossing into the frame). But the reality of the house did not fit with my dream view.
 

I decided that this barn was better for what I am planning.
 

I found this farmer from a group of fsa photos online. The farmer in my dream was older and more grizzled with pride in his eyes. This farmer is at least smiling so I think he will do. It is a small image so I will have to work on it the way I did with my visitation pictures

And I know that New York slaves were freed way before abolition, They probably did not receive any real estate, certainly not any 40 acres, but it is a dreamscape.

Summer

It seems hardly right to complain about the heat in New York. People have had it so much worse elsewhere; Washington with their Derecho and blackouts, St. Louis with days of 100 degree weather, Chicago with their gun attacks. Still it has been hot here as well. It was strange, considering the sudden increase in violence over the weekend (we beat Chicago, hurrah), but it seemed to me as if people were going out of their way not to be crazy from the heat.

Lots of fire hydrants had sprinkler caps. I noticed that the cars would often drive slowly through the water as if to cool down.

The hydrants seem to cool the whole street off, 

sending small temporary streams down the block.

The heat wave has broken, but it is still hot, just not "90 plus turn on the hydrants" hot. This summer might be long.

Summer Solstice

The sun sets on the longest day of the year...