Wednesday, June 30, 2010

This, That and the Next Thing

Yesterday, Tuesday, was spent with my three good friends from high school.  We began the day by touring Julie's fantastic gardens, relaxing on her deck and then heading over to the local golf course for lunch.   After lunch we came here, toured our garden with the mosquitoes in hot pursuit, and ended our visit sitting in the house because the winged vampires were absolutely awful.  It was wonderful visiting with the 'girls' and I look forward to our next meeting, probably around the holidays, if not before.  Hopefully the mosquitoes will be over with by then!
There we are, holding our towels for mosquito chasing.

Today is Dave's 20th birthday.  I don't know where that time went.  He's going to have to sit through another birthday supper and one of my cakes (poor kid!) so I will be baking today.

Overnight the garden seems to have grown so much, it is almost startling.  Of course, the reason for this lush growth (and the mosquitoes) is all the rain we have had.

The last storm was on Saturday night and Joel was out taking lightning pictures again.  He has alot of courage, setting up a tripod on the side of the road and waiting for a strike.  I have ridden along with him on many of these photo shoots and its amazing when he manages to capture a lightning image because what's faster than lightning?

Storm photography takes patience and nerves of steel and Joel has both in abundance.  To go from nearly total darkness:


To broad daylight in a split second:

I never know how he does it, because it is literally blinding at times.  These pictures were taken around 3AM last Sunday morning.  Joel said when he feels the hair on his arms start to stand up, he heads for the car, and if he can, (if it's not raining too hard yet) he continues to take pictures from the car window.  He has a healthy respect for lightning, I just hope the lightning feels the same way.

From total darkness:

 to THIS!

Here you can see his car in the picture, so he's still out on the road.....sigh......I wonder why I have gray hair.



We're always glad to see him back home in one piece.  This storm produced over an inch and a half of rain, but no damaging winds or hail.


I wish Joel had a bunch of time lapse cameras, because it would be fascinating to leave a camera set up on so many subjects, like the flower pot above, and watch it grow from planting to frost.
The astilbes are coming into bloom now.

The quarry pond is still very high.
The berms behind the quarry are starting to bloom too.
E
Every day brings more daylily bloom---
Ruby Spider, a gorgeous red, is one of my favorites.

A volunteer rudbeckia in Autumn shades
Just a humble 'Inca' marigold unfurling, but such color.

Purple 'Supertunia', love the veining
A
With that, Screech kitty and I bid you a good day 'til next time!
Karen

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