We’ve had some dry weather and sun, but cool weather.  Still, a few plants are blooming outside, and a few in the greenhouse, too.  I like to inventory the flowers around the yard on Christmas Day, but I bet I won’t have time this year, so I took photos a bit early.

A dianthus blooming in a pot near the driveway.  This single, brave bloom looked chilly and wet but added some color to a gray day.

Rose hips on the crazy wild rose at the end of the driveway.  These are festive, and I probably should make tea with them, but I never remember before they disappear.

This Verbascum has gotten huge and fallen leaves are wedging in between its woolly leaves.

Lamium looks fresh this time of year.

Close-up of the Lamium leaves.

Algerian ivy from brother Tim trying to escape from the Doug fir bed.  The leaves are real stand-outs this time of year.

Ivy close-up.

Aucuba looking shiny fresh.

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A single white borage blooming in the veggie bed.

Very hardy geranium blooming in a pot near the veggie beds.

A few streptocarpus are blooming in the greenhouse still.  There are so many plants in there, I can’t get close to these to get a better photo!

I was a little surprised to see these nasturtiums blooming at the back of the greenhouse.  It doesn’t look like it has gotten cold in there at all.

Seedling pelargonium blooming at the sunny end of the greenhouse.

Plectranthus humbly flowering in the greenhouse.

Another streptocarpus that doesn’t seem to know it is December.

When I opened the greenhouse door, a sweet smell overwhelmed me.  It was the angel’s trumpet, with two perfect blooms.

The second bloom and there is another bud coming!

 

We just spent six days up in Tonasket at the cabin.  We were treated to a little snow, a lot of wind, and some incredibly gorgeous scenery.

 

When I wasn’t hiking around the ranch, I was planning the 2018-and-beyond garden.  I put two orders together from catalogs that I brought with me.  I’ll be ordering way too many seeds again, but I have plans for all of them.  Whether I can keep up with all of that remains to be seen!

I also did some brainstorming about what I’d like to accomplish in the next 13 months in the greenhouse and garden.  Here are my random thoughts:

Garden Ideas from the Cabin trip 11/26/17

Things to Order/Buy:

12/2  Seeds identified from Pinetree and PHS catalogs

12/2 Seed starting mix from Amazon—Espoma or Black Gold

12/16  Start investigating what Sky has available for manure/compost for the parking strip bed and potting mix for delivery for all the big potting on that needs to be done

12/16 Order organic fertilizers for potting on and garden projects from Amazon smile

2/16 Order large 3-gallon pots to move Clivias into

2/16 Order orchid bark and moss for potting on Clivias and Cymbidiums

3/16 Get compost tea bags to add to water trays for the GH and shelf plants

Start looking online and at thrift stores for patio pots to use this summer—will need more of them, as will be adding some of the small trees/shrubs to patio pots this year

Wish List Plants and Seeds for the Future:

• Nicotiana sylvestris seeds
• Acanthus spinosus seeds
• Centaurea dealbata “John Coutts” seeds
• Geranium psilostemon seeds
• Incarvillea delavayi seeds
• Linum narbonense seeds
• Oenothera missouriensis seeds
• Agapanthus “Headborne Hybrid” seeds
• Cyclamen coum seeds
• Cyclamen hereifolium seeds
• Erythronium revolutum plants
• Lilium regale seeds
• Nerine bowdenii bulbs
• Gentian septemfida seeds
• Ceratostigma willmottianum plant
• Daphne mezereum seeds
• Mahonia “Charity” plant
• Philadelphus “Bouquet Blanc” plant
• Rhododendron “Yakushimanum” plant
• Ruscus aculeatus plants (male and female)
• Nothofagus—various species, seeds

Ideas to try in 2018:

• Buy or make some window boxes to hang on the fence by the compost bins and around—with vines like Thunbergera and Nasturtium
• Try growing vines up the summer-boring shrubs, like Clematis viticella hybrids up the camellia, the honeysuckle in the corner of the orchard bed, and the witch/winter hazels (4 vines needed)
• Put some sort of netting on the wall behind the tree peony seedlings and plant Eccremocarpus scaber to grow there and maybe another fancy vine—Trapaoleum speciosum, maybe? Or morning glories.
• Find another aucuba, preferable a female, to plant in the Doug Fir bed near the other one. They grow well there and not much else does!
• Plant the Paulownia tomentosa out in the garden and use it for coppicing once it settles in.

Garden Projects for 2018:

The theme for 2018 is Purge and Organize

• Sort through the outside shelf seedlings
  • Pot on the newest ones individually
  • Repot the older ones
    • Root prune with new soil, or
    • Move to larger pots
  • Determine a purpose for each plant
    • Bonsai
    • Patio pots
    • Garden
    • Sales/give-away
  • Identify, document, and label the bonsai plants
    • Photos
    • Labels with estimated start dates
  • Sort through the greenhouse plants
    • Clivias
      • As they bloom, photograph and label them so they can be identified later
      • Sell/give-away any that are no longer wanted/needed
      • Repot the remaining Clivia plants into new soil and larger pots
    • Cymbidiums
      • As they bloom, photograph and label them so they can be identified later
      • Sell/give-away any that are no longer wanted/needed
      • Repot the remaining Cymbidium plants into new soil and larger pots
    • Repot the older ones
      • Root prune with new soil, or
      • Move to larger pots
    • Others
      • All hardy plants get moved to the garden permanently
        • Eucomis
        • Sinningia tubiflora
        • Ferns
        • Daphniphyllum
        • Persicaria—move some outside
      • Repot and divide the big Pleione pot when it is finished blooming
      • Repot the Impatiens into a much larger pot—divide it if possible
      • Repot/top dress all the streptocarpus
      • Remove pots with no signs of growth (some were kept in fall just in case something is dormant in there)
      • Get rid of multiples and non-performing plants
      • Be RUTHLESS
    • Clean-up
      • Move the Clivia, Cymbidium, and Holiday Cacti to the Doug Fir bed for the warm months
      • Totally clean up under the greenhouse shelves throughout the greenhouse
      • Get rid of poisons
      • Get rid of old tubs of dirt
      • Organize pots and trays in the GH and the potting area
      • Organize the space to better use the sunlight and lower light levels
    • Greenhouse crops
      • Try to raise some crops in large pots in the greenhouse
        • Organize the space for best light and trellises where needed
          • Cucumber (2 3-gallon pots)
          • Peppers (2 3-gallon pots)
          • Melons (2 3-gallon pots)
          • Tomatoes (2 3-gallon pots)

 

I set out today to get pictures of my favorite leaves in the garden.  There were many gorgeous ones to choose from!

Here are two Japanese maples–a laceleaf one in front and a fuller leafed one in back.  The contrast of texture is interesting and the color is brilliant this time of year.

Close-up of the laceleaf variety.

This isn’t a clear picture, but it is pretty cool–these are the dropped maple leaves on the gravel path in the woodland garden.

Close-up of one of the fuller maple leaves.

Bright red leaves and ceramic mushrooms make a vibrant scene.

Redbud growing in a pot on the back patio.  The leaves color very differently than most, with beige around the veins and bright yellow on the rest of the leaves.

Another patio tree–possibly a hawthorn, but not sure.  It hasn’t ever bloomed.

I winterized the seedlings on the shelf next to the house today, taking them out of the trays I keep them in for the warmer months.  There are some pretty cool plants here.  I can’t wait to give them more attention starting next spring!

 

The greenhouse is “stuffed to the gills,” as brother Tim would say.

Here are some seedlings from arboretum seeds.  I need to investigate these.

I put the heeled in perennials to sleep today with a cover of leaves and needles.

Hard to believe there are 200+ perennials under this light mulch!  I hope they survive and thrive throughout the winter.

The asters in the Doug fir bed are still blooming–the light frost last night didn’t phase them at all.

 

I took great pains to shake the dame’s rocket seed heads all over the Doug fir bed to make sure I have a lot of new plants next year.  It appears to have worked!  Thousands of seedlings are up and growing.  Hopefully, they will make it safely through to spring.

T

This mullein is growing robustly in the lawn near the driveway bed.  I’ll move it early next spring.

Soft pink linaria that brother Tim planted in the driveway bed.

Raspberries don’t get enough credit as garden plants.  There is so much beauty in their autumn leaves!

More views of raspberry leaves.

More aster flowers, these ones near the driveway.

Gorgeous leaf from winter hazel.

And another…

And another…

Another gorgeous raspberry.

Hakone grass starting to color up as the cool weather sets in.

This honeysuckle stump on the back patio is full of life–fungus sprouting the moist weather.

 

We’ve been blessed with more days of sun than rain…a mixed blessing if you are a plant that has struggled through a very dry summer followed by a surprisingly dry, sunny fall.  It does make it easier to get out there and work in the garden, though.

Last weekend, I decided to heel all of the perennial seedlings (destined for the parking strip garden) that were in small six-packs into the raised veggie beds for the winter.  I think they will survive much better there and get a chance to grow.  I took a rough inventory of all of the seedlings, both heeled in and in larger pots on shelves.  Here is the rough inventory, including other plants I intend to add:

Sedum	24
Arabis?	24
Aubrieta	24
Kenilworth Ivy	3
Ice Plants	(to be purchased)
Erigeron	18
Chaenorhinum	9
Verbena tuberosa	10
Helianthemums	(to be purchased)
Achillea ptarmica	24
Catmints	27
Heuchera	36
Agastache	8
Asters	12
Geraniums	(to be grown from seed next year)
Achillea	48
Columbine	56
Oriental Poppy	2
Penstemon	6
Peony	(to be purchased)
Goldenrod	(to grow from seed next year)
Tulips	(to be ordered online)
Echinacea	14
Goats Beard	4
Lupines	6
Anemones	(to be purchased)
Lychnis	22
Asters (my own)	(divisions in spring)
Delphinium	(seeds to start next spring)
Fuchsias	(to purchase next year)
Verbena bonariensis	60

I cleaned out the beds and heeled in 200+ seedlings.  It was brutal, but I’m so glad I got it done!  In addition, I organized all the other seedlings mostly in one place so I can keep track of them.   The grass in the parking strip isn’t dead yet, and the ground needs a lot of work before I plant it.

 

This is a cheerful October vignette with Linaria and a poorly timed Easter lily.  One of the Cola series geraniums is in the lower right.

Some of the seedling sweet williams are leggy and not spectacular, but this one is a rich cherry shade, with decent-sized flowers and a showy lighter throat.

The coral bark maple and some other trees are coloring up nicely.

 

Coral bark maple against the bluest sky.

Aronia thicket starting to flare.

Close-up of aronia leaf.

I like the contrast of shade and bright and large and tiny leaves.

Impatiens still making a grand show of things.

Brilliance in the shade.

 

Cercis leaves dressing for their final performance.

Dramatic hops against the house.

More drama with light and shade on maple leaves.

 

Vivid maple leaves.

And more.

Cerise geranium hanging on the fence.

Fuchsia Cardinal still blooming and enjoying the cold nights.

More Cardinal flowers.

And more…

Potato vine glowing on the back patio.

Close-up of some “potatoes” forming in the leaf axils.  This plant could be a runner if let out into the wild.  I’m only growing them in pots.

Begonia is flowering in the greenhouse during a very slow time.

A few more greenhouse flowers–these are cape primroses.

And seed-grown geraniums.

Acer davidii in pots on the shelves next to the house.  Cramped quarters don’t stop them from making lovely fall colors.

Not in my garden–these monk’s hoods are blooming down by my workplace in Georgetown.  There is a gorgeous garden there in the middle of nowhere with lots of amazing plant treasures.  I really want to add these to my own garden now that I’ve seen what they can do!

 

Another Georgetown treasure–I have grown this sage before, but not for a very long time.   And I haven’t seen it quite this robust.  It is the pineapple sage, Salvia elegans.

We had gorgeous, sunny autumn weather last weekend, so brother Tim and I took a trip to the arboretum.  Here are some of the things we saw:

In several spots, there were hardy cyclamen plants making a show.  They look great under trees, just graceful and simple.  I especially like this soft lilac shade.

Our favorite species fuchsia was blooming really well.  This substantial shrub has been in the same place at least twenty years, near the greenhouses by the visitor’s center.

Another view.

 

We saw this brilliant aster near the greenhouses, as well.

We stumbled on large clumps of colchicum flowers.  The rain had beaten them down pretty badly, but they still provided some cheer.

We never found the tag for this shrub, but I had o take a picture–the leaves were incredibly graceful.

Not a great photo, but it was fun to see this azalea in flower.

And some rhododendrons, too.

I think this was a Callistemon that had formed seeds.  If any of them come up, we’ll find out.  They were quite striking, like wood with an intricate pattern.

Brother Tim in front of some amazing grasses.

A liquidamber tree and a red maple starting to light up the sky.

Another view.  The blue, blue sky helped highlight the leaf colors.

 

I’m 90% sure that I lost all of my plums to squirrels this year (there’s a 10% chance it was rats, but I’m choosing not to explore that option).  The apples are nearing perfection right now and my preference is that they don’t meet the same fate.  Because the apple trees are small and columnar and not near many other trees or fences, I figure that I might keep the squirrels at bay by surrounding the trees with a thorny barrier of bramble and rose clippings.  Today, I put piles of berry and rose branches all around the apple trunks.  Hopefully, that will be enough to save the apples for another week or two when I’ll pick them all.

It is tough to see the stickers in the above photo, but trust me, they are there!  And I got poked enough stacking them there–I think it might work!

The jewels I’m hoping to protect!

This has been a difficult summer for the garden.  We had the longest period of no rain in Seattle history–over 50 days.  And even the rain that ended that stretch was not garden-worthy.  No significant rain has still fallen through mid-September!  However, starting tomorrow at around 1:00 pm that is supposed to change–nearly 100% chance of rain for the next four days.  I really hope it happens.

The plants are definitely stressed out, despite our efforts to irrigate them regularly.  When the ground is this dry, the little amount of sprinkler watering we do just barely keeps the plants alive.  They still show signs of stress.  For example, powdery mildew came earlier and more heavily this year than most.

Despite the challenges, though, there are still signs of beauty in the greenhouse and garden.  Below are some of the things I found today.

The impatiens have impressed all summer long.  Leon and I are in agreement that I need to grow more of them next year for the back patio.  The conditions suit them perfectly and they require nothing but water to look this good for months–right up until frost.  I may move them into the greenhouse to try to winter them over, or maybe I’ll take some cuttings next weekend to winter over.

Closer photo showing flower form.  One of the most impressive features of impatiens plants is their self-cleaning ability.  While I’m forever pinching off dead geranium flowers, I never once had to attend these user-friendly plants.

Even closer…

And closer still.   You can see the light spots near the flower center that add even more light to the shady patio.

On the fence surrounding the back patio, this geranium is enjoying a second flush of brilliant bloom,

Cardinal fuchsia blooming despite all the heat and dryness.  Trying to keep patio pots watered is a full-time job!  I absolutely love the wall hanging here on the patio fence.

The best greenhouse show is provided by these streptocarpus plants and an angel wing begonia.  The “Cape Primroses” are late this year due to the rat that was eating the buds off the plants until it was

I overlooked this seedling geranium when I was potting them all on into patio pots.  It is a gorgeous soft salmon shad with white eyes.  I plan to label all of the geraniums so that I can match them up better next year.  This year, I’ve got some pretty awful clashing going on, offending even my very relaxed sense of color propriety.

This tradescantia flower is large for its type and very pretty.

I sprinkled hippeastrum seeds on some empty pots and this one sprouted in just a few weeks.

I found two flower stalks on Sinningia tubiflora in the greenhouse.  The plant needs some significant love–maybe this autumn I’ll repot it in some good soil in a much bigger pot.

I received a perennial daisy plant mix when I mail-ordered starts this spring.  This rudbeckia is one of them.  It is in a small pot and barely clinging to life, but it threw a cheerful flower.

Yellow ironweed blooming in near the old lilac.  This is Verbesina alternifolia.

Gorgeous cherry tomatoes in the veggie garden.  We didn’t get very many tomatoes–just enough to remind us how good real tomatoes taste!

Monster Echinops ritro in front of the greenhouse.  This impressive perennial didn’t seem phased at all by the lack of rain.

Garlic chives from brother Tim blooming in the driest bed of all, the raised bed under the Douglas fir.

Voodoo lily berries starting to color up.

Another view…

And another.

Asters blooming in the Doug fir bed.

Close-up of the dwarf aster flowers in the Doug fir bed.

Dogs enjoying what may be their last chance to be tied outside for awhile.

Rose hips from the wild rose grown from arboretum seed at the end of the driveway.  I sometimes want to pull this rose out, as it is a monstrous thug, but these hips remind me why I love it.

Lots of bright hips this year–should be very festive through the holidays.

Phlox still has some flowers.  They bloomed better this year than ever.

Another view…

Verbascum seedling that needs to get moved–it is growing in the lawn near the new cherry trees.

Seedling geranium blooming in a pot near the driveway.  These flowers are interesting in that they are stippled with darker pink in an attractive way.

David Austin rose blooming in the orchard bed.

Prime Ark blackberries in the orchard garden.  I’ve finally hit on consistent berry production by adding the Himalayan blackberry to the veggie beds.   The domesticated berries produce July and early August, then the wild Himalayan produces heavily in August and early September, then Prime Ark comes through with some giant berries later in September.  They taste amazing!

Some more giant Prime Ark berries–they are about six times as big as the average Himalayan berries.

The perennial peas in the orchard garden are starting to bloom again, happier now that the weather is a bit cooler.

Ceratostigma plumbaginoides blooming in the orchard bed.  This unassuming perennial amazes me late every summer when these bluer than blue flowers show up.

Another view…

And here is the whole plant.

There are two different kinds of aster near the driveway–this taller, periwinkle blue one…

And this shorter lavender one.

The fragrant rose on the Jeff Tangen arbor has bloomed better this year than ever before.  It continues to throw buds and flowers and to waft its sweet scent throughout the front yard.

 

Love the colors of these roses.

One of the salvia seedlings in a patio pot in the driveway.

The pansies I bought in very early spring are still blooming.  I know the cooler fall weather will help them to look their best again.  I’m hoping they’ll winter over.  They have been excellent pot plants!

The clematis on the Jeff Tangen arbor has thrown a few late, very welcomed flowers.

 

 

 

A large western hemlock tree died across the street (no surprise, since they built a new house there and compacted the soil and removed nearby trees that helped shade it).  We were sad to see it go, but happy when the tree cutters came and shredded it.  Leon had the foresight to ask if they would give us the chips from it, and they did.  On top of that wonderful gift, they offered to drop off more chips when they cut down other trees in the neighborhood.

Because the seedlings for the parking strip garden are doing so well, I decided it makes more sense to plant them this fall, rather than in the spring.  So, Leon is helping me kill the grass in the parking strip so it will be ready to plant come early November.  We put down tarps and landscape cloth in anticipation of the second batch of chips.

And then this happened:

The tree cutters dropped off a huge pile of chips on Friday!  I called it Mt. Chips and this is Bodhi conquering it.  I estimate it was about four square yards of chips that smelled great–we think it was a pine tree.  And it was all free!

So, I spend a lot of the Labor Day holiday spreading it onto the parking strip and beyond–because there was way more than we needed for just the parking strip.  We also mulched the woodland garden and mulched over the too-thin mulch around the raised veggie beds.  Brother Tim helped out today and it went pretty fast with three of us!

IMG_4771

Click above to see Brother Tim and the final results.

I also potted up six Streptocarpus leaf cuttings from eBay that I plan to root in my room on the heating cable in the humidity tray.  The cuttings arrived in wonderful shape and I’m hopeful that all of them will root.  They include:

UA Solar Eclypse

Nina

Midnight Thunder

Leon

Angelina Jolie

Valor

Some of the perennial seedlings are blooming already.  The Achillea ptarmica are blooming, as are the Santa Barbara daisies, and a few of the catmints, as well.  Most of the plants look pretty strong, but I’m not sure exactly how I’ll get them safely in the ground and mulched when they are still pretty small.  The soil in that strip will need some organic matter, manure, and fertilizer, too, to help them out.  I’ll work on that in the coming weeks.

 

A few of last year’s dahlias came through the winter.  This waterlily-flowered beauty is in the driveway bed.

The rose on the Jeff Tangen Arbor has been blooming since spring, but for some reason, the summer flowers don’t self-clean the way the spring flowers do…so it isn’t quite so pretty right now.

But there are still some fresh flowers–and oh, that sweet scent!

Here are the “Cola Series” geraniums I grew from seed this year.  I made the mistake of not labeling them by color.  The mixed up pots would make Christopher Lloyd roll over in his grave!  But I can label them this year before they go to sleep and maybe match them up a bit better next year.  Each color is lovely, but they clash pretty badly as a group.

The other clashing is from the snapdragons that I also started–they are beautiful but don’t necessarily mix with the geraniums.

I had cut back this mullein way back, never expecting it to rebloom so quickly.  This is a gorgeous one–I’m hoping to get some seeds off of it to keep it going.

The David Austin roses have flushed with second blooms in the summer–some of them, at least.  The others are fighting with the bindweed, so maybe they don’t have the strength.

A soft pink geranium seedling and an orangey snapdragon.

The amazing first flower on this streptocarpus that I bought last year.

A closer view.

I’m working on my degree at North Seattle College.  The campus doesn’t have the classic architecture and beauty that you might see at UW or Harvard, but can I consider it Ivy League, given that many of the cement walls are covered in Boston ivy?  There are some nice, interesting plantings around the campus, too.

The dwarf gesneriads that I bought late last year have been struggling at work.  This little guy threw a flower, though–either to celebrate life or foreshadow death–anybody’s guess at this point.

Clematis on the Jeff Tangen Arbor.

Clematis and roses hanging in front of the arbor…a little wild growth, but beautiful excess.

Brugmansia blooming on the patio–very heady scent.

A more sunshiney view.

 

We took a trip to the cabin back in late June and I’m just now getting around to posting the pictures.  The wildflowers were more outrageous than I’ve ever seen in twelve years of going there!

This is the front yard of the cabin blooming with lots of lupines and more.  You can see our meadow and the aspen grove beyond.

Blanket flower (Gaillardia) blooming on the ranch.  Despite having taken dozens of photos of these flowers, I have a tough time resisting every chance I get!  They just seem to handle the sun better than any other wildflower around.

I had only seen Phacelia linearis growing in front of our cabin before, but I found another patch of them on the ranch on one of my hikes.

I’m sad that Buckwheats have such a bland name.  They are spectacular wildflowers and were really making a show on the ranch when we were there.  I’m not sure which one this is.

Growth habit of buckwheat.

This picture is from a hike I took with Bodhi.  So beautiful!

Another view of the same mountain.

Deer Indian Paint Brush–Castilleja cervina.  These grow along Bench Creek road a short distance from the cabin.

The habit of growth of the Deer Indian Paint Brush.

Another field with wildflowers.

My best hiking buddy, Bodhi, covered in thick mud from some adventurous exploring we did.

He’s filthy but happy!

This is one of the old-growth larches left on the ranch.  I love the surreal, misty look of this photo, but the truth is that a car just drove by on the very dusty road!

Another view…

And another view…

This was an amazing find.  On one of our hikes, we went up a road to a vacant space that used to have people living there, probably just before we got our place twelve years ago.  They had tried to garden in old tires.  This is what was left–with no care for twelve years, this poor little rhubarb was still trying to make it!  I plan to dig it up in the fall and bring it to Seattle so it can get cared for!

There were dozens of Columbia Ground Squirrels around the ranch.  Some years there are very few, so it was nice to see so many this year.

Here is a youngster that was naive enough to let me get within about six feet and take his picture.

Bodhi on the road again.

Pups enjoying the meadow view.

Another ground squirrel keeping watch in the high grass.

Wild clematis I stumbled on while lost on a hike.  I suspect this is Clematis occidentalis.

Interesting fungus on the dry ground, forming huge “fairy rings” in some areas that are probably decades old.

I believe these are Penstemon pruinosus–startlingly blue and very beautiful.

Another view…

 

I haven’t ID’d this wildflower yet, but will keep looking.

Penstemon fruticosus in bright sun.

Veronica in a wet spot off the side of one of the forest service roads.

Geranium viscosissimum on a hillside near the cabin.

Geranium viscosissimum flower.

Western tanager–not a great photo, but he definitely was there!   It is always a delight to see these vibrant birds.

Chipmunks were common on this trip, too, so I took more photos of them, too!

I’m not sure of the ID of this pea relative.

Another view of this mystery vetch.

Another view.

Among the thousands of blue-eyed grass flowers in the various meadows around the property, this white clone stood out.

I could smell this rose from a distance–and it was gorgeous to boot!

More ground squirrels keeping a lookout for dangerous Lhasa Apso pups.

Leon with his best buddy…

Cows in the meadow…

Closer view of the wildflowers…

I realized the Say’s Phoebes were nesting on one of the logs under the eaves…and when I looked, I saw this little guy…

And this little one…

Ended up there were four babies and they fledged (partly to avoid the paparazzi).  I was worried about them, but later in the day, one of them landed on my glasses while I had them on my face while I was sleeping in the hammock on the porch.  I was able to get Leon to look over and see it, too, so it wasn’t just a dream!

Another view of the wildflowers and the meadow in the background.

Another chippie pic–he thought he was hiding, but my zoom lens found him.

The opposite lens, the macro, caught this hover fly on a wildflower-possibly Arnica.

Another chippie with sage in the background.

Another view.

Gorgeous yellow daisies amid the summer grasses.

Close-up.

A beetle on the flower.

Flower and bug–my idea of heaven.

More wildflowers.

More daisies.

Scarlet gilliflowers in the vivid sunshine.

I’ll have to investigate this little guy…no idea…

Another view of the gilliflower.

Looking up in the flowers, you see that they aren’t a solid scarlet–there are spots and stripes.

I believe this is salsify…the flowers have a delicate beauty and they eventually turn into giant dandelion-like puffy seed heads.

 

A very different kind of yellow wildflower–maybe a hawkweed.

Love this light on the aspens…

And this light….I guess I love every light on the meadow!

I had to take a picture of this Ipomopsis–it was so bushy and full of flowers–very unlike most of them that are just one or two narrow stalks.

Rose flower…slightly out of focus.

More rose blossoms near the cabin.  All the wild roses have a wonderful sweet smell.

Another rose–I can’t resist them.

More roses…

And yet one more.

The wild delphiniums were blooming everywhere around the ranch–many more than I’ve ever seen before.

You can see more of the delphiniums here.

It was hotter at the cabin than it has ever been, surpassing 90 degrees on a few days, but because the summer was just starting, everything was still very green.

The cows came around while we were there–always fun to see.  Bodhi took off down the meadow to bark at them, but they luckily turned and ran without kicking him.

One of the better pictures of a delphinium amid the high grass.

Another view showing light through the blue-purple flowers.

Another view.

Silly calf wasn’t sure what we were up to.

Prairie Smoke, a native geum, going to seed near the cabin.

A ground squirrel on one of the giant felled logs in the meadow.

View of the cabin looking back over a giant felled log.

Looking back over the seasonal stream.

Blue eyed grass near the stream.

Gorgeous little butterfly on a sage plant in front of the cabin.  This may be a Boisduval Blue.