EXTREME WEATHER.

We've had much rain and the green is refreshing and beautiful to behold. Wildflowers waiting to pop into bloom when I took this picture. They are now everywhere. I'm impaired and hampered but I can't resist carrying a camera and grabbing beauty when I see it.


The size and perfection of some blooms in my own yard are stellar.


Iris have such variable colors.


It is unusual to have stems three feet long and yard grass as high as my hips.


I can't remember when I've seen a more perfect rose. A prize winner if shown.


All that beauty comes with a price.


Rain and hail sluicing in torrents. Puddles for days.


A fallen giant, unable to hold on in heavily saturated ground.


We can't control the weather, so there is nothing to do but enjoy the beauty, though with a niggling worry of what is to come. Climate change specialists are telling us we'll pay for it this summer with brutal heat and little relief. My well is dry. The annoying mucus eating gnats I normally don't encounter until the 3000 foot elevation are pestering me as I walk. We've had 81 degree days then cold 28 degree weather back to back in the same week. But, again, we choose to enjoy what we can when we can.


Bridal wreath spirea.


About two weeks ago, the grass was still low enough to see the chickens. Now they can hide completely in it and seem to love it. Unfortunately, one chicken died two weeks ago and we are down to one brown, Della and one white, Blanche.


And yesterday, a cache of turkey eggs hidden so deeply in the overgrowth, my gardener didn't see the setting mother until she exploded out of the nest and into his face. Sadly, she didn't return, but it is nice to know the wildlife will survive and adapt. My gardener took the eggs home to put in his incubator.


I rode by this plant, and now I'm walking the road with Jim each day as I heal, and this plant and others in my yard are done blooming. Not a blossom anywhere. What brings tomorrow?