some flower photos

Thought I'd wander around and snap a few flower photos to update my blog:

Hope you enjoyed a few of my favorite flowers that are blooming right now..too many to post but a few to share with you.

new deer photos

she was going through the garden looking for checker mallows to eat (she loves them) so I got some good shots:

walking around the yard ..having our yearly July drought

Rare hooded oriole in my Michigan yard this year, they are supposed to be only in the far south like Texas to Belize..not in Michigan.

Bambi, checking out the apples and eating some green, also ate all the hostas that were planted under the apple tree (little dickens)

Rose and black raspberry season ..two of my favorite things.

Ugly little raised bed that I'm working on making..from some leftover lumber. First I layered in apple wood and compost for hugel base and then put in some sandy loam but then Ron decided to fill it full of clay..so now I'm in a pickle as how to proceed. Suggestions welcome.

One of the 7 bluebird houses I made from leftover deck boards..some have already been grabbed up by local birds.

Another place I used leftover pieces of the old deck, as a platform for the lawn swing by the rear pond area, and a platform for a bench/table ..all conveniently located in the shade of an aspen tree.

Replaced the woodpecker ridden damage arbor on the end of the dock, with some new lumber, now the grapes and woodbine vines can climb up over it in peace..if you look hard you can see small apples on the apple tree at the far end of the pond, not ready yet.

and this apple tree north of our house is loaded with baby apples too. The deer have been standing on their hind legs eating the green apples off of the tree already and bear seem to check it out about every night waiting for ripe apples to fall of..

June 15 some flowers and deck progress

Wandering around with the camera today snapped some photos of my yard..

releveled the little old deck (that has the trap door that leads to our crawlspace under rubber mats)..disassembled arbor, scraped primed and painted the posts and reassembled, could use some more touch up on the lattice. Vines were cut to the ground and now will have to regrow, have clematis, honeysuckle and woodbine vines that grow over this arbor. This is south of the house.

Finished installing the salvaged railings, still need to paint them. They did come up 2' short but when working with salvage those things happen, we'll work that out when we have more $ available.

A view of the finished deck from the East lawn, there are 3 dwarf pear trees growing next to the deck (2 seen in photo).

My favorite pink oriental poppies..

Some of my favorite flowers are Siberian Iris. Here you can see light blue and purple and yellow ones, I also have medium and lighter blue, cream and white ones (seen in next photos are some other ones) I love them.

first water lilies of the season and finished deck floor

the white water lilies are always the first to bloom.

Finished the floor  of the deck finally, still have to haul the railings up I salvaged off of the old deck and put them on the new one, but it is fun to sit out here (when it isn't raining).

the finished final corner of the deck, minus the railings which you can see here and there about the property. Green house on the left in picture 2 is our son's house and then the grey building is the rear of our garage. You can see a part of the old deck leaning on the propane tank too, that will be used as a board walk in the garden West of the house along with other parts of the old deck still lying in our back yard. That will give us clean clear access around the house on the west.

Goslings and Tree peony

4 goslings with ma and pa..been around for a while but hard to get photos of them.

also the first flower ever on my tree peony (had it for many years)

farther on deck, some other shots around the yard

Well I used up all the lumber I had for the deck so as you can see by the photos below, I'm in a waiting phase of finishing until I can get some lumber.
I also jerked the old steps off of the pile of old deck that Joel piled out back, and put them on the new deck, so now I have steps..see photos also.

this is a photo of the OLD deck after Joel hauled it with the tractor to the back yard, part upside down. I jerked the old steps (pointing up) off the old deck and hauled them around and put them on the new deck..(salvage queen, originally old deck was salvaged off of the old house when it burned so these steps have now been used 3 times).

This shows the old steps attached to the not yet finished new deck, at least now we can get out of the laundry room door and down steps without climbing or crawling..(bad hip, can't keep that up too long)..you can see the part of the old deck we are going to leave to the right, this has a trap door in it to our crawl space and it will be refurbished a bit. the new deck doesn't go as far south as the old so all that sandy weedy area was under the steps and part of the old deck, that will also have to be redone..soon.

Unifinished SE corner of the deck (ran out of lumber and am waiting on a lumber run)..on the ground by the propane tank you can see the railings we took off the old deck, they will be salvaged and reused (at the price of railing materials that is a must). This deck will be squared off at the corner so 12' out from house and 32' long in total.

This is standing by the laundry room door looking North toward the rear deck. The new deck wraps around the back of the greenhouse..railings as I said above are still waiting to be reinstalled...and finish where the deck wraps around the North of the greenhouse.
The view will be the corner of the pond (still need to move clay piles) and the field to the East..and lawn behind Joel's house.

We had to leave an opening in the deck to access the power, phone and gas utility area..and I had a lot of perennials planted East of the house, so this saves some of my favorite ones here, pink and yellow hollyhocks, daylillies,oriental poppies,iris, malvas, lady's mantle, vinca and some woodbine vines which will eventually be trained up trellises to hide most of the utility boxes and  uglies there...they did get a little trampled building the deck..also under the deck are siberian iris, daylilies, poppies, bearded iris, aegopodium, malvas, violets, comfrey, and lots of other plants, I think they'll still get enough eastern sun to still grow and bloom under there but they got badly trampled putting in the deck..maybe next year ?

One of our lilac bushes, this one was salvaged when we had our house fire and moved by the pond when it was dug, this is the best it has bloomed since the fire (July 2002)..of course pond clay banks still need landscaping but the lilac is so pretty this year..we also have  dozens  of lilacs elsewhere on the property

dismantling old and building new deck,Joel with one section pulled out (also cat)

Well I was building the new deck from the back toward the front, thus dismantling the OLD deck as we got to it, here is Joel pulling a section of the old deck out (we cut it into small pieces)..

Adorable cat nap (Mitzi)