Only around here-a lonely little petunia in the drain hole of a lily pot. This little one has been underwater a few times when I soaked my pots and still hung in there. Carol also uses these tubs to soak some of her potted flowers so it's a source of seed transfer, moss rose, pansies, snap dragon, never know what might show up. That's life.

Last fall I got a metal roof, and now I collect roof water. But it's still not the same as rain directly from the sky collected in those (unused) cement mixing tubs.


Edited for grammar.

Rick, by the looks of your area radar accumes, you won't be needing roof water for a while. Can't buy a drop here.

Here's a picture of our little buddy living in a flower pot on the patio deck. We typically see him in late eveningtime nearly every day. We discovered his nest around the fourth of July when I turned the water hose on this pot, he came flying out about 2 feet high. I took this picture last night just as darkness was approaching and he was emerging from his hole. It is poor quality but you can see him directly in the center. He made it plain he didn't like the camera and became very vocal and yappy about it. Otherwise, he seems to enjoy our presence and company, quite a bit in fact.

Your friend looks very well fed, never knew them to be yappy. Michigan is waiting patiently and hoping for some of rain that passed through Minn and Wisc.

Yes, I did get a lot of rain. My cement mixing tubs filled to the brim in ten hours, and they are the big ones... 8.75 inches deep.

This is a glob of 4 distinct stem bulblets connected to a common base basil plate. It came from a young 3 year old clone that had frozen down to the ground level and never came back up till now as this. It had formed just below the surface on the old stem, which by now has mostly rotted away. I dug the bulb for inspection and found it to be small but in really great shape. Nice and solid with good color and healthy roots. Happy about that because I got a lot of these single leaves showing up in all the bare spots where they froze off last spring. Six out of eleven of these froze off. So, a bit of good news for me.

Stem bulblet glob


Grandmother double nose in bloom

Our brush pile. A place we throw all the dead twigs, evergreen trimmings, wind blown branches that accumulate throughout the summer and anything else. You never know what might come up in there. This year a gourd came up and it's growing like crazy. Carol counted between 35 and 40 gourds on what we believe is a single plant. This pile is about 10 feet in diameter. My first time checking it out today.

I had something like that appear out of my compost pile a couple of years ago. Amazing what one stray seed can do. The gourds were similar too. I picked them all and put them in a fundraising garage sale and they all went.

I took advantage of the .99 or 1 inch rainfall I got Saturday followed by delightful, cool, dry air to pull weeds from my work gardens. One done and just started the second one. I pull back the fences and clear the fence lines too. I've got a carpel-tunnel like condition in both hands which causes my fingers to lock up when grasping things tightly if worked too long, or I'd still be out there pulling weeds; It's just that wonderful outside, folks.

Jack I was thinking about your wrist all the while. Can't do much with one hand--hope yours is coming along well.

Not a lily, but a pretty good sized mushroom

Fantastic, Dave. I love shrooms!

Pay attention to the small dark speck in the corner of the green grass about center of photo and note the pink geranium on the table. Zoomed in,picture #2 reveals the dark speck. My new regular.

Good sized turkey. I'm guessing there are others nearby.

Well I'm glad you're happy about that. I know many around here who are not. The birds can be quite destructive. The turkeys in the flock that traverses my parents' homestead (daily?) are twice that size.

We have a whole flock of turkeys that frequent our area. I'll take them over herds over deer any day. Knocking on a large oak tree while I say this, but I have had no destruction here over many years of turkey invasions.

Try growing a nice little patch of corn with wild turkeys around. Two for them, one for you. Two for them, one for you.

Anyone watch the show that was on A&E called "Swamp People?". "Choot em choot em!"

So I noticed this volunteer about a month ago in my clematis pots right out my back door. When I clean my seed pods I dump all the chaff out the back door next to the clematis pots. Well I guess one was not chaff and sprouted in the pot! Looks like it could be something from division 6 or 8. Will let nature take its course. If it makes it to flower then it may be saved.

Squall with heavy rolling thunder and driving rain earlier and that continues on and off this evening. A 'feel good' kind of night to be inside looking out. Twelve confirmed waterspouts between Kenosha and Chicago today and I never saw a one! No lily work today, ground a little too wet now.

In case you missed it, these and other photos were shown on 'Good Morning America' today. They were taken along the shoreline at Kenosha, WI. about 9 miles north of me during last nights storm. It was down pouring and nearly black here at the time of course, so we certainly didn't see it. But we have seen them occasionally, only, as completeness can only occur at exact sunrise or sunset. In this case the sun was just setting in the west while a squall was moving in off the lake from the east. They are beautiful. Note the rotation in the cloud (last picture). All told, there were 20 confirmed waterspouts on Lake Michigan yesterday, 12 between Kenosha and Chicago alone.