Lightning Strike and more iris

Spring rains have been occurring lately. We had terrible storm this past weekend with lots of lightning. One hit our house and even though I had serge protectors...they don't help when lightning does a direct strike. So lost my newer laptop computer and printer. Also fried our computer board that operates the oven on our cook stove. The bad news was that the stove just went out of warranty about 2 months ago so it is going to cost us $275 just for the part...not including labor.  I made appointment with the Geek Squad at Best Buy where I got the laptop. I had just bought the full coverage...when I got there, they told me I needed to send it to their service center....but I remembered I had extended warranty so they sent it for me at their expense. If it can't be fixed, then I get credit towards a new one for the cost of the old one. I'm so thankful I got the extended warranty. Sonny didn't want me to at the time. Also glad I had my old computer worked on back in January and just absolutely love it...forgot how nice a big huge monitor could be. 

I'm also making an effort to start saving my work each time I use it and to unplug everything during a storm. Also going to start saving photos of things here on my blog or facebook. At least then I know I have a back up...so the next few photos are of just the irises. They have wound down now and not many left so wanted to share these anyway.

Youngest granddaugher

I mostly had purple ones to bloom this year. Strange how that occurs...last year I had mostly yellow. I'm clearing the bed of the white ones this year as most of them are ones that have reverted to a wild state. 

Tomorrow I will put up other flowers. 

blooming Iris

The iris are really beginning to bloom. I've taken a few photos and thought I would share.

This is one of the hybrids I bought a few years ago. It is a  lovely purple and white. But lots of dotty sprinkles in the white part.
Most of the purples that are blooming now are the old fashioned antique ones and were from my grandmother's garden from about 30 years ago.

These are 2 more hybrids. A light blue and a purple and yellow. The purple and yellow also have the spotty sprinkles in the yellow part. 

This is a love peachy pink...more pink that peach. 

This is more of the true peach colored one. 

This clematis was supposed to be a red one but it is a deep purple. It blooms all summer long and just fills out the trellis so nicely.

These are wild water iris. Think they may be a Siberian type iris. We dug them up from the wilds years and years ago and they are not planted in water. But they are planted beside our 2 small goldfish ponds. We planted ivy as a ground cover around the base of it and around the ponds. But they bloom so nicely...just smaller than the traditional iris. 

We finally got the 2 mosaic deer heads up on the mantle. Love the looks of them. 

And as always...

Past dated Crawfish boil

Sonny and I once lived in Louisiana and loved eating "crawdads"..they are like miniature lobsters but better...just not as much meat in one bite. We learned to eat them like the cajun people eat them by "sucking their heads"...no really eating it all has a much better flavor. Now I can just see you going on google to look up "How to eat crayfish?" 

Well 2 of our sons still work on off shore drilling ships. The oldest finally quit and is now driving a truck but the other 2 always come through Louisiana on their way home and this time of year is crawdad season and they sometimes pick up tow-sacks full of crayfish to boil.  So last middle son was in, he had a crawfish boil. 
To give you an idea of what to do you first put your crayfish in a cooler and add water and salt, This allows the crayfish to puke and cleans out their systems...kind of like shrimp with the devein-ing thing going on but leaving all the innards inside. Then after they sit awhile in the salt water, they are then added to a big kettle of boiling water in which is added crawfish boil spices. You also add lemons cut in half and squeezed into the water and onions cut in quarters, small new potatoes, corn on the cob, mushrooms, and any other veggies you want to add. When the crawfish are done, they are bright red like a lobster. You then put them on trays along with whatever of the veggies you like and you have a feast. It is always good to eat this outside as it is pretty messy.  

To eat a crawfish, you first pull off the heads along with the pinchers and then the tiny legs and the meat just pulls out easily.

Anyway here are a few photos from our son's crawfish boil.

That is our son standing over the big kettle behind the table, His friends are puking the crawfish in the white coolerr.

This is the oldest granddaughter Nicki with her long time boyfriend Kolin. You can see the crawfish in her tray. 

This is our daughter-in-law Jackie (2nd from left and then the youngest granddaughter Payton, beside her and then Taylor with the pigtails and pink cap. 

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A note on our hawk family. I've not seen them in awhile so am hoping they survived the tree downing we did. The nest looks in good condition and thought at first we had fledgings. The baby hawks are called EYAS or EYASS. (I didn't know that). But anyway here is the latest photo of the nest. 

Hopefully I can get a photo of the babies when they hatch. 

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And as always.....

More blooms

It is probably good I'm getting photos of the flowers blooming as we are due a cold spell and hopefully no freeze or frost. But you never know what the weather will bring. Temps are already dropping today. So here are my photos today.

My tulips are pretty well spent so this photo was taken over a week ago.

These were in the original bed before we turned it into our iris garden so we left them and they give a shot of color before the iris bloom.

A close up of one of the red tulips.

My iris are beginning to bloom. The yellow and this pink one are newer hybrids.

I have several of these blooming. These are an old antique one that was brought from my grandmother's yard over 30 years ago. They were the first to bloom.

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My clematis have begun to bloom. I have more photos on my phone but for some reason it won't send to my emails to show. I have several colors and varieties. 

Clematis are kin to the wild trumpet vines. Our wild trumpet vines are blooming in the tops of our trees so you can hardly see them but they drop their blooms all over. Usually when they and the clematis bloom, the hummingbirds are back but it has been cold enough lately to keep them away. 

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And as always...

Blooming

Man I'm pretty creative in my titles now...anyway that is basically what this post is about...all the things blooming around our place. Our tulips finally made a show. They were planted over 10 years ago and most have kept their color and some have reverted to originals...love them all.

 Reds with yellow centers.

This is one that has reverted back to original. It is white with lilac edging around each petal and lilac center. It also has a lovely smell.

These are about the opposite in color to the red ones...Yellow with red centers. 

Another one that reverted and they are a lilac color. I really love these. Not sure what color they were on their first bloom. It's been too many years.

The view of our house. We have a lot of work ahead. Our porch needs cleaning and pressure washed. The house needs pressure washed and then resealed. All our yard furniture need repainting and then I need to rework the flower bed under the tree we cut. It has some pink naked lady lilies and spider lilies but it is so dry and hot in that area that nothing else grows much and those only show leaves in spring and bloom in September so most of the time it is bare. I plan to dig all the bulbs up and replant elsewhere and then plant ivy there. I want it to grow up the tall stump we left. I plan to make a roof for the top of the stump and add a door for my gnome garden. I think the ivy will look terrific in that area. 

This area is closer to the house. The chairs and benches need painting. We also will cut back the ivy from the old wringer washers and clean the 2 small goldfish ponds. We still have one fish left but need to replenish them this year. Always seems to be a lot of work. 

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And as always...

2 in 2 days

I think I'm on a roll....2 blog postings in 2 days...nope just bored. Finished gluing the mosaic pieces to the second deer head. Letting it dry and then will grout but this is what it looks like so far.

This one has mirror pieces forming a star at the top and a cross on the nose. The surrounding pieces are cobalt blue and black beads.
When finished, we will hang both over our mantle.

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We got our hen house and Sonny set it up in our back yard.

He hung a light in the laying box and we closed it off for the baby chicks. We got 7 baby Dominique pullets (females).

This is what they will look like when grown.

We found out that in our state of Arkansas you have to buy a minimum of 6 chicks..probably due to people buying Easter chicks this time of year..anyway, the farm and ranch store had a sale if you buy 6 you get an extra so we have 7. 

Many many years ago when we lived in Louisiana, we had this breed of chickens. It is an old vintage type and really hardy and a good layer. We have not seen any in a long long time for sale. We didn't get a rooster as we just want the eggs.  

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I forgot an important event that happened to Sonny a couple of Sundays ago. He became a deacon.

Two of our sons and 3 of the daughter-in-laws and 5 of the grandkids came. Sonny's youngest sister also came and spent the night.

Sonny is now teaching Bible study almost every Wednesday night. The regular guy had more cancer to show up on his brain and lungs and has had radiation to his brain for 10 days. It makes him forgetful so Sonny has taken over the duty until he feels good enough to return. We miss him.

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And as always...

New Projects and Yard

Sonny liked the mosaic deer head so much that I'm now working on the second one. This one will be done in cobalt blue with mirror pieces for the cross and a star. I am about finished gluing the glass and then it will have to dry for several days before grouting. 

In the meantime, we have finished putting down black plastic in the walking rows of the iris bed and we covered that over with oak bark mulch.

We have bud already. 

Our tulips we planted over 10 years ago have had a good bloom this year. It is amazing since we had such a mild winter.

Our redbuds have been outstanding this year as well.

My wild thrillium I transplanted years ago have been blooming. I found out they are an endangered wild flower so I'm glad I saved it when we cleared the back yard.

We bought a chicken coop last week at Atwoods. They had them marked down. Funny thing is when we got home, we realized they had given us the more expensive one for the one that was on sale..Our local farm and ranch store has baby chicks for sale so we hope to get up there this afternoon or tomorrow and get 6 pullets. We are putting the coop in our back yard which is fenced off.

This is what it looks like but ours is painted grey with a red door. We got it cheaper than what Sonny could have built it for. 

I'm making another attempt at putting together the star quilt top I started years ago. I had to rip it out some to redo as had sewn by machine and should have sewn by hand. But at least I'm starting it again. 

I have fallen in love with Tim Holtz sizzix dies of the small houses. I found the basic house at Hobby Lobby a week ago and used my 40% off coupon and bought it. Hobby Lobby also had their scrapbooking papers on sale so bought some card stock and some wood patterned papers. I used Modge Podge and glued the paper to the stiffer card stock and finally cut my first houses. I can get 2 cuts from one of the large pages so will be able to get 2 houses from each one. Glue them together is a pain. But think I will like them once they are done. 

I'm now in love with his city landscape dies.

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And as always...