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...