may is when the flowers bloom

WARNING: Megaton of photos in this post! For mother's day my sister and I took Mom to Schreiner's Iris garden. It was sunny and beautiful and a good time was had by all.


it was SO SUNNY that taking pictures in the normal way was not going to happen  - too much contrast, too much shadow. So I decided I would take sort of abstract flower pictures. I think this one looks a little volcano-like.


Deep water!


Lady bug hard at work. She flew away right after I took this.


This looks like a solar flare, or maybe like a monster with no eyes who has a really sweet disposition but everyone is scared of him anyway. (until he saves the day by with elaborate butter sculptures that fool the enemy, somehow. Haven't really thought this out very far.)


I love the ombre effect on this one.


I'm just mad about saffron


for $7.50 you could get a dozen cut iris. Each stem has around 3-5 potential blooms. WHAT A DEAL!


Peony peony peony peony. P-E-O-N-Y   F-O-R-E-V-E-R


foxtail lily detail. They really do look like foxtails when you can see the whole thing.


Hard working bee! (on an allium)


ridiculous ruffles. (I'm in a difficult typing spot right now because Otis the cat is trying to curl up and go to sleep on top of my arms. I have to push his feet off the keyboard...)

f
This should be some sort of airship/fighter in the new Star Wars.  pew pew pew  the pilot sits in the space above the orange stripe. It looks like it probably maneuvers well. GET ON THIS, HOLLYWOOD.


SPEAKING OF SPACE, these columbine in bud look like aliens and nobody can convince me otherwise.


Alien flower after it opens. STILL LOOKS ALIEN. Like, imagine if that was 4 football fields across and floating in the air while blasting historic/chronological songs of the summer over the city. Awesome, right?


Ambassador pink caterpillar heads down into the diplomatic sitting room.




RED POPPY!

currently reading

despite having a million things I want to read someday checked out from the library, I couldn't settle on anything. I'd read a few pages and put it down because nothing was quite right. (apart from the serial novel I'm reading, but I can only read that as it's being released - more on that next time.)

ANYWAY.  There's a new Richard Jury (detective) novel coming out in June by Martha Grimes (author) and I thought I'd go back to the beginning and read the first one. I haven't read it in YEARS so it's kind of fun to meet everyone for the first time again. When I read it last I'm sure I had no idea I'd be anxiously awaiting book number 23 in the series.  This is a super grubby paperback that I bought from the library's bookstore (where they sell discarded library materials), probably some time in the very early 90s.  I think I managed to make a complete set, which is good since some of them are now out of print! Although I think they're slowly coming out as ebooks, which is good.



This book is set near Christmas, but it still feels like the perfect thing to read sitting under a tree in the springtime. (creatures spotted while sitting under the tree: finch, crow, squirrel, honey bee, bumblebee, mason bee, spider, mystery bug, cat.)

spring things

Out the back door this afternoon - I love all neighborhood trees.

I'm pretty sure this is a black walnut. I walk under it on my way to work - it's so lovely! It leafs out later than most.

Sword fern - these grow like crazy here in my part of Oregon. Did you know they can be cut all the way back every fall or late winter? I love watching them uncurl. 

more fern because WHY NOT??

What's new with you? I've been hustling around trying to get some garden stuff done. Now is THE TIME. But then I've also been reading a lot and soliciting recommendations from others. What about you? What are you reading? What's your current hustle?