Bees and Lavender

One of the benefits of digital photography is how it frees me to take as many pictures as I want to, without concern for spending money to get prints of many mediocre photos in the quest for the really good one.

A couple years ago, I was taking picture of the wild sunflowers that I had grown from seeds my sister had sent me from Nebraska, where they grow along the roads and highways. There were bees flying around — large, round, black ones that are pretty mild-tempered. I was working from a low angle, trying to use the bright blue sky as a backdrop.

It wasn't until I was reviewing the photos on my computer that I saw this.

I loved the fortuitous capture of the bee staring straight at the camera.

Yesterday, I took a number of photos of the bees in the lavender. None of them are quite as fun an quirky as the sunflower photo, but with the Close-up setting on the camera, I got a decent picture of a bee and some interesting effects with the focus.

This one is a little different in that the flowers in the foreground are out of focus. Usually, it's the background that's fuzzy.

I like the way the flower in the foreground here is backlit. It gives the flower a bit of a posterized effect.

Iris

Some of the prettiest flowers in the yard are on the south side of the house, where they are easy to overlook.

There is a planter box next to the deck outside our bedroom with these iris.

Floral Bouquet

Last night, while my husband and I were talking an evening walk through the neighborhood, we passed by several lilac trees with their lovely, delicate scent.

Thus, this morning, I was prompted to go into our backyard to take a look at our lilac tree, which in turn sent me back inside for my camera.

One thing led to another, and I ended up snapping many more picture of what is currently in bloom.

Some late tulips.

Bluebells in profusion.

 

Pansies, which are almost weedlike, in that they are popping up in the cracks in the driveway as well.

The little blue flowers I think may be lithodora, but I'm not 100% sure.

Even the rosemary is in bloom,

as well as the raspberries.

Arboreal Heirlooms

Every spring, I keep an eye out for the first new green on my potted ginkgo that lives by the front door.

Today, I saw this year's new growth.

This little fellow (and I do literally mean fellow) was one of my Dad's collection of what were termed his bonsai trees, even though they were not bonsai in the technical sense. They were miniature, potted versions of their larger brethren, but not pruned, shaped, or sculpted in the usual sense.

In 2005, for my birthday, instead of the usual cartoony birthday card, my dad sent me a card with a photo of the ginkgo tree and a somewhat melancholy note.

After he passed away in January 2006, I brought the ginkgo up to Seattle. I repotted it into a larger pot, where it resides now. One summer, I failed to water it well enough during a hot spell, and most of its leaves turned brown and dropped off. But it pulled through.

I tend to it better now.

Another shrub that I associate with my dad is wild azalea. Some 20 years ago, he gave me a small bush that we planted in the corner of the back yard of my previous house.

When I moved in 2009, I had to leave it behind. But I still have some photographs that I took of its pretty flowers. It also had a pleasant scent, that you had to get pretty close to smell.

I wonder it it is still there. Since I sold that house, it went into foreclosure and, according to Zillow, was sold again last August.

They're Alive!

Without fail, every time I plant the seeds for my summer garden, I always get a kick out of seeing the first sprouts.

I blogged about it last year, and I will undoubtedly blog about it in 2015, and thereafter.

Less than a week ago — 5 days ago to be exact — we planted the seeds for red and green lettuce. zucchini, pumpkin and poppies. Yesterday, I went to give them a little water and saw that the two lettuces were sprouting.

 

The above photo was taken at 7:30 yesterday morning.

This evening, just about 18 hours later, they looked like this.

I always get such a charge about how fast they grow!

Weekend Miscellany

A little about a lot of different things.

SOCKS

Today, I finished the "first" sock of the pair I was knitting for Tim. Now there are two.

I finished the knitting part last night. That just left stitching up the toes and weaving in the ends.

He reports that they are very warm. Well, they should be. Have you ever seen a cold alpaca? (I stole that. He said it first.)

I'd like to start another pair, because I really like knitting socks. But I should get back to my sweater instead.

GARDENING

Today, we planted the seeds for what we hope will be our summer garden. Two kinds of lettuce (red and green), zucchini, pumpkin, and leftover California poppy seeds.

I could have posted a photo, but there's nothing to see yet. Just potting soil in little planter cups.

I also have a bunch of sunflower seeds that I harvested last year, that I will just plant in the ground. And the raspberry canes are leafing out nicely. I hope their output is better than it was last year.

GREEN LAKE

After a week of mostly rain, it cleared up this afternoon. That prompted me to suggest that we head down to Green Lake for a walk.

The turtles have been out of hibernation for a few weeks now. I thought there would be more of them out sunning themselves, but only a few made an appearance.

However, on the other side of the lake, we did see something a little out of the ordinary.

 QUILTING

I managed to get out to the studio for an hour or two. The project I am currently planning involves using leftover strips of fabric that I have collected over the past several months. I am sewing them into longer strips and trimming them to various widths.

I have drafted a larger version of this block, as well as a diagonal version, and will sew the strips together to make a quilt of a size yet to be determined. It will be unplanned, spontaneous and random. Very different from what I usually do.

FLOWERS

This has been a good spring for flowers. It seems like there have been more crocuses and daffodils in our front yard than in years past.

The dark purple crocuses showed up first, followed by lighter purple and white crocuses.

Then came the daffodils.

  

Soon, there will be tulips.

Last weekend, we enjoyed the warmest day so far this year. It was a beautiful spring day — the warmest day so far this year with a high of about 65 degrees. We were out and about around Capitol Hill and took a stroll through Volunteer Park. Many flowers there to see.

Lastly, inspired by our visit to Vashon Island a couple weeks ago and the Seattle Distillery where we purchased a bottle of their coffee liqueur (scroll down), I found a recipe for homemade coffee liqueur which I will try out, with some adjustments.

Today, I prepared the cold brew coffee and purchased two vanilla beans and a bottle of vodka. Stay tuned . . .

Blooming Lettuce

After our week away from home, we went out back to check on the garden.

Before we left, I had noticed that the lettuce was starting to put out skinny little flower stalks. I remember being told once to keep these trimmed off to prevent the lettuce from going to seed, but since it was getting late in the year and it was looking unlikely that there would be any lettuce worth harvesting, I let them go.

Yesterday, I saw that there were some little yellow flowers. It was late in the day, though, and they seemed kind of closed up. So I waited until this afternoon to check on them again.

One in particular seemed more open.

Garden Update

The peppers have grown a fair bit in the last couple of weeks. The two big ones are about 3 inches long. A couple are still just little buttons, but there might be another one coming along.

And this is what it looks like when a mint flower looks like.

Peppers

Earlier this month, I wrote about a jalapeno pepper plant we acquired at a book reading.

There have been further developments. Today, upon close inspection, I saw that where 10 days ago there were blooms, now there were several peppers at various stages of maturity.

A couple are well along.

Several others are yet tiny.

One still has its dried flower clinging to it.

It remains to be seen how large they will get, or what we will do with them.

Busy Bees

Yesterday afternoon, while I was watering the garden, the usual assortment of bees were busily buzzing around in the lavender. One in particular caught my eye — she was carrying a bright orange accumulation on her back legs.

Getting a photo was tricky. The bees don't stay in one place for more than a few seconds. and their route from flower to flower seems pretty random. Additionally, with the camera set on Macro and zoomed in, the area framed in the picture window was fairly small and locating the bee I wanted to capture was somewhat hit-and-miss.

Nevertheless, I snapped several pictures and got some acceptable images.

In fact, there were not one, but two bees with visible loads of pollen. This photo was completely serendipitous.

This morning, I was again watering the garden. Among other things, we have a couple of pumpkins over by the fence, near where some California poppies have volunteered to plant themselves. And what I observed there told me where the orange pollen came from.

There were two bees being extremely industrious among the poppies. Not only did they spend about twice as much time at each flower compared to the lavender (which made it easier to photograph them), sort of walking around inside the bloom to collect as much pollen as possible, but they also would visit the same flower more than once.