July Already?

Good gracious, I did not realize it has been such a long time since I posted anything here - this boggles my mind! Today's the day to update featuring current photos from my garden.

A couple of days ago we hung the second humming bird feeder. The first one went up sometime in April to catch the first wave of hummers. Since then I have kept food in there for sporadic feeding sessions but in the last week it seemed as though more frequent visits were being made to the feeder and so it was time to put up the additional feeding station.

Out in my front garden the echinacea/coneflowers are in full bloom along with a few "wild flowers" like white yarrow, some self seeded blackeyed susans (they don't meet the criteria for color scheme so I really need to pull their bold yellow presence out!) and  some out-of-camera blue salvia. But the coneflowers are the showstopper. I was expecting a friend to stop by on Friday and wondered what had delayed her - I looked out the front window and there she was with her camera snapping away at the coneflowers and the butterflies and bees that were also visiting.

Later on I went out with my own camera and was so pleased to be able to see sights like this one. Many of the plant choices I make for my garden are focused on what will attract butterflies, bees and hummingbirds so it is with special pleasure that I take photographs like this one.

This July 4th was a disagreeable weather day. The rain seemed at it's worst around 10am when our village usually has their annual July 4th parade. So no parade visit or photos this year. (The start of the parade was delayed until 10.30am but by then I had decided not to go.) Instead I tried to compose some Still Life set ups. Above, a small bouquet plucked from my garden includes a mix of the planted (blue salvia and red leaves from the nandina) and the volunteers/selfseeders (white daisies, blue delphiniums, white yarrow).

My blue garden at the top of the driveway is living up to it's name right now with ageratum, salvia, delphinium and lavendar.

Out back I'm thrilled to see the bee balm/monarda fulfilling it's name and attracting lots of good bees to the garden.

Meanwhile in defiance of the weather I continued with my quest to create some Still Life setups. Kiwis were appealing once I found this perfectly colored bowl and a box of the fruit meant I had plenty of specimens for both photo sessions and as a way of getting some beneficial vitamins into my diet this week.

A vignette for July 4th.

And a homage to the flag filled with some personal memories.