Busy day yesterday

[which_chick]

I wound up doing four hours of volunteer stuff for the 4H/Fairgrounds from 8 to noon. Hadn't planned on it, but I do get to be Lala's Phone A Friend friend for when stuff needs to be done. Oh, well. (We were finishing putting the new boards on the South ring. They'd set all the posts and done a little less than half the boards.)

After that I went home and had an omelet. It is the dawning of the age of asparagus over here, so it was a nice omelet with asparagus. Then I went out to play barberry, during which there were also pictures because of course there were.



I sometimes want to do a chatty little newsletter along the lines of "What is happening in the valley at this time of year?" but I suspect that this would only encourage the dipshit summer people to show up so... not really a result I want. Ideally, they own their stupidly expensive lake houses and show up here about four times a year. That's the ideal case. (When I say stupidly-expensive, I mean quarter-of-a-million for a SECOND HOME sitting on a dinky quarter acre lot at the end of a two mile dirt road in Greater Rednecklandia. No public sewer, a water 'co op', indifferent plowing, etc. Cousin-across-the-lake just sold his house for $265K. He bought it about three years ago for 180K and I thought he overpaid then.)

But in lieu of a chatty little newsletter, here's what's popping in my neck of the woods...

Late in the season Rue Anemone:


Black haw viburnum, a woefully underappreciated shrubbery, in full swing:


Dogwood, fading fast as the leaves come in:


Hawthorn:


Bluets:


Wild geranium


Fringed polygala:


Pink ladyslippers, my second-favorite terrestrial orchid on the property:


And a garter snek:


Also in bloom (not pictured) are the invasives Autumn Olive and Japanese Honeysuckle.

After that I went over and took Birb for a spin with my friend Lala on Peake. She took the picture which is why I have one of me and Birb.

Comments

[heavenscalyx]

Sounds like a pleasant day! I was admiring the wisteria and pawlonia blooms in the midatlantic this week.

[which_chick]

My wisteria is just about to bloom -- should be lovely next week. (I keep it kind of small and more-or-less under control because it's such a rampant spreader. There will come a day when I can no longer keep after it and I'll have to kill it then, lest it take over my house and rip the siding off and so forth. But not yet, not this spring. It already smells wonderful even though it's not fully in bloom.) My lily of the valley patch by the front door is also blooming and brightens my day every time I step outside.

[crockpotcauldron]

Saw a dragonfly today and remembered your dragonfly posts!
https://crockpotcauldron.tumblr.com/post/684337747401506816/hey-i-know-this-shit-is-blurrier-than-bigfoot-but
It had fancy swallowtail bits, which I've never seen on a dragonfly before!

Those are some excellent plants. I've heard a lot of the names in old books, but I've never realized what they looked like.

[which_chick]

Wow, that's a lot of pattern on the wings. It's tough to get good bug pictures and my dragonfly pics are definitely "self-selected" by whether or not the dragonfly in question perches for long enough to focus the camera... :)

[crockpotcauldron]

Ha, that's the way of it! I was chasing it with my phone on the way back from a garbage run, and it never got in focus. Alas! It was very cool.

[adafrog]

Good for you, helping with the 4H.

lol flower, flower, flower, surprise!snek!

Glad you had a good ride.

[which_chick]

I spent a lot of time with the 4H back in my formative years. Did a lot more with it as long as Lala had a club and horrible children (not really) in need of a vaguely-responsible adult to go out and play horse with them. At this point, all of Lala's 4H kids have aged out of 4H -- she ran the club for more than twenty years -- so she has now turned the club over to my riding instructor Allie who has a lesson barn and lesson barn kids galore.

However, Lala is still on the Horse Committee for the fairgrounds (The fairgrounds is not owned by the 4-H, it's its own thing.) and therefore she's somewhat responsible for the condition/repairs/maintenance of the physical plant of the fairgrounds as it relates to matters equine. The assorted parents and volunteers and such have been working hard this spring on the South Ring (there are two rings) project -- remove all old boards, pull and replace all posts, put up all new boards, saw off posts level with top of ring, prime and paint everything white -- but severe rain on weekends has made it difficult to get folks out to work on the project. Horse Camp Weekend (the county's equine 4-H'ers show up and camp at the fairgrounds all weekend and do horse-related educational things including riding their horses -- which they bring with them -- under the watchful eyes of qualified instructor types) is the first major 4-H horse thing of the season in our county. It's planned and organized to use both rings. So, the South Ring project was kind of critical. We got it done enough, though, so go us.

Allie's lesson barn kids went to Horse Camp for the first time this year and they came back super excited -- everyone had a great time -- I got to see them roll in to the lesson barn on Sunday after my ride with DLB.

[adafrog]

Very cool. We had a small horse 4H club where I grew up, so there wasn't a lot of activities. My sister and I went to open horse shows separately, for the most part. Our sheep club, OTOH, did a lot of stuff when I was younger.
Glad the kids had fun.