Gardens (again), and Open Mic

61°f/16°C, rainy night, showery morning but ending soon. 

I'm interspersing flower and garden pics into this post today. I do seem to take a lot of them, but can't seem to control the urge.

The peonies are blooming! Again, 2 weeks early.

It was so good to get a whole night of rain. Not big storms, just rain, the kind that soaks right into the ground. I am especially grateful because I have so many seeds planted that were just waiting for a good soaking.  And for the past two days I have been planting flowers that I bought last week. I waited to do this until the last cold spell ended. 

These iris are so full of blooms they fell over. I propped them up later, but several others are doing the same. Need to think about this for next year.

I guess that frosty weather must have been our blackberry winter? The blackberries were blooming, but fortunately didn't get bit. We have had our redbud and our dogwood winters already this year, so perhaps this is the last of Old Man Winter. Although, it is supposed to get cold again this weekend. Humph.Regardless of what Mother Nature and her cohorts are doing, plants are determinedly doing what they know they are supposed to at this time of year. 

I bet this lovely bloom is on the ground this morning, after all that rain.

Today I am feeling the effects of all the digging and hauling,  but it feels good to have it done. There is still plenty more to do. I have not yet filled all my planters,  and a box of plants arrived in yesterday's mail. There is a full tray of peppers and tomatoes still waiting, and more seeds to get in the ground. I need more mulch for the herb garden, and have just started mulching the vegetable garden. 

This iris looks black in the garden, much darker than the photo.

But it is coming along. Potatoes, peas, and onions are doing great, lettuce is ready to pick, some corn,  beans and cucumbers are up, and lots of other things are growing well. The garden is such a hopeful place in Spring, and gardeners, I think, are the most optimistic of humans, going out every year blithely believing that this will be the best year ever. How often that optimism is checked by reality! How often achieving even decent results means hard work, lots of watering, and fending off wildlife and disease. And still sometimes we fail. And yet, when the next spring comes, and we are right back out there 

Another one opened yesterday. Such delicate colors!

Today is town day, I think, once Larry gets back from taking the @#*$ mower to a neighbor to repair. He has tried to repair it himself and just made things worse, I am afraid. I finally convinced him to take it to our neighbor Bill, who is a wizard at this stuff. 

Edit: neighbor wasn't home, so he's back, with the @#$% mower still in the truck. Now we can't pick up mulch and stuff today. Grrr!

Another new-to-my-garden iris, but I can't remember if it's a Siberian or a Dutch variety!

Last night we went to the open mic. I needed a break after all the garden work, then helping Larry fix the weedeater, and load the mower into the truck. (I will tell you now,  two chubby 75-year-olds pushing a heavy mower up a ramp into a truck is not the best idea! But we got it done.)

My favorite corner of this garden. The Mexican primroses are so pretty. Spread like wildfire, but I don't care--they pull up easily.

The open mic was excellent. Lots of great music, and I told this story, 

and sang this song by Kris Kristoffersen. I really like the lyrics, pretty fitting for our times, I think, even though it was written in 1972. (It sounds like a John Prine song; Kristoffersen actually discovered

Price in a little club in Chicago, took him with him to New York. John sang one night in a club there and was signed to a $25,000 contract the next day. That was big money in those days. Kristoffersen wrote this song as a tribute to Prine. Pretty neat.)

Last night's featured performer, Jim Snyder, shared a mix of classic songs, like this one:

He joined in with a girl who sometimes comes to sing, in this clip:

All performers were excellent, and again we marveled at how much some of them had improved since they first started coming. Honestly,  I have paid to see shows that weren't as good as last night. 

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.