Poppies & lilacs & rhododendrons O My!

My Place, Nature, Sometimes, This and That, Writing and Blogging

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Poppy looks real, doesn’t it?  (Yes, it is)   
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Front walk.  Roses on right, Blue Holy on left.   

 

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Bob 
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Clematis

 

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Some kind of berry bush leaning on a tree for support.   

 

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Poppy close upEnter a caption

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other Peony  

 

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glorious peony  
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Peony. 
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Li’L Kims…  smell divine.

 

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Li’l Kim lilacs  
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Nice hay field.   I wish the neighbor’s horses could come over.  
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Two beauties.  

 

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This old plant is a wreck…until its ready to bloom.  

 

175 thoughts on “Poppies & lilacs & rhododendrons O My!”

    1. thanks Anne! It has been very warm and humid here in Ohio, and my air conditioning is not working. The furnace/AC needs a new circuit board…which sounds ominous. It is the first time this year we have tried to turn on the AC, right in the midst of a heat wave 90 degrees.

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      2. During the winter the furnace starting acting up, but I was able to start the igniter manually. It needs a new circuit board thingy, but I couldn’t afford it at the time. So I need to get it repaired. In the meantime, I located the portable fans. What in the world did we do before we had AC? I remember how hot it would be when I was a kid.

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      3. We sweltered in the Tennessee summers. We had an attic fan. During the day we closed doors so that all the incoming air went through the kitchen. At night, we pulled the hot, humid air through the bedrooms. I don’t think we children suffered as much as our parents.

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      4. We had a similar attic fan system that pulled cooler air from the basement. As long as everyone understood about keeping the windows and doors closed and/or in their proper position it worked fine. We never did get AC in that house until after my husband died.

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    2. The beautiful poppies are in a rush this year, though, as our weather has been unseasonably warm. Conversely…the tulips and daffodils hung around weeks longer because the days were chilly, even w/snow.

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    1. Yes, the poppies are gorgeous. It has been such hot/humid weather lately, though, that the blossoms are not lasting as long. A couple months ago though the tulips lasted much longer because it was much cooler air. Give and take, I guess.

      Zeroing in on the great land fiasco! It should be solved next week. When I see the money in my hand I’ll believe it. 🙂

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      1. I keep forgetting that the northern hemisphere has just rolled over into official summer mode. We’ve been chilly down here.

        Fingers crossed for you. One more week will go so quickly. You’ll see. 🙂

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      2. A week can pass quickly…sometimes. The month of May always seems to drag for some reason. The May flowers were in a hurry this year, fortunately the roses will last most of the summer now, we have several varities, one is a almost-neon shade of uh : “red-rose” called Knockout Roses…. brilliant and very fast growing.

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      4. They are lovely, very profuse this year. My little bleeding-heart plant doesn’t seem happy where it is, maybe I should move it or check what “experts” have to recommend.

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      5. I am partial to yellow roses…I use one for my avatar pic. That yellow rose bush I had in front with the red ones and red/white ones. The yellows were gorgeous until their bush just died one exceptionally cold winter. The blossoms were almost as big as peonies.

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      6. Oh, that’s such a pity coz it is a stunning picture. I love yellow as well, but there’s just something about a vibrant red that wakes up my senses.

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      7. I love red, too. Although my garden beds are full of weeds and grass, the bright reds almost overpower the weeds. There is a frightful “sticker” I call it, that can be pulled out very easily…up to a point, then it takes brute force.

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      8. Meh…I’ve been trying to dig up this nasty weed that sends runners underground. I think I’m fighting a losing battle. I feel your pain. 😦

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      11. these terrible weeds were permeating my roses and today I put on a long-sleeve shirt and went out there and pulled the pickers out. They pull out easily until they get too advanced.

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      13. actually I have been blessed so far with good bones, though occasionally my back “goes out.” My kids used to think that was hilarious, but they all have bad bones they got from their Dad. tsk tsk

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      14. we have an invasive plant called “lemon grass” for its aroma…pulls out easily up to a point, then needs a bulldozer…er a shovel. Yesterday we planted 3 Lantana plants. I have some more but I think I’ll put them in pots except for a few marigolds.

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      17. As for the great land fiasco…I’ll call the title company and see if they know what is going on. I suspect these idiots are worried about my age…not legal, of course, to consider age, but of course they do under some guise.

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      19. Not on a sale, but rather effect on a loan. They are not, by law, allowed to use age discrimination in any way, but obviously a 84-year-old woman with a 30-year mortgage causes some concern. 🙂

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      21. I told my doc he has to keep me alive longer than my son…he always says I’m not as old as I really am. I am planning (fingers crossed) on ten more years. Daughter says I’m always the same…terrible diet, daredevil/stupid, and stubborn. haha I refuse to waste my life feeling sorry for myself (she said smugly) haha

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      23. please, no kudos for that! These people who get “old” and sit around for the rest of their lives complaining and waiting to die just waste good time. NOT my SIL who is 98 and wouldn’t think about sitting around like that…and yes I’d rather have her traipsing around in giant grocery store than not. The KEY to it all is having a good brain, of course,

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      24. Well at least one “issue” is resolved. The surveyor was here early this morning to locate my missing property pin. It is there where it is supposed to be, within about 10-feet of where I have been searching off and on for years. So at least one thing is going right. 🙂

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      28. well, my giant threatening issues on this land deal were easily solved just by asking. never listen to “they” who say certain things are impossible or exhorbitant…

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      30. yes…and it isn’t over yet. The Feds in Philadelphia are still dragging their feet, so the bank guy “Tim” apologized and said he was going to have to go back on his word. Today is the “end of the week.”

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      32. my conspiracy alarms are going off … they refused to pay for a survey and now when I told the title company that they had to find the pin…. guess what? They actually found a pin that is extra…. a long time ago I marked that boundary pin, and I know where it is now. There is a new stake AND rebar pin sticking up that was not there a month ago…maybe ten feet away. The plot thickens…talk about crooks.

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      34. no…I can prove where the real post is down in the ground. I will check with the surveyor tomorrow to see if they put up the marker…but I suspect they couldn’t find the post and just guessed at it.

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      37. Here’s the thing: the church is hiring a tree service to come in and take out/down ALL of the trees on the lot… destroy them, chop them up, plow over the lot and just have a grassy area…almost two acres!

        Fortunately my daughter owns the back lot, and the numerous trees back there will be spared.

        Please check my email, I have some ranting I want to do.

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      38. -sigh- Yeah, I gathered that from one of the other comments. I suppose they thing grass is easier to maintain or something. Will definitely check the email.

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      40. Don’t say that, even in jest. I just read your comment about the boundary marker. Who knows what may be going on behind the scenes. 😦

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      43. Right now the Evangelicals have given trumpet a pass because no matter how evil he is, there are now lots of people praying for him. So adultery and even worse sins are ok apparently.

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      45. they think trumpy’s supreme court pick will help overturn the abortion law, Roe v Wade. Re that, in my opinion men should not be allowed to have a vote in that issue…

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      46. I agree completely. It’s hard to believe we’re still having this fight in 2018! I was lucky not to have to make that awful choice in my life, but it’s a choice that ONLY the woman concerned can make. Anything less and you’re talking slavery based on gender. 😦

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      47. exactly…men should not be allowed to dominate this decision…they are not the ones who have to deal with consequences. Most women, even the holier-than-thou ones, appreciate the issues to be dealt with.

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      56. by the way, my lawyer is leaving on vacation….imagine that…things are really bad when you lawyer bails on ya. LOL on the other hand the good news is that my real estate agent says she backs me in what ever I want to do about this fiasco…we’ll see if her money is where her mouth is, but I think she is sincere. (Our latest extension of the original agreement ran out last month.)

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      57. I’m not sure I’d trust either a lawyer or a real estate agent, but then I dream conspiracy theories so that’s probably not saying much. I just hope things do finally sort themselves out.

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      67. maybe…I am definitely calling the surveyor to ask if they put that pin back there. Also the city to see if they destroyed those plants on the fence line; and the state to ask if they ruined their own highway fence.

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      71. ta da…well I in my great wisdom, have managed to create Havoc. I have backed out of the land sale…er land rip-off…I am not going through with it.

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      72. OMG….As usual I’ve been reading your emails from the top of the list so most recent first. Now I’m gobsmacked. What happened?

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      73. I fell off the high road because I need the money. I have a lot invested, too in appraiser fees, bank fees, soil test and septic system plan, and more.

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      75. Now I’ll be whining and fussing about being broke, but at least I won’t be continually throwing good money after bad. bah humbug! As I said earlier, it is a perilous position being caught between the two most evil entities in the world: Church and Bank.

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      77. the great land fiasco is back on…I need the money worse than the satisfaction of creating a big mess! Besides, it turns out that they can apply the $8,000 to the existing mortgage and take it out of closing costs. I was under impression that I had to come up with the cash ahead of time.

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      80. let’s say sort of…I decided that I couldn’t afford taking the high road. I need money…a thrill I don’t need… hmm, do you remember that song that was around: “I need money, a thrill I don’t need.”

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      85. My contact at the bank “Tim” assures me that the deal will indeed be concluded this week. (He actually does have a last name, which is audible on his voice mail.) Tim is also “the person” that I will be working with hereafter.

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      87. Also the surveyor arrived yesterday morning and located the “missing” property pin. FYI, it was within ten feet of the spot where I have been looking for years and years…the yellow cap blended in with the grass and other plants with similar yellow color. There was no charge for locating the pin…it was the firm that did my original survey when I split up the land after my husband died 18 years ago.

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      91. you think? As soon as “Tim” gets the paperwork (god who knows!) he is going to email it to me, and I plan to take it to my attorney, because I do not trust these people…church notwithstanding.

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      94. I am posting a “walk through the meadow” slide show. The man with the mower has since mowed most of my back land and we have tied red ribbons n trees here and there as NO CUTS… on my land but still vulnerable…

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      96. the trees on our lots, behind and beside the church’s, now have red ribbons flowing from them. I am also going to try…try…to talk them into allowing a thin buffer of trees at the back of the sold lot.

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      97. Good luck with that. A buffer would be good for you and for them, but a lot of managers just have this scorched earth policy when it comes to new projects. 😦

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      99. also, the guy that has mowed my back lands for years talked to the owner of the landscaping trees (and the holes 😉 and they are coming to mow in the next couple of days. whew! I thought I’d have to pay the mower, but I think not now. Good news indeed!

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      100. That’s fabulous news because I really worred about you breaking something in one of those holes. At least now you’ll see them.

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      101. yesterday on my trek to the back I had with me a walking stick AND a real cane, plus my camera and my phone. The kids were with me, and the mower was doing his thing in the vicinity.

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      103. yesterday I walked again after the extensive mowing…glorious! Then I crawled through the trees to reach the highway fence, where I took more photos. On the return trip I ran into some wicked pickers of some kind, which proceeded to make holes in my skin. As I walked back to the house (I’d say its close to a mile back there catty-cornering back and forth. ) I felt the moisture, which turned out to be blood running down my leg from calf high, into my shoe. My reaction:: “yes, Anita, I know you told me so!” I first thought I might send a photo of my leg, but decided it was too gross. It was nothing a few band-aids and hydrogen chloride didn’t take care of. 🙂

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      106. indeed…I am not a trouble-maker or nibby old beyatch, but I CAN be if I need to be. getting out my pointed hat from the attic…those people over there think I fly around instead of drive anyway.

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      112. My late husband once grew broom-corn, the seeds of which he got at one of those old-settler-house museum places, and made a variety of brooms and whisk-brooms. That sounds like a blog entry….hmmm. (I used to tell him he was a many splendored thing…)

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      118. I guess I’ll have to open my dictionary. Its an old hymn: “we shall come rejoicing…bringing in the sheaves” and to shouts of “amen” after the yelling of the song.

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      122. He would grow or try to grow anything. Once he grew some cotton (not viable of course, we are wayyy North of cotton country) and another time he grew tobacco… ditto on the location.

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      123. lmao! I wish I had a green thumb like that. I learned a lot from my Dad, but while he perfected a technique for grafting almost anything to anything, I prefer working with rocks to landscape my gardens. The passion’s the same though. 🙂

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      126. our idiot 45 is giving us all away free! These people here that support trumpie deserves what they get. There are two kinds: the ones who know nothing…and the ones who know all about it and don’t care! Those are the dangerous ones!

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      127. Here’s a question: If my English and German-born ancesters make me English/German…does my Australian-born grandfather make me Australian? We (daughter and I) are meeting my two first cousins (the other two granddaughters of Gramps) today for breakfast. They are cool women, I should spend more time with them…but I don’t have time to spend with all of the people that I really might enjoy.

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      129. You’ve heard of my Australian grandfather (he was at least three generations of Australian) well yesterday Daughter and I had breakfast with my first cousin, who lives about ten minute drive from me. We chatted about how great it could be if we (we cousins, etc) could go to Australia! It is sooo expensive from here I wish I would have gone when I had the money…or could have scraped up the money.

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      133. Yesterday I took my 98-year-old SIL to the grocery store. What a fiasco! By the time she putzed along to the pharmacy in the extreme back corner, where she could sit down, she had a spell…scared the crap out of me. Then she wanted to traipse around gathering bananas and peaches, etc. in this humungous store. I refused to trek to the milk department, and guided her to the front of the store where she could lean on one of the check-out conveyor things….while I ran around for milk, personal items, etc….then I rushed back to the front and she was gone! The customer service people showed me where she was, sitting on a bench. She had the grocery cart with her, of course. The customer service people (that store has the single most unfriendly staff in the world!) informed me that they almost called 911 because they thought SIL was having an attack of some kind. Well, then we had to maneuver back inside the cash register check-out row, backing into the queue from the exit instead of the normal way…she hadn’t paid for the groceries yet. The cashier wasn’t very amused when I told her what we were going to do…but the transaction went smoothly.

        THAT isn’t going to happen again!

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      134. Gawd…that sounds absolutely terrible! I mean it’s wonderful that your SIL is capable of getting out and about at 98, but the stress on you must have been extreme. Is there some way your SIL could get stuff home delivered?

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      135. Here’s the thing…she does not want the residence people where she lives to know that she is in the condition she is in. She is in Independent Living category, if she is moved into assisted living category she will have to pay more, and also get more supervision.

        SIL is my late husband’s sister…and I am her nearest relative, sort of…although she has two “blood” nephews who live out west someplace. My kids are nieces/nephews by marriage, but they have a pretty close relationship with her, they were young when Bob and I married.

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      136. I can understand that. I think I’d want to stay independent for as long as possible too, for all sorts of reasons.

        She’s lucky she’s got you and your kids to help her live the life she wants. I don’t have any siblings so the closest ‘family’ I have happens to be one of my SILs as well. Our kids grew up together and she and I have always got on really well.

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      137. my SIL never married, never had kids…and she was fiercely independent all her life. So I understand how she feels. However, I am not a patient person, and I annoy very quickly…not to mention becoming annoying myself. 😉

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      138. lol – I believe these are the privileges that accrue to us as we become ‘crones’. I’m not into Wiccan or any of that stuff, but I always liked the three ages of woman. As I become a crone myself, I really like feeling free to speak my mind without beating around the bush. 🙂

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      139. Speaking up is one thing, but being darn right rude is something else. I am never outright rude or unpleasant, even when someone is mean to me…I have asked clerks etc on occasion why they are being mean. They invariably smile and lighten up.

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      140. A word I absolutely hate is “feisty,” usually applied to some crone acting like a rude bitch… mean little ole bags talking smack is not ever OK.

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      141. Agree! Age is not a licence to become nasty. That’s never on at any age. But courage to call a spade a spade, now that’s something we can all use. 🙂

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      145. Yes on the delivery of stuff. She has a friend that gets stuff for her, and we…(daughter mainly) gets a need list occasionally and do shopping.

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      146. Oh that’s good. I’m a firm believer that having to do things for oneself is a great way of staying alive longer, but there are limits!

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      151. absolutely. I am not the most patient person in the world, nor is SIL. Actually we get along quite well, she is well-versed in many things and up on the political fiasco of our nation now. She’s a retired Registered Nurse.

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