Daisy Resurrection

     Hello Friends :) It has been awhile. I took my finals today and got an A in both lecture and lab. Giving me an all over grade of B+. Which means, I am officially on Summer break now!! I couldn't be happier. While I have been away many things have happened in my backyard. 1) My girls learned how to fall down on roller skates. 2) The pool died an unhappy death and I really have no desire to buy a new one. The yard sprinklers & the hose will do just fine for the remaining 6 months of summer, right??? 3) My Day-lilies and Pink Gerber daisies made a come back. As well as my Starburst Lilies are starting to sprout up new shoots! AND all my mini sunflowers bloomed open, which are now slowly being cooked away by the sun. 4) I officially have an all green grass backyard thanks to Ozzy... and my obsessive watering behavior. No more dirt or dry spots! 5) We got banned from enjoying our new oasis, because soon after everything popped to life, we became infested with dive bombing hornets in our yard. So we promptly called the 'bug man' and he hooked us up :) Tomorrow that nightmare will be all over and we can get back outside to enjoy August's monsoonal heat! Hooray.

     Before and after the hornets (don't tell the hubby, I it did when he was at school) I took some pictures of my growing oasis. Here is my daisy collection. Poor things were getting so fried by the sun their little buds would cook after popping up from under their leafy protection. But because I was watering them everyday when I watered my grass. They started to come back. I hope you enjoy their resurrection. _B

 

^^ looks like something out of a Dr Seuss book

  Thank you for stopping by! I will be posting more of my backyard resurrection soon :) xo_B

Chop Chop

Ah man. Ozzy voted against me and with one snip of his clippers Sunny's head & neck were cut away to give the new seven flowers a fighting chance. One of which has already started turning yellow. Not sure of its name, but definitely looks something like a yellow mouthed Venus Fly Trap. Anyways, I took some pictures of Sunny, who is drying out beside his 'offspring'. Its only been 2 days and he has already started to turn grayish green, as well as pushing up it's seeds. Here are just a few snapshots :) Hope you like them _B

 

 

 

 Here's the Venus Fly Trap .. Maybe that will be this ones name, Venus :) As well as a a pic of the next biggest, still closed up tight.

 

A Flower Day

 

all that is left of my spider orchid

Summer has burned away many of my favorite flowers. Literally. One of my Oleander bushes had to be dug up and replaced! So sad!! My Lilies are struggling but and making a come back. Bird (new bird of paradise) is green but badly burned. Oz says he needs some good shade (in the summer time?) and maybe some acid in his soil. The only troopers left is my roses bush, the two red hibiscus and my struggling pink daisies. O and the snail vines along the house. But everything else has pretty much dried up and blown away. My orchid trees are even starting to close up their leaves to protect against the heat. I cannot wait for late summer, early fall so my dear plants can return. So here are a few of the remaining, fighting for the right to stay. Burned and wilting, but still fighting. _B

 pink Gerber daisy, that is about as good as it gets now days

 new rose, before the sun burns it

 new and old rose after the sun burns

 Bird, One the older not so burned leaves, new one in the background

 the last purple blooms, at the top of the other stalks they are bleached out white

 friendly lizard hanging out by the snail vines, we have many from Big to tiny

 Bloomed and closed snail vine bloom, the pod is a little burned but will be okay

 one of two of my Hong Kong Orchid trees, new sprouts are only protected by the burned older leaves

Sunnys Surprise

 rainbow of life .. the old giving back to the new so that life my continue

Well Sunny may have fallen over and looks like the Hunchback of Sunflowers. However he had a little, actually seven little, somethings to give me back my cheery disposition on his demise. I had a dream last night, nice sunny day. Ozzy (my lawn & garden guy for the summer) came over and said it was time to say goodbye to good old Sunny. With a heavy heart I agreed and down he came. I asked him to prop him up so I could dry him out and maybe get some of his seeds. And he did. I stared at the empty place were my first and only sunflower lived & died. It was sad. So when I woke up this morning I made it a point to take some pictures of him. Oz will be here this week and I wanted some before the big 'chop down'. However much of Sunny that can be seen is his stalk and giant green leaves, his face is nearly touching the ground now. I have to pull him up to take pictures of his face, such a sad guy. Today upon my solemn picture taking adventure, I found nestled in his bottom most leaves small surprises for me :D _B

 My seven! new baby sunflowers blooming and growing right off of Sunny :) You can see 5 here.

 second biggest pod

 these two pictures are nice, (1) focused in on Sunny (2) focused on his predecessor 

biggest one so far, has his own branch already and is the tallest

Sunflower Tres

 I just realized I have not been keeping you updated with my dear Sunny. Shame on me! I am sad to tell you he has gotten much much worse. Most of his bright yellow rays have fallen away or are shriveled and are starting to burn. Hes nearly touching the ground now, maybe 4 inches of clearance before he will Finally face plant. I had a dream about cutting him down last night. I do not think I could actually do that to him. Especially after today's discovery, but that is another blog altogether. I will up date you with the few photos I have taken over the last few weeks. Promise to keep you better updated and sorry for the long wait. _B

 

 I like this one because you can see the 'star' in the middle

 

 

 

 almost touching the ground only 4-5 inches to go

 

My Barefoot Buddy

This is the sun finally coming to greet me. I was up 2 hours before it was. 3am is so early. Its even earlier when its by one of the cutest little girls you know. The one that can some how talk you into Wow Wow and Mickey at 3am, like its what we do everyday. Ugh* So we watched the dear cartoons, I checked out my 'sites' and waited for sunny to get up over the trees. Slipped on the sandys and my barefoot buddy came out to watch the sun. Water the flowers.. the sidewalk.. the chalk... And anything else that she could find to pour water from her can on... _B

 

 

Around The Yard..

Things I found around the yard today. I needed to clean up. It pretty embarrassing out there right now! Ugh. My house is just as bad. My mother would be ashamed. I literally hid my face in shame. I had to hire a yard guy! Ah! A yard guy! Because school and Hubby's work and the kids are leaving no time to clean. Like right now. I'm taking a break from cleaning, because all day I took care of babies and half-ways cleaned up outside in the blow dryer of death heat. Hubby was gone by 2 and wont be home until near midnight. Poor guy out there in 117 degree weather all day.   ....So anyways, I was cleaning up because the yard guy is coming on Tuesday and I would like things to be as UN-embarrassing as possible. I found a few cute things while putting up kids toys, cleaning out the pirate ship water table and the bone dry duty filled kiddie pool, giving the dead flowers and 2 our orchid trees a deep watering... I do not know how many mini hair scrunchies I picked up but if it was one it was 100 AND chunks of chalk... Sigh. Kids never escape me. When they move out we will probably still have chalk and hair scrunchies in the yard :D Enjoy my mess_B