Flowers

My spring flowers seem to be lasting a long time this year!

Oriental

If you didn't see the photos on Facebook - I'll repeat them here....

Weekend trip to Oriental to celebrate Richard's birthday....(this was the first time we could all get together)

Nice fish!!  A red drum.  The only other "fish" caught was a cool skate.  Forgot to take a photo of it...was released, of course.

It had been 87 degrees the day before....but Sunday was quite chilly.   The cozy couple had to nap...

More shenanigans....

Robert and Stephie were there also - somehow didn't manage to get a photo of them either.  Oh well, I'll do better next time!

More Flowers

Well, what can I say....it's spring and the flowers are just lovely!

Love it that most of my plants have a "history"....a friend gave me several Lily of the Valley shoots last year - they are lovely little plants.  Hard to get my camera to focus on the little bell-shaped flowers though....

My pink rose bush doesn't have a "friend" history, but it does have a bit of local history since we've moved it to three different locations around the house trying to find the right one.  It's pretty happy where it is now - lots and lots of buds.

One of my many amaryllis bulbs from Grandma Hall - this one has been in the ground for a year.  There is another one in the background - but it hasn't sent up it's shoot yet. 

I expect to see a beautiful flower maybe tomorrow.

And this one, I have no idea where it came from - looks like some sort of day-lily.  It's under a tree out away from any of my other flowers. 

A real puzzler since this is the first year I've seen it and we've been here over 20 years now.  Pretty though!

And finally, all the wild dogwoods are in full bloom right now....pretty!

Spring flowers

We came home to lovely flowers!  They were just buds when we left to go to Oriental.

My one and only yellow bearded iris!

And my hostas are is full swing.   Nice that the deer were not too bad this year!

Shoreline bulkhead progress

We ran out of time this trip.....so this is what the shoreline looks like now.  A vast improvement, to be sure and should withstand stormy seas.

Unfortunately, the red arrow indicates our lot-line......so more loads of rip-rap and fill dirt are in order for future work-days!

Beautiful but bumpy flight home!  Fun, fulfilling week!

Very Hard Day of Work Repairing Shoreline Bulkhead

Aren't we supposed to be having "fun"????

OK, sometimes work is fun!

This is a photo from last year showing our shoreline.  Note that it's pretty sad looking - all the "rip-rap" stones have fallen into the water and the shoreline is no longer protected from storm surges.

 So, of course we had to remedy that situation.  We bought material made for this process - it's a woven mesh that's 12' wide.  We anchored it to the shoreline with the existing stones.

And we hired a dump truck to deliver 15 tons each of rip-rap and soil.  Note that we will personally handle each and every one of those stones!!

We fill in the banks with the soil to make it all even.

Then  we pulled up the material and started placing all the stones to protect it.

And this is what we accomplished today.  I'm tired.....

Turtle!

Found this critter - raked him up while raking pine needles.  He was shy at first, but eventually peeked out of his shell.

Calm morning

Beautiful morning view - a welcome relief from all those crazy windy days! We put up a hammock for those "lazy" moments!

Spring Flowers

Just a little walk-about in the yard. 

One of my amaryllis from Grandma Hall - after their first flowering inside,  I plant them outside and they come back year after year.  Unfortunately, this year we had a very cold night a few weeks ago after they had already emerged.  You can see the brown damage leaves on the left side.  But that didn't stop the flower pod!!  A few days from now I should have a beautiful flower - and since it's "dwarf" this year, it may be able to stay upright on it's own.

And just a few of my irises are showing signs of bloom....