Some more flowers

The last of the amaryllis bloomed. Amazing span between blooms all within 10 feet of each other. This bloom is the second shoot from a bulb that already bloomed once a few weeks ago.  Not sure I've had one bulb bloom twice in one year before.

A friend gave me some "bee's balm" last year - pretty flower and I've seen several hummingbirds near them.

And strangely, I've still got a few iris blooms - extremely late for them to be in bloom.

I donned some good gloves and moved some prickly pear cactus  -  it was previously in the edge of the woods and just wasn't too "happy".  It looks bright and healthy now after just a week.  That's it - not much happening!

Pat's new plane

Pat flew his new aerobatic plane for the first time yesterday.  We were on hand with our radio to watch and assist if needed (no assistance was needed, happily!)


Pat with parachute getting ready for the flight.

Uneventful takeoff - he flew for about an hour just around the airport to get the "feel" of the new plane.

A happy Pat after the flight!  We all celebrated a while later with a nice cookout by the swimming pool!   A fun little holiday.

Tar and Gravel Road Repairs

It's time to repair our long driveway again.....

A couple of days ago, Duane and I did just a little repair on our own part of the driveway -  some spots have lost their "chip and tar" coating over the years.  First we use the leaf blower to blow all the pea-gravel away and expose the bare hard-packed dirt.

Then we apply layers of hot tar and sprinkle new pea gravel over the tar.  That's it - simple process.

Here's a closeup with a little tar showing thru.  As we drive on it, the gravel will "sink" into the tar a bit to make a smooth surface.

Then this morning we and the neighbors got up early to tackle the "shared" driveway.

Duane's "new" tar-wagon is working great!  Much easier than gravity feeding out of a 55 gallon barrel like we did the previous times!

Fun, fun....just kidding - it's a lot of work!!  Glad we only do it every few years.

Last of the amaryllis

The last amaryllis that I have planted outside is in full bloom now....and I noticed a few days ago that it has sent up an additional flower shoot!  I've never seen one do that before.  Funny how they all bloomed weeks apart even though they are planted just a few feet apart....

Wedding at the airport

Neighbor Gretchen's niece Katie got married Saturday.

We were invited to the celebration at Gretchen's hangar.

Pretty bride and handsome groom!

Sister (Little) Gretchen handing out the champagne for the toast.

The groomsmen doing their funny toast speeches.

And sweet serving of the wedding cake.

This is from the "photo booth" -  hard to see my pink "fairy" wings...good fun!

Grass

The grass at Oriental had grown quite a bit....

Just an hour of push-mowing ...and it's all nice and tidy again!  Ready for some hammock time!

Stuff

Since we had a huge storm coming thru last night, I decided to take a bunch of my iris blooms inside.  I figured that the winds and torrential rains might do them in anyway.....I love the smell when I walk in the room!

And this is what Duane's been working on for the past while....it's a tar-spreader!  We need to do some repairs to our tar & gravel road.  This should make it much easier than what we've done in the past - gravity draining the tar from a 55 gallon drum.   Oh, what fun!

More flowers

Well, we're just doing chores around the house, nothing much interesting to post about unless you think cleaning out the gutters is interesting!

I did have another amaryllis open - a couple of days ago -

Today -

And my rose bush is full of lovely but un-scented flowers.

And the iris blooms are staying pretty for an unusually long time this year!

All the neighbors helped Pat unload his new aerobatic plane the other day - and he's re-assembling it now.  Gonna be nice!