Not the Best of Times, Not the Worst of Times

For about forever, our days here in northern New Jersey
have started with sun, and wound up with rain.

Yesterday was pretty much all rain.

This doesn't encourage a lot of gardening around here;

I am not a mudder.

Okay, who else is channeling Kramer?

But today started with the Sun.

Mother Nature, being the hilarious practical joker that she is,

tossed in some heavy morning clouds to tease us,

but it looks as if we've got some clear days ahead.

We will finally get our Spring planting done, just days before Summer.

Right now, ain't a whole lot going on in the yard at That Old House.

Thank goodness for perennials.

Up on the top of the stone wall along the patio, lavender thrives among the hydrangeas and ivy.

Our beautiful silken poppies are all pooped out.

Their foliage is being trampled by spearmint;

the good thing about yanking mint is how great your hands smell.

Climb into the Time Machine, and you are sitting on someone's floor,

listening to a Jethro Tull record on someone's stereo.  Have we dated ourselves yet?

Well, here is a different Jethro Tull -- a hybrid Coreopsis that is amazingly prolific.

If you see it -- buy it and plant it.  Trouble free and beautiful.

It doesn't play the flute, but its petals are fluted.  Ha!  I just got the connection.

An old fashioned ramblin' rose at the back of the house, outside the powder room window.

I've never seen the roses get this shabby on the branches;

other summers they were eaten by trespassing deer.  Who are mysteriously absent this year.

The hedges along the driveway are coming into bloom.

The smell is heavenly.

It's a Fern Fest, along the shady part of the stone border.

There were a handful when we moved here; now there are a ba-jillion.

Should we be frightened?  Ferns are such primitive, alien life forms.

Down from the ferns, some good ol' orange daylilies.

Mother Nature sure goes to a lot of trouble for a blossom that lives one stinkin' day.

Atop the stone wall, along the driveway, Sedum and Daylilies.

Personally, I am not a big Sedum fan.  For most of the season the blossoms look like broccoli.

Then, in the Fall, they get ugly.

But I do like Daylilies, with their short, tragic lives.

Ah, my red minivan is chomping at the bit for a junking adventure.

Now that the weather is improving, it's time to get the Russian Sage

and the Knockout Roses and some show-off annuals in the ground

or into pots.  And the weeds out of the ground.

'Cause we are having a party.

June 30th.

To celebrate Anne's grad school graduation.

Yes, I have a TO DO List.  Don't ask.

So like last year, in late June, That Old House is getting slapped into shape for a party.

Thank goodness it's already painted, and the white paint hasn't worn off yet!

Take a look at the front part of the house, on the right of this picture.

See how uneven the clapboards are?  All wiggly, and different sizes?

That's cause they are 180 years old, and are the original cedar boards,

cut on site from local trees when the house was built in 1832.

I have to say, vinyl siding won't last 180 years and still be in great condition.

But then again, neither will I.

Cass

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