Rain.

6-26-23 VERMONT: It’s been a busy week. After a couple dry days, we have had rain, 1.25 inches, and more since that first stormy day. The upper pond seems like one drop away from flowing. 

I have been busy, and Hillary was here on Wednesday. I did a pond Rx. The pond, BTW, is covered with pollen, I’m guessing pine pollen, and it looks white at times, as if it were filled with milk. 

We bought tomatoes, basil, oregano, rosemary, parsley. I put the game cams out in the pasture. Hillary planted the primrose that we brought up from NJ in the upper brook. She and Matt, her assistant, cleaned up the pond bank, staked the delphinium. I bought four phlox at Gardeners Supply and planted them on the pond bank near the apple tree. I have emptied the boat twice.

The phoebes are busy feeding their brood of three chicks, who look like they’re nearly ready to fledge. The wrens are in the wren house on the small barn. I haven’t seen any activity at the owl box or the bat houses.

New blooms: fever few, Russian sage.

Peonies are at peak, but they have been pummelled by the rain and are drooping sadly.

Itoh peonies, a new hybrid, offer dramatic new colors.

The fence roses are at peak, in the rain, with Itoh peonies to the left in front of the wall.

Goats beard is happy in dense shade.

Siberian iris in white in the upper terrace bed.

A cedar waxwing in the willow tree.

Phoebe taking a small break from feeding the chicks.

The young phoebes, taken through a dirty window and screen, but you can see three hungry babies.

This is a Question Mark butterfly on milkweed in the pasture.

Fever few just starting.