Ligularia all day long

The ligularia are in full bloom. We even have blooms on plants we transferred from the nursery last fall. We started out with a half dozen plants and now have over forty. We've been so successful with our nursery that the ligularia can seed itself from now on. The ligularia blooms just when the hosta have played themselves out. You can't hardly take a pic without bumping into some kind of bee; the place is lousy with them. The bees seem oblivious to my picture taking. Ligularia is my favorite plant to give to friends and neighbors.

Humming bird

I've tried to take a pic of a humming bird ever since we moved to Ohio. When Pat and I visited Annie in California, there were something like a bazillion humming birds hanging out in her yard. Cleveland is in a heartier clime, alas, we have only one native humming bird. It's called a green throated or green breasted or green something or another. As the picture shows, it is green.

More flowers

The pink anemone is new this year. The flower is so pretty that we got to get more of these guys when we expand the front yard flower beds. The mums (or is it mum, it is just a single plant) are the sole survivors of a bunch Pat planted a couple of years ago. I'll have hosta pics till the first frost.

Flowers

The ligularia are starting to bloom and we still have plenty of hosta and day lilies blooming. We have something bedding down in one of the day lily beds. Every morning I have to fix yard lights that get knocked down during the night. We bring it on ourselves between planting flora that attracts animals and putting out 50 pounds of bird feed a week ( it is flora isn't it?). I keep thinking that I need to camp out in the back yard with a flashlight and a camera. I don't want to chase anything out of the yard, I just want pictures to enter at the county fair.

Bees and hosta make for great pictures.

This is our best Sum and Substance hosta. It's 5 foot in diameter and 2 feet tall.

When the chameleon plant gets a little sun, the leaves get a nice red hue.

One of our little friends. I'm thinking that the berm is actually a rabbit development.

County Fair

Nothing says county fair better than Elvis impersonators, except maybe two men and a campfire. The boy scout jokes went through my head like crazy so I left quickly. Maybe if I stayed longer I could have gotten hunk a hunk of burning love out of my head.

For an urbanated area like Cuyahoga County, there sure were a lot of animals. The full gamit of farm animals were present. Pat and I watched some kind of cow judging. Pat looked agast when the judge talked about the cows as product. Oh no, someone's going to turn Bessie into steak. Good thing we aren't going to the auction.

Along the midway were all the traditional food choices. We had a choices of undercooked onion blossoms, undercooked funnel cakes and everything on a stick. We found "authentic" Wisconsin cheese curds. As we were walking around I started thinking about Pat and me traveling the country in a full size van pulling a food trailer. Could be an interesting retirement.

I decided that riding the ferris wheel would be a neat way of getting some cool pics. It didn't look that tall and it was only a buck. Everything went well till I remembered how much heights freak me out. The little kids behind me were laughing the whole ride. I hope their laughter drowned out my screams.

They're cute, but they're still someone's future lunch.

Is Pat contemplating branching out? Just remember, they are livestock, not pets.

The ferris wheel of death

urban agriculture

Pat's venture into urban agriculture has borne fruit (and vegetables). We're expanding to a garden in the yard this fall. I'm thinking that maybe Pat could use some mechanical help. We saw this fine Chicago made tractor at the County Fair.