I'm so glad

It has been so beautiful in my yard that I really hate to leave. I am not sure how many of the five hundred gladiolus I ordered I actually planted, probably about 80% and I gave the other hundred away to friends. I staggered them so rather than one big crescendo we get a constantly changing color palette.

Best sixty five bucks I ever spent.

I have a huge mass of them that will be blooming in a couple weeks, will take pictures then, until then you get a single low resolution shot with my phone. I had a pretty white glad bloom this morning. Lots of purples, reds, yellows and pinks so far.

As you can see the yucca rostrata still has a nice bloom, the pin cushion plant center left is a dasylirion, Shawn. Planted a blue hibiscus, "concha" variety ceanothus, blue verbena and a very strange colored rose today along with a bunch of new succulents that we got at Evergreen yesterday. Just filling in the canvas now.

The hummingbirds are coming in two and threes, lots of butterflies, furtive orioles sail through like thieves in the night. All manner of birds attacking my feeder like piglets, grosbeaks and finches, scrub jays and sparrows.

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Neighbor called today. A critter took a doe down by their turkey cage. Last week they lost a couple turkeys. I wasn't sure if the large cat I had a stare down on the road with a few weeks ago was puma or bobcat but now I am thinking the former. And I bet it killed the deer because the neighbor's horses were going crazy last week and I remember thinking it sounded like they had been spooked by a cat.

So we are going to watch our own cats. No one in the neighborhood has lost anything for a couple years, since James's goat anyway. Lion got it and killed one of my pussycats too the next night.

Something you have to live with when you live on the edge of the wild. It's a shame about the deer. We so rarely see them anymore and they weren't real common forty years ago either.