The Neighborhood Park

Finally a good night's sleep, a relatively early rise, a suspicion of what would await, and a a peaceful walk.

Repeated late stormy nights with fretful dogs threw off my wake-sleep cycle. While I am not back to normal, I did get a full sleep last night.

So we walked down the street to the park and looked around. All was quiet except the birds. They had dried out from the weeks of rain and sang us their tunes.

Morning shadows are long in the almost deserted park.

We found the purple leatherflower vines blooming at the edge of the woods.*

The vines are loaded with leatherflowers in all stages.

Full bloom

Buds

These little flowers seem unreal.

This bloom is starting to fade and the petals are separating.

Within this bloom you can see the crazy seeds developing.

Closeup of bud.

These buds are just starting to show some purple.

The color of these flowers seemed an especially vivid purple.

Perhaps different vines and slightly different colors.

 

Then we walked home again for breakfast and yard work and a reminder that Scruffy isn't going anywhere.**


NOTES:

*The woods are completely posted now. I have to see who owns them and see if we cannot work out an agreement for exploration every now and then.

This sign is hard to see with all the new growth.

There it is. Bummer.

We can still look on the edges of the woods. Here are the "wafer" seeds of the wafer ash.

Honeysuckle still blooming

**DH walked ahead on the way home so that he could set out the dogs' food. Thinking I was right behind him with the pups, he left the street-side gate open. I cut through the yard and used a different gate, taking time to change the water in the dogs' washtub. I released Scruffy from the leash, but moved Paddy to a lead for breakfast (she is food aggressive and won't let anyone else eat so we feed them far apart and keep her on the lead until all are through).

When I started working on the hedges in the front of the house, the mail person passed. She mentioned that the gate was open and Scruffy had met her at the mailbox.  Only then did I realize that Scruff had the run of the neighborhood (but apparently he did not want to run the neighborhood). I walked over to the gate and called him. He came running across the back yard to see me and waited patiently until I released Paddy. Both dogs were treated with a cookie. But Scruffy really earned his. [Had Paddy been off-lead she would have been out of the yard and gone. Scruffy has made it clear - he isn't going anywhere. He is happy at home.]

Some views of the yard:

The hedge we planted to keep the kids from running into the street. It needs to have about 3 feet "trimmed" from the top.

Three varieties of Althea are planted inside the hedge. They need trimming too. I love Altheas as they are "stick a cutting in the ground" propagation plants - easy.

Oxalis blooms in my flowerbed.

Yellow verbena and oxalis

Yarrow from a local mansion still blooming.

Althea bloom.

Texas mallow (tiny cousin of the Altheas).