Mommy, this doesn\’t taste like chocolate…

So, my parents have chickens in the yard between our houses. One rooster, “Chanticleer,” has seriously bonded with my son. During the day, he crows ONLY when he hears Jamie in the yard. When Jamie comes near him, Chanticleer puts on a show and even dances sometimes. Jamie loves his rooster, who incidentally, has been saved from his imminent stewpot fate by befriending our little guy. Every time Jamie learns something new, or gets a new pair of shoes or hat or something, or whatever else, he has to go show his chickens. He learned the letter “B” at preschool the other day, and when we got home he immediately took off like a rocket across the yard to show his worksheet to Chanticleer and teach him about the letter B. It is hilarious.

That said, Mom and I decided to contact our local toystore (which by the way if you still have not clicked on its link and shopped its expansive website, take this moment to!) and asked them if they had the Folkmanis puppet that looks like a rooster. They did, and were kind enough to keep it rocking around the store for us until I had time to pick it up today on my lunch hour. It is awesome — luckily the Folkmanis rooster is also a Buff Orpington and looks quite like Chanticleer himself. (There is a dominecker in the coop that Jamie’s not so keen on, so I’m glad the puppet didn’t turn out looking like him instead!)

Here are some photos of Jamie’s newest Folkmanis acquisition:

Sitting on my desk at work...

Proudly displaying his Folkmanis emblem...

Here's looking at you, Chanticleer...

Jamie doing his Daddy impression...which is very similar to his Grandpa impression.

Coreopsis & Catmint

So I’ve been gardening! OK, I’ll begin by apologizing for the terrible clarity of these photos. Worpdress is still very picky aobut what pics I post, but for some reason it does not reject ones taken by…you guessed it…my cell phone. So don’t expect any great camera work here.

That said, these are a few images I’ve taken over the past month of the blooms in our yard. Not bad for a first-year growth, methinks! Above is Coreopsis (I believe it is the Jethro Tull fluted variety) and Nepeta “Walker’s Low” Catmint (the purple stuff in the background). The catmint has REALLY taken off. It likes my alkaline clay soil a LOT. Good thing something does! It’s the one thing I don’t have to drench in sulfur every four weeks. 🙂

This Little Piggy Stayed Home

This photo (above) was taken in my sun garden out front. Our piggy sits atop a tree stump where Hubby had that awful pine tree taken out for me for Mother’s Day! What a great present. I now have tons of sun spots in the front yard to supplement all the shade everywhere else in the yard. I can finally grow cool stuff like in this picture! Clockwise from upper left corner: Autumn Sun Coreopsis (the pale yellow, maroon-throated little posies that look kind of like bachelor’s buttons), Dusty Miller (an annual but a worthy one for foliage), more Walker’s Low Catmint, pink Mexican Primrose (scattered throughout photo), Hen-and-Chick Sedum (growing inside the piggy planter), Autumn Joy stonecrop (the succulent in lower left corner), and more catmint, which I love and do not think I can have too much of in my garden.

Daylillies in bloom

These are some daylillies I picked up on discount earlier in the season. I intended to buy three that all looked like the one in the lower right corner (purple petals, yellow throat), but one had been mislabeled and has turned out to be the exact opposite of the others (yellow petals, purple throat), which I think is sort of cool so I didn’t dig it up and return it. Sometimes the best garden surprises are complete accidents!

Yarrow, Yarrow, everywhere!

Got these little beauties (above) for three bucks a gallon on clearance in June. Some have taken off, others don’t know about that hard, packed soil they’re in, but they’re slowly adjusting. I’ve got these around my rock garden on the short ends of the oval, and then the long sides of the oval are peppered with Lamb’s Ears, which didn’t show up well in the twighlight when I took these other photos, so you will just have to imagine their cute, fuzzy fluffiness. 🙂

Very impatient Impatiens.

Where does my garden grow? On a tree, among other places. This adorable pot is about the same color as the swatch I picked out for our shutters, if I ever get around to ordering and painting those! We have almost finished the pergola (pictures coming soon), and I have to paint the carport to match it (a bright, crisp sea green), which will look good with our buttercream-colored siding. This fall, once the flowers close to the house have gone into dormancy, Hubby will be able to climb up and paint the gables green as well (so I can live in Green Gables at last…LOL). I can’t wait for all the colors to combine! In the meantime, this little pot of very hard-working New Guinea Impatiens will have to keep me focused and inspired. 🙂

A Walnut Tree, Lots of Daylillies, and my perfect porcelain pot...

This was taken a few weeks ago at twilight (again, sorry for the crummy lighting). Our shade garden has tons of very established daylillies (the only blooming thing that was there when we moved in, really) so there are enough stems that we have loads of them nonstop for about five weeks each summer. Beautiful, and so tall!! Some of them are almost as tall as I am, for what that’s worth.

Blue Girls

Okay, so this one is totally out of focus but I still like it because it’s the only picture I managed to get of my great budding beauties before the Japanese beetles moved in on them. They’re still covered with tons of beautiful lavendar rose buds, but if you look close there’s buggies eating all the rose hips inside the petals. Makes me so mad! Anyway, I can’t believe how well my four Blue Girl hybrid tea rose shrubs are doing. Wish they were coming in more blue/purple, but I’ve noticed the ones I clip and put in vases turn VERY blue as they age, and they last for a really long time before wilting, getting a little bit more blue every single day!

Petunia Planter

I rescued this plant from near-extinction at a local warehouse store and revived it. It’s looking quite healthy now (this picture was taken about a week ago or more) and taking over a large spot under the pergola quite happily.

Herbs for Magicians

I like this photo of some of the herbs/spices/other funky plants I have hanging out on our concrete porch pad soaking up the sun. Oh, and that bright greenish blue thing in the center is one of the pergola posts, so you can imagine the color a little better. Isn’t it cute??? From left: Polka Dot Plant (red variety on top, pink variety on sides of strawberry pot), a very dead-looking gaillardia in the background (hey, it can’t ALL bloom at once, can it??), some verbena foliage (it started blooming the next day, darn it), some really funky purple perennial that I can’t identify (in the white pot, if anyone knows what this is??? It’s not salvia, I know that at least…), a small yellow pot of Moses-in-a-basket (the reddish spikes), some cute salmon-colored Lobelia that’s really been a workhorse this year (recommended by Country Living magazine, so I knew I couldn’t be steered wrong there), a good batch of cilantro in the yellow pot to the right, and a purple pot of Dusty Miller behind it. Also on the porch right now I have (not pictured) geraniums which are cranking out the foliage but refuse to make any magenta blooms like they’re supposed to, hanging yellow Zinnias, and three matching baskets of blue & yellow Lobelia. In front of the porch right now is tons of lavendar that is between harvests at the moment and some artemisia I’ve been dinking around with and dividing as it multiplies.

And that’s it for this episode of Look At What I Grew!  Catch you next time!

–Gracie