A Pocket Full of Minnie Mao

Minnie Mao is our little sweetie. She is still thriving and has become our source of sweet little kitty kisses! She has also done a great job of entertaining us (and sometimes annoying us! She regularly wakes me up in the middle of the night by pouncing on my face and biting my chin and cheeks! OW-- tiny little kitty teeth are SHARP!)

We were not planning on having another kitty any time soon. I guess we got one anyway, didn't we?

Mom sent lilies....

It happened a few days ago.
DH brought the mail in, "You have a box."
"I do?", surprized, because I wasn't expecting anything.
Michigan Bulb Company. Yes! Now I remember Mom mentioning something about it maybe a month or so ago. She was sending lilies to brother and I. They were shipped out at the appropriate time for planting here, of course.

I have the perfect place. Recently we had to fell an old maple tree near the house that finally gave up the ghost. It had been on its way out for a couple of years. We've still had to mow around that ugly stump and the chickens have taken to scratching basins around its base for their dust baths. Not that I would want to deprive the chickies of a good spot, but I decided that this would be an ideal place for a new flower bed. Right now I am working on making the yard as easy to mow as possible. Circles and curves are nice to zip around in the mower. Any trouble spot for mowing gets a flower bed around it. This seems the most logical way to proceed as I MUST have more flower beds anyway! We can work on removing the entire lawn in the future...
So on a cool autumn morning week before last, I dropped a nail in the center ring of that old tree stump. With a string and my handy can of neon orange marker paint I drew a perfect circle; large enough to be comfortable for the mower to go around. The new Bad Boy mower is a breeze with its zero turn radius alright, but that doesn't mean zero turn radius without the tires tearing up the lawn!

The bulbs that I had on hand are white daffodils that came from the dear lady in Paris. These have been sitting in a nursery pot in the shade since we dug them in June. There were a few blue hyacinth bulbs as well. Also, a few of the single tone yellow daffodils from the potager that were beyond the boundaries of the wood edging that we are working on.



These had to be moved along with some small unknown narcissus (or would that be narcissi?)
maybe N. poeticus 'pheasant's eye' that were in there as well.
All of these will go in the tree stump bed with Mom's lilies.

She sent Corina Lily


Rising Star Tree Lily


and the Sterling Star Lily
was exausted, so Michigan Bulbs substituted

Snow Princess Stargazer Lilies. .

Looking forward to Spring. I can't wait to see the new lilies! I don't expect much out of the daffodils the first spring, but the following year should be fantastic. The finishing touch will be a fine carpet of Johnny-Jump-Ups...the happy little guys!