Wildflower bouquet

The wildflowers in my backyard prairie are starting to bloom, Yeah! I walked through it this morning and was suprised to find a bunch of pretty flowers blooming. There are only a couple flowers in this bouquet that aren't prairie wildflowers, Galardia and Catmint they are from my other flower gardens. I found this cute vase that my bouquet is in at a junk shop in Iowa this weekend for just a couple bucks, I love the color of it. My flower gardens should be at their full peak in the next few weeks. It was a great day to fertilize my flower gardens today so I took advantage of it, it's cool and partly cloudy here a little breezy though. We had a streak of hot muggy weather last week so this is a nice break from that. I turned the AC off and opened the windows!
Gordy and I went to Iowa over the weekend for an aunt and uncle's 80th birthday party. It was great fun seeing all of the family. We stopped on our way home at all the little towns we passed by to see if there were any shops to visit but we could only find a few open on Sunday. That was disappointing but I did find a few goodies.
Well I better get back to making my dollies now. Have a super week!

Some early summer blooms

These Iris's smell like grape Popsicle's, YUM!
This Iris smells like licorice.
These are some of the early summer flowers I have blooming in my gardens right now. The peak for my flower gardens is coming in the next few weeks so I'll post some more pictures later. For the last 8 years or so I've been working on getting my gardens to have all perennials in them. It seems you have to move and transplant often to find the best spot for each plant. Some like more sun others want more shade or they simply just don't thrive in the spot you first planted them. The first few weeks of July seems to be when my gardens are in their full glory, most of the plants are blooming. Every year I have problems with insects or diseases though and need to spray, some of my plants are more trouble than others and I am slowly getting rid of the problem ones. Spider mites have been a problem for the last couple years for my Coreopsis. I LOVE roses but they seem to always have bugs eating them so they need to be sprayed often. We've been getting frequent rain showers so I haven't had to water very much which is nice. It is so relaxing for me to weed and deadhead in my flower gardens and I love walking around my yard to see what's new that day! You all know I LOVE flowers!

Baby birds

See this Potentilla shrub in my front yard in the area where we sit to relax. Last week Zoe found a nest of Chipping Sparrow's in it. We had to get here away fast before she ate the baby birds. The nest was full of little tiny chicks so small with no feathers just last week.

Yesterday I went to check on them and to my surprise the were sitting on the branches of the shrub this big already. Can you see two chicks in this picture? I can't believe how fast they grew, they look almost full grown already! So cute!

This is the first one I saw just starring at me not afraid at all. SOOOOO sweet! I love this that the bird made a nest so close to where we sit and was not afraid. I hope they all make it! Zoe is not aloud to be out there in this spot until we are sure they have all flown away.

Nature is so wonderful!

Doll making!

This is a sneak peek of 8 new dolls, 2 different kinds, that I am in the process of making right now. These are the legs for them drying after I painted them. They're gonna be real cutie's! I'll post pictures when they are finished.

Hope your all having a good Monday and staying cool.

Happy Father's Day to the men in my life!

To my wonderful husband Gordy, Happy Father's Day Dear! Thank you for everything that you do for me and the kids! The kids are so lucky to have you for their father, your a terrific role model! I love you with all my heart! This is my Dad, the first man I loved. Thank you Dad for showing me what a real man is and what I wanted in a husband and father of my children and for always telling me that I'm beautiful. You are such a GREAT Dad and I love your picky kisses on my cheek! Happy Father's Day!
Happy Father's Day to my father in law Ron! He will be 87 years young in July. He is a great inspiration to us with his positive attitude and his joy for life. I hope you always stay young at heart!
Happy Father's Day to all of the Father's out there! Hope you all have a GREAT day!

Lovely flowers!

I cut these lovely Peonies at my son's house. He doesn't appreciate them as much as my Mom, sister and I do. We were ewwing and awing them. They smell wonderful too. He has about 10 big bushes in three different varieties. I wish I had them planted at my house then they would get lots of love. This is what my Peonies bush looks like:
They are the Bowl of Beauty variety. Very pretty but don't have the fragrance or the fullness that the flowers at my son's house do. I will have to check into what is a good time to dig some of them up and plants them at my house, hehe!

My scarf for Zoe!

I designed this scarf for Zoe. Zoe HATES pictures so it wasn't easy to get her to pose for me but I finally got this picture of her. Kelee from http://www.katillacshack.com/ is doing this for abandoned animals so of course I am in! Check out her blog to see all the cute animal pictures and creative scarfs. This is what her post said about it.
Design Gives Back projects help the world through creative action. Right now people are abandoning dogs and cats at an alarming rate because of home foreclosure and job loss. Can you imagine having to give-up your precious little family member? Heartbreaking. Simply by decorating an Oliver Wendell "Play Strong" scarf and sending a pic of your creation on your dog–or a friend's dog–you will earn a $10.00 donation to help these abandoned pets. So, simply by applying our creativity to making a cute scarf we can raise $2,000 for these needy friends!
Thanks Kelee!

Old chair flower pot

We had this old chair sitting around that the seat was all split so we made it into a flower pot holder. I love the way it turned out. I have a climbing plant that will climb up the back of the chair spindles it has the cutest little yellow flowers. The weather has been cloudy and rainy all week here so far and is supposed to be like this the whole week so I haven't been able to enjoy my flowers. We need the rain really bad though we were heading into a major drought, so I guess it's a good thing but it's hard to have summer going by so fast, can you believe it's the middle of June already!!! Wow, what happened our summer just started here, it seems like all over the country people are complaining of the same thing, not having a summer. The weather is supposed to turn around by the weekend so hopefully we'll have a great Father's Day weekend!
I started making dolls on Monday so I will be stuffing dolly bodies today inside, staying dry. Happy Hump Day everyone!

Big Catch!

I caught this 25 3/4 inch Walleye it weighed somewhere between 5 1/2 - 6 lbs, on our family trip to Canada fishing. I caught the biggest Walleye of our group on the trip. It was so much fun to catch, when I got it in the boat we took pictures and then we released it back in to the lake since it is probably a female that will produce more big fish to catch. It was great fun!!!

This is a picture of my husband Gordy with the two Northern Pike he caught at the same time! Yes, at the same time! He must have caught the smaller one on his lure first and then the bigger one grabbed the smaller one around the middle of it's body in it's mouth. When we netted it we were all shocked to see two fish, amazing and so cool the way nature works! They both went back in to the lake, they both swam away.

Now today I have to get back to reality and get to work, finally start making some dolls! I'm actually looking forward to it. It's a little hard to work inside today though it's a beautiful sunny summer day here in central Minnesota.

My little water garden sprucing up part 2!

We made this little water garden out of an old tin bowl that Gordy found, not sure what it was originally used for but it works good for a water garden. I put two water plants in it but I want to get a few more for it, I need some water lettuce floating in it, the nursery was all out of it when I was there. The climbing plant on the right is supposed to get yellow flowers on it, hope it does. It's splashing a little too much though right now so we may have to make some adjustments to the fountain. It's so nice sitting outside with a glass of wine listening to the water, ahhhh, very relaxing.
We're having a party here next week, in honor of my daughter Rochelle and her husband Kevin and there dog/baby Roxy. They will be visiting from Colorado, YEAH, we're all VERY excited!
Lot's to do to get ready for company so hope you all have a wonderful weekend!