This is one of the verbena plants out front that, thankfully, is not only coming back to life, but resuming flowering activity. This one and the one on the other side of the steps suffered severe dehydration while I was on vacation somehow despite several days of rain. 

This is one of the favorites in the yard - a yucca plant. I have no idea how it lives here - they're a southwestern desert plant - but even in the winter snows the leaves above snow level remained green. Now it's got four stalks loaded with buds that are just beginning to open. Now, if I could only get a young aspen tree for the back yard.... 

I'm not sure what kind of lillies these are, but they just sprouted up this weekend, and just opened today.  

I'm not sure what these plants are, but the little flowers are star shaped. When you cut a few stalks to put in a vase with some water, the flowers apparently get stressed and do a hari kari dive for the floor. But even in their suicide attempts, they make a pretty spread. 

Mint - it grows in several place in the yard. Which is great, because I cut it to make mint tea, or my favorite, fresh mojitos! 

One of the wildflowers in my experimental wildflower patch. 

One of the wildflowers in my wildflower patch. 

Earlier this year, I bought three bags of wildflower seeds that were supposed to be indigenous to this region. I scattered the contents of all three bags in this area around the cherry willow tree, watered them in good, and let them go. Now, they're knee high. There are several more types of wildflowers blooming every day. There should be - I dumped approximately 60,000 seeds into this area. At least it's no longer bare dirt! 

Looks like I have better luck planting things in the ground than keeping them in planters and making them reliant upon my watering skills. 

These are the petunias that mom planted in the back yard planter when my parents visited. There are other little plants in there with tiny flower buds, and I suspected that they may have been intentional from previous year's plantings, so left them - but for all I know they're weeds. 

The Storm, She's-a-Coming!

Yesterday we had an interesting storm roll in. I was on my way to Lowe's (heading North) to buy a new window unit a/c, so I could at least have some working a/c in the house (central unit's out too). While in the store, I literally started to speedwalk to get my shopping done so I could get into the truck before the downpour. It looked imminent. This storm was unlike some of the exciting spring storms we've received - granted, it was forewarned with lots of weather alerts for hail and high winds, but it was completely still and silent in its approach. Looking at the clouds from underneath, the sky was almost black, and it was like watching water boil from the underside of a glass pot. I have since learned that those were mantiss (sp?) clouds, more evident in later shots. Turns out, as threatening as the appearance of these clouds were, I had plenty of time to get to the truck, get home, take the purchases inside, grab the tripod and camera, and head into the yard to grab some sky shots. And, I was not the only one doing so. All along my drive there were lots of people outside, watching the sky. Which was reassuring - it meant that the awe I experienced watching this one roll in was not reserved strictly for newcomers.

Storm is moving in. 

Boiling cloud cover. 

This is looking directly at the place in the sky where the sun should be. 

The rolling movement of the clouds would occasionally allow some light through.