Down in the mouth

Today’s guest picture comes from Mary Jo from Manitoba.  Her Christmas cactus responded to a programme of benign neglect indoors over the winter by bursting into flower when it was put outside for the summer.

Perhaps unsurprisingly my hopes of waking up with no pain after yesterday’s tooth extraction were not realised and far from cycling around in a free and easy way, I spent the day rather quietly at home.  This was disappointing as it is the weekend of the Muckletoon Adventure Festival in Langholm and the town is full of mountain bikers and runners dashing up and down our hill.  I would have liked to have been out and about taking pictures.

As it was, I was confined to the garden but some reasonable weather meant that there were things of interest even there.

The bees buzzed around again and this one was visiting the perennial wallflower.

Roses showed their faces and I liked this combination of rosa complicata and philadelphus in a corner of the garden.

Almost all the azaleas flowers are gone but one or two remain and they have been joined by honeysuckle, pinks and orange hawkweed (with both fox and cubs).

In the vegetable garden there is now a sea of mustard.

It is in a bed which is likely to get a bit of a thumping when the new electricity pole is put in next week so Mrs Tootlepedal has just let it grow, which it has done with great enthusiasm (or keenness).

The warmer weather has made us very excited by the peonies which definitely look as though they are going to flower properly.

I mowed the front lawn and gave it a good feed of buck-u-uppo which it badly needs.  The long spell of cool weather has not encouraged the rather sparse grass to grow much so I am pinning my hopes on a spell of warmer weather which we are promised.

After this brief burst of exercise, I retired indoors and spent most of the rest of the day resting and looking out of the window.

The birds did their best to keep me entertained.

Goldfinches looked sideways…

,..and sparrows look downwards.

A sparrow tried to out stare an incoming siskin…

…while a siskin resorted to shouting when it was threatened.

Goldfinches demonstrated aerial combat skills…

…while a siskin relied on the old fashioned method of putting the boot in when approached by a goldfinch.

A siskin threatened a redpoll as some light rain started later on in the afternoon…

…but the redpoll was more than equal to the challenge and munched away placidly when it had seen the siskin off.

The rain got heavier but did nothing to cool tempers down.

…and a brisk traffic to and from the feeder continued all afternoon.

The rain stopped and a blackbird posed for me on the feeder pole.

I had another walk round the garden and was very pleased to see that the ‘butter and sugar’ iris had come out while I had been sitting inside.

The geums have quite enjoyed the cool weather and although it is a little faded round the edges, the deep colour of this one was outstanding.

I had a close look at the argyranthemums in the chimney pot…

…and went back inside.

All this means that after a very promising start to the cycling month when I did 100 miles in the first week of June, I have only managed 10 miles since.  Some settled weather is required if I am to improve matters but it looks as though that might be in short supply.

If I can’t get out for a walk or a bike ride, I will have to start thinking of going for a drive to get some scenic views to add a bit of variety to the daily posts (and our lives).

The flying bird of the day is a goldfinch cruising through the raindrops.

Note:  I will need to do something about the reflections in the window when I am looking at the re-positioned feeder.  The view of the birds is good but the streaky lines down some of the pictures is not satisfactory.