I Like Thursday #76

Wow has it been an exciting week.  I have been very busy and was kind of fussing when I realized it was only Wednesday. Wait Wednesday then it is time to write a post for my I Like Thursday to join the others at LeeAnna's Not Afraid of Color.

When I was chauffeuring my parents around the United States, we stopped to visit with Dorothy in New York, and she served iced tea.  I loved it!

I make up a pitcher and it seems to go way too fast.

The kids have a lawn and landscape service and a lot of people ask them to clean out the yard and start completely over.  We end up with a lot of very nice plants.  This gorgeous hydrangea came home to live in my yard.

Now to get a handle on all the weeds so that I can plant it.

Jerusalem Artichokes.  Have you ever heard of them?  Several years ago someone gave me a couple of these tuber looking things and told me to plant them.  Well they obviously love this spot and boy have they spread! 

You can't tell but these are 5-7 feet tall.  Per Gardentech.com

Also known as sunchokes, Jerusalem artichokes grow throughout the U.S., but warm temperatures in southern regions lead to lower yields.⁷ This perennial provides gardeners with sunny, yellow flowers and root-like edible tubers similar to potatoes. This native plant adapts easily to various soil types and soil pH. Harvest the roots after fall frosts, but leave plenty in place for the following year. Cook sunchokes as you would potatoes, or chop them for a jicama or water chestnut flavor in salads.

My small orchard has struggled the last couple of years.  I had quite a few pears finally, but many of them were eaten by squirrels.  I managed to salvage one.

If you have ever grown a fruit tree you know all the time that you have invested into them before you get any fruit. So I was quite thrilled.

No picture but I had 3 butterfly bushes.  One was dark almost black called The Black Knight, one was multi colored and another was white.  Well I read some misinformation and pruned them back this spring.  Big mistake.  The Black Knight and the multi colored did not return.  The white one I didn't get pruned and it did bloom.  Anyway the other day we moved all the chickens into the big chicken house, and I was cleaning it out.  I drug a wagon load of bird, chicken, and pine shavings out to the burn pile.  What was there at the top, waving tall and proud?  The Black Knight butterfly bush.  I went up, pulled it out easily and replanted it.  It is a wee bit droopy, but now is the time to plant butterfly bushes, and hydrangeas.

 I have read several books this last week while I am working on some projects with deadlines. 

Dear Mad'm about and 80 year old woman who goes to live in a cabin up on a mining claim on the Klamath River, not far from where my great grandparents lived.  This was in the 50's so it was quite remote even at that time there.  The best write up I could find about this remarkable woman was from Find a Grave.

Now head over to LeeAnna's at Not Afraid of Color and check out the other I like Thursday posts.