Helen Mathey-Horn's Blog, page 17

1 May – Happy May Day!

I wrote last year about my family’s May Day tradition of ‘sneaking’ flowers to each other on May First. With no family in the immediate neighborhood that has not happened in a while, but… yesterday one of my neighbors asked for pieces of some of my iris, so I will count that as my May Day flower delivery.

I still have irises blooming!

Is this not the most incredible purple?



Note cat and next to her the milkweed stem that is now at least a foot high!



Looking for … probably mice



Japanese Peony



Pee-o-ny or Pee-ah-ny?

Peonies are ‘Memorial Day’ flowers in my mind, although they were often right at the end of their flowering in Northern Illinois. You have to enjoy them while you can. That’s the beauty in Perennials…they come back every year, but only for that short window of flowering.

And last a ground orchid picture.

Happy May Day!

28 April – Finding Beauty

The Azaleas in front are just at peak flowering. (and puppy)



‘Ebb Tide’ rose in one of the front beds.



One of the two climbing roses on the front porch, ‘Don Juan’. The name is so perfect for a ‘climber’.

We are supposed to get hail later this afternoon. I brought in some of the irises, but more will have to ‘weather’ the storm I’m afraid.

I spent part of the morning repotting things including orchids. If you look closely in the last picture you will see blue orchid pots in the shade of the arch. I need to repot some more, but as they are flowering and I don’t want to mess with a good thing, I’ll leave them for now.

26 April Finding Beauty

The Irises just keep coming on. You might note a slight tear in the upper left flower. It is due to hail we had the other day.



Some of the deepest purple.

The irises are so satisfying. I also was able to shop for plants yesterday and today set up my ‘usual’ planters in the back and driveway side of the house. A combination of asparagus fern, dragon wing begonias and purple sweet potato vine. I have a few of the begonias and vine left so I have to yet to decide where I’ll plant them.

Saw another monarch so they are in the area. Somewhere I read that the weather had delayed them moving further north.

I’ve moved most of my ‘house’ orchids outside. I’ve kept the ones that are flowering inside to enjoy longer. I need to repot some of them, but got a few new ‘pots’ when we did the plant run yesterday.

Love being outside right now.

25 April – Finding Beauty

Just the one today as I can’t seem to get the others to download.

24 April Finding Beauty

I missed two days. Not sure why that was. It is not like we’ve been busy, gone anywhere or ran out of flowers.

Aren’t these guys something else! They make me think of cancan dancers.

There are other pictures, but enough for now. Luckily the hail we had the other day did not shred these beauties.

21 April Finding Beauty

There are more irises, but I decided to go with greenery today.

Ferns



Horsetail rushes and ‘moneywort’



Sprouting Milkweed

I had two more pictures, but I am struggling with my program to upload, so enough.

On a note related to the milkweed; I have seen two monarchs in the area as I walked the dog in the last 24 hours. It could be the same one twice, or two different ones. I’ve logged them with Journey North. I’m hoping if the butterflies are looking for plants to lay eggs on they will find my milkweed, not that it is much at this point. Usually I see them again in the fall (September) as they head back to Mexico for the winter.

If you are interested in migrations (not just monarchs) through and around the US I would highly recommend Journey North. They use input from citizen scientists (like you) to track migrations of different animals and to get an idea of how those species are doing. It is easy to use. Click on the link (the black print) and it will take you to a log in page. You can see the various kinds of data they have people report. They make maps of that data that anyone can use.

So today’s beauty is the greening of the season.

20 April Finding Beauty

More iris! Are you surprised? I guess not, but they are stunning.

With late afternoon light.















And to show it is not all iris…columbine,



and coral bells against Hakoni grass.
Hakoni grass is a type of bamboo, but it is as a friend called it, “Nice bamboo.” That means it isn’t aggressive and will not spread like a wildfire.

So April is moving along with beauty everywhere.

19 April – Finding Beauty

I find writing fun, creating worlds out my imagination. So this is today’s ‘Finding Beauty’.

When I moved to Japan I had been writing in the off hours for over a year at least. (Not really sure how long, but I had basically finished A BOOK. Not published at that time and it was ‘Dream Warrior’ if you wish to know.) Then I met Don and he was interested in it…so I let him read it.

Well he had an idea in his head for a book and wanted to borrow a couple of my characters. (Teryn and Rabisle) We started collaborating on a ‘time jumping/assassins’ kind of sci-fi book. Our characters picked up two more ‘heroes’ (Lee and Chizzy), or they picked up Rabisle and Teryn, and we started writing about Iwakuni, Japan a spot we happened to be living at then.

Then things got kind of wild and free with places and times. It was fun rewriting history and using information we might have picked up in our travels. I still think one of my personal favorites was writing about the station on Mars. (Oh, I’ve let the cat out of the bag, no one is supposed to know about that place yet.)

I think we were channeling a little of Douglas Adams and it was a blast.

That’s how we ended up writing “Uptimers”.

Finding a title was the hardest part. For a long time it was just called “Busman’s Holiday” which makes no sense to the story, but as Don was an English teacher, it was ironic his using his off time to write, something he did for his regular work.

Eventually with the help of my daughter-in-law it was published.

Right now you can get a Kindle copy for FREE or a paperback for $11.99. The blue link will take you to Amazon and the title. (Sorry about the color. The techie part of me fails to remember how to select a better color.)

So if you are looking for escapist sci-fi, go look it up in Amazon. And if after you read it, would you be so kind as to leave a review with them.

Finding Beauty 18th April

More iris. The opening photo is just electric with the contrast of violet and orange.

Look at the lilac in there!



Compare the stamen of the two pictures above. Note the color different? Not related iris.







And who would think to put apricot with lavender? Look at that touch of apricot on the edge.



I still think this is a stunning position of opposites. The White/purple against the red of the Japanese Maple.

So still more iris and a touch of maple.

# Many – Finding Beauty

Okay, I’m losing (have lost?) track of the days. I know I’m not alone with this and I will fall back on the tribe/society that had the numbers ‘1’, ‘2’ and ‘many’. If it was more than 2 it got lumped together and isn’t that how things are feeling like lately, lumped together?

I’m not to point of not dressing each day, not that my pjs wouldn’t be house worthy, but I walk the dog and its a small neighborhood and I wouldn’t want to give them something more interesting than COVID 19 to talk about just now. On second thought they would probably appreciate it. But even so.

The irises are still going strong. I believe this is due to our temperatures staying low. Today’s high is 50 degrees Fahrenheit, so pretty cool. If this was summer I would be doing cartwheels…well maybe not cartwheels, but I would be loving it. Heck in Wisconsin this might be a great summer day! Nah, it is still pretty cold.

So what is going on? Not much.

Still knitting away on the 10 stitch…dang the sides are getting longer and longer and I swear the needles are getting smaller and smaller. I’ll do a picture tomorrow (or the day after, or when ever I get around to it.) so you can see. I’ll save it as I’ve got iris pictures today.

They are still incredibly beautiful and I really think the reason they haven’t all just ‘blown’ themselves out is the temperatures are acting like the refrigerator at a florist’s.

So on with the pictures.

Besides the iris, see the stain-glass windows my mother made for me.



I love this apricot color with the lilac stamen/beard.



I believe this kind of edging (contrasting color) is know a picot.



Here is one where the color combination is reversed with a light ‘fall’ and a dark picot edge. Isn’t the center just the warmest sunny yellow?



And this is just so cheery, again with a sunny stamen. It also looks pretty terrific with the Japanese maple as a back ground.



How much darker could this purple get? And the orange!

So excuse the fact I missed yesterday. And I hope these brighten your day.