Plant geek: What do you do with an afternoon off?

 The weather for the past week has been spectacular in Kansas. It is so rare for us to have temperatures this cool in May.  We are also experiencing low humidity which is simply a miracle.

The spring weather also has me anxious to do some serious house cleaning and to work on the garden and flower beds.  We have a pretty good start on the garden and last Sunday was one of those all day cleaning days.  There is still so much to do!

I had been thinking through my schedule and discovered an afternoon with no appointments.  I went ahead and decided to take some vacation leave and see what I could accomplish.

It happened that the weather was super - sunshine and a cool breeze.  The blue sky and white clouds were stunning.

My first order of business was weeding in the garden.  Weeding isn't necessarily fun, but with a beautiful view and great weather, it's not so bad.

 I enjoyed seeing what was growing and loved thinking about the possibilities ahead.  Our potato plants have the tiniest of buds.  (I am a huge fan of these little flowers.)

 I was also glad to see that our rabbit prevention system worked for our broccoli.  Our broccoli plants were rabbit food until we put up this crazy contraption.

 My weeding continued to a couple of flower beds around the yard.  The clematis was blooming!  And, I am sorry that I didn't give it some attention earlier because a lot of the growth was trailing on the ground instead of around the support of the old school bell.

 One of my favorite sights in both leaving the house in the morning and coming home at night is the violas by our cellar door and the pansies by the front door.

 This deep purple clematis is near our garage.  It's never had better blooms.

 The irises are blooming in this amazing rotation - first, the white flowers and then it's just this chorus to different colored blooms.

 And, the columbine is beautiful again.  This color is "old fashioned" to me.  It makes me think of my grandma and how much she would have liked these blooms.

So, on an afternoon off, a plant geek works a little and geeks out over whatever is blooming at the moment. I am also saying many prayers of thanks for the blessing of beautiful weather.