The Rains Have Let Up

So we've been outside.
As the veggie garden is too much of a mud pit, I spent some time on my long-neglected flower beds. I normally tie up the daffodil leaves into knots, but this year am trying something different: shocks. I picked one leaf and pulled the rest together and tied them upright. Looks nifty so far, and it is probably easier on the plants than the knots were.

I am doing a non-traditional flower bed up by the mailbox. I just planted tobacco and corn to accompany the daisies and sunflowers. I got this hairbrained idea that there might be a market for organic cigars and/or pipe tobacco, so we are experimenting with tobacco. I didn't want it to take up space in my veggie garden, so am trying it elsewhere. Anyway, if some random reader out there recognizes what a fantastic idea this is, and comes out with organic cigars before I do, then I just ask that you send me a check for at least 50 bucks.

And this was what Finley was doing while I wasn't paying attention: picking plums. I suppose I ought to thank her. I hadn't thinned the plums out yet.

As I was transplanting some ipomopsis that always reseeds itself too close to the edge of the flowerbed, I found an orchard webweaver spider. It has this fantastic bright orange spot on its belly. Although the camera has a great all purpose lens that lets me get up close, sometimes it's not close enough for those really small things I'd like to photograph.