ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE IN MAY

"A delicate fabric of bird song 

Floats in the air, 

The smell of wet wild earth 

Is everywhere. 

Oh I must pass nothing by 

Without loving it much, 

The raindrop try with my lips, 

The grass with my touch; 

For how can I be sure 

I shall see again 

The world on the first of May 

Shining after the rain?"  

-  Sara Teasdale, May Day  

                                         'Whirling Butterflies ' Gaura

April and May were reversed this year - April was dry and May brought an over abundance of rain.

I've spend most of this month learning how to be the grandmother of my granddaughter's newly acquired chickens that are kept at my house . She named them Henrietta,( a Golden Buff -Red Sex Link ) Cleopatra, ( Cream Legbar ) Moon  ( Ameraucana ) and Hey Hey ( a Buff Orpington ) .  I let the chicks out of the coop every morning and provide fresh water and food.  I also clean up their poop on a daily basis. The rest of the day they are free to roam the chicken enclosure .  I used sand for their litter so they are quite happy taking sand baths.  Since there's a lot of chicken-loving critters in this area I lock them up in their coop at night.  

The roadside garden is very lush due to the excessive rain we've had. I have added more wildflower seeds that attract bees and butterflies.

I added more perennials to my boulder garden -coreopsis, poker plant, verbena, fern-leaf lavender, violets, butterfly weed, spurge, woodland phlox and spider daylilies to name a few.  I also found the hardy banana palm tree that I wanted to plant near my container pond.  

I added two more dogwoods -a  'cherokee brave ' and 'appalachian mist '.  

May is a very busy month both in the garden and at home - two of my children are born in May and then there's my May birthday and Mother's day so a lot of presents change hands.