The Birth of a Pepper

Onion flower

Dawn

Little Frog

Walking Stick

Gift from the birds

A single sunflower.

Arugula flower

Edited to add--Arugula is a very quick and easy to grow garden green. Here is a link with its history, how to to grow it, and a few  recipes.

Wedding Annoucement---Country Style

(you don't see cool things like this hay bale bride and groom when you are stuck working in only in the city...)

Some of you may recall that in April I quit my job as a visiting nurse with one home care company and took a job as a visiting nurse with another company that was much closer to home with the promise of less driving. Well, it did have significantly less driving, but had very little else going for it. The main problem was that patients did not get a primary nurse. I was used to case managing as many patients as I could comfortably see in a weeks time. I got to know my patients, they got to know me and a trusting therapeutic nurse/patient relationship would develop. In the new place, patients did not have one nurse who oversaw their care and we rarely saw the same patient twice. The patients weren't happy about it and I found it incredibly stressful and felt as if I could not provide good patient because I never got to know the patients or follow up if something was wrong. I would always be in fear that I missed something important related to the patients health or care because that trust that is so essential in medical/healing relationships was never developed.

And believe it or not, I missed the driving after all. 95% of thepatients I saw were within two to three miles of the office, which meant they were all in the city. I missed driving through the country side, exploring small towns I'd never been in before, seeing cows and horses and chickens, I missed watching the farmers plow their fields and missed watching the corn and soybeans grow. I missed admiring the views from patients' windows and chatting with patients about their animals, gardens, and property. I missed watching the sand hill cranes and turkey families.

It only took six weeks of stressed filled days with very few rewarding moments before I decided to call my former supervisor and see if I could have my old job back. Yes, it was still open.

So I am back to driving several hundred miles each week and seeing my own patients everyday. No, the job isn't perfect. I suspect no nursing job is. There are a lot of things I would change about it if I could. I still  come home very late some days. A lot of days I come home so tired I fall asleep as soon as I get home and don't wake up until the next morning. Some nights I stay up very late trying the finish the stacks of paperwork that Medicare requires of visiting nurses. But the important thing is that I feel like I am able to  properly care for my patients and I don't feel like I am stuck in a prison-like job.

Tiger Lily

Nine years ago I when I planted my very first garden in Michgan, I picked a handful of the tiny bulbils off some tiger lilies in a friend's garden. Five years later they gave me their first blooms. The first year the blooms were small and scanty, but in the next few years the blooms became larger and very prolific. Last summer when we moved from that house and garden, the lilies were spectacular. I dug up three plants to bring to our new home. Amazingly they survived being dug up in full bloom, then neglected for a month and allowed to completely dry out before I planted them..

Admittedly, this summer they aren't quite the large robust plants I dug up last year, but they look healthy and there are plenty of tiny bulbils to start dozens more tiger lily plants.

I am pretty certain the wild lily in the previous post is a Michigan Lily. (I was delighted to discover that Michigan has its own wild lily!)

Wild lilies

A splash of color caught my eye and caused me to pull over on the side of the road when I was on my way to see my first patient this morning.  Bright and bold wild lilies rose tall above the weeds in the drainage ditch.

I think they may be Turk's Cap lilies. If someone can identify them for sure, let me know.

Edited to add: I was able to identify these lilies on line. They turn out to be (very appropriately) Michigan lilies.

Bean Flowers

The garden is coming along nicely, though I'm still working to get some fall crops in. Hopefully I will get a bit more soil tilled up and ready to plant in fall greens before August 1st. Still no animal damage in the

garden. which amazes me with all the wildlife we have around here. Yesterday was our third day in a row of temperatures in the 90's. I finally dragged out the hoses and sprinklers since everything, especially the tomatoes, were starting to look as if they were suffering from heat stroke.

I love how bean flowers have an almost exotic look if you look at them closely. The pink one is Royal Burgundy. Even the green bean is beautiful. When raw, the pod is a deep dark purple. It cooks up to a dark green.  It also is very productive and disease resistant, making it perfect for an organic garden.

This one is Earliserve, my favorite green bean, it is very tender with lots of flavor. It is also the earliest green bean I've grown. I should be harvesting beans next week. If I can get another planting in before August 1st, I will have a second crop ready in the fall.

On the Rocks

Free Form flower

It is all about the legs. :)

Hosta Flower