Yard safari!

[cleolinda]

As threatened promised. And yeah, it did make me feel a little better.

Yellow jasmine and pink camellias.





On the left, a cut-down crape myrtle; on the right, the cut-down hydrangeas. Due to whatever acidity level of the soil, the hydrangeas mostly come out blue.






Amazingly, we do not live in a rural area. This is just a stretch fifteen feet deep behind the house, and I took all the pictures from the deck. We are squarely in the suburbs, very close to downtown [Suburb of Birmingham], about five minutes from a small shopping center. Sporadic outbreaks of woodland are pretty common in Birmingham,
which is one of the reasons I love it so much.




I have no idea what kind of tree this is. But it's pretty damn tall.




I love the idea of there being tiny little elfin worlds in the yard.




When the dogs were puppies, they chewed a hole in our deck fence. So now, it's Scout's lookout post.




Scout and Sam, who is enjoying the weather.




Pictures of Shelby I just barely managed to get; there are a dozen others that are just blurs of her shaking her head.




HEY COULD YOU LET US IN KTHANX





Scout's life as a dog is so very, very hard.

The rest of the pictures are under the "march2009" tag; I won't burden you with them here. There's a few pictures of my cat and random things around the house, nothing terribly exciting. Although our faux-French clock is nice.

Comments

[ohkaye.livejournal.com]

Your yard is gorgeous! Hope you're feeling better :)

[aka-paloma.livejournal.com]

Those flowers are gorgeous! I can't even conceive of the idea of flowers being in bloom right now: Vancouver got more snow over the weekend. :/ I mean, I don't miss all the rain, but geez, this is getting ridiculous. I need spring and I need it NOW!

[moogleybacon.livejournal.com]

UGH. I know what you mean. It snowed like, non-stop over the weekend--and monday!--here. This coupled with last winter, I'm not even sure I know what spring is anymore.

[celticrose888.livejournal.com]

Those are actually pretty good. Ya'll have an awesome garden, very pretty. At least you manage two, no three clear photos of shelby, I can't get any of my sister's dog, she moves to fast and never stops.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Well, actually the grass part of the garden is horrible, since the dogs scratched and dug it up the last couple of summers and we haven't returfed it yet. It's half bare dirt at this point. Ah, the wonders of closeups.

[diner]

jag;jf;ldsjf I'm going to STEAL SAM.
And your yard is absolutely gorgeous!!!

[chickadilly.livejournal.com]

Awwww, your dogs are awesome!

[trash-addict.livejournal.com]

Photography always makes me feel better - particularly if I've been having withdrawals... Love the pics of the elfin worlds.

[moogleybacon.livejournal.com]

haha! My dog lies exactly as Scout does in that last picture all the time. He accompanies the image with occasional heavy, drawn-out sighs. It's adorably depressing.

Your backyard is gorgeous, too. Dontcha just love sporadic bits of woodland? I know I do! :D (Granted, I live in WA, so the woodland isn't so much "sporadic" as it is "everywhere". And it's not so much "woodland" as it is "forest". But still. lol)

[angelene.livejournal.com]

And yeah, it did make me feel a little better.

If it did, then that's the best thing about it. ;)

But also, I really love being able to see snippets of other people's homes and gardens and all that. (OMG I hope that doesn't sound too stalkerish!)

I'd never seen jasmine like that -- it looks decidedly different (the colour of the flowers, in particular, as well as their shape) from the variety that grows here (Italy). I wonder if its scent might be different also (or the same as what I'd call "typical jasmine", though maybe it's less "typical" than I'd assumed...) or if it does smell at all?

And what is that um stone element in the cut-down hydrangeas photograph? It looks a bit like a chimney, but I don't think it is?

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

It's a random little pagoda statue.

Our jasmine smells like every other "jasmine" scent I've ever smelled (soap, perfume, etc.), but I don't know. But yeah, you can smell it pretty strongly. It's nice when you get them and the gardenias going at the same time.

[frenchmoodle.livejournal.com]

I am so jealous... the daffodils are gorgeous. I love how they're draping over. How warm is it here?

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I think you mean the jasmine? (We had daffodils at our old house, and I miss them.) It hit 80 degrees today, actually.

[ten-is-love.livejournal.com]

might i suggest a SLoD in which they venture through the tiny elfin woods? edward dollen probably knows the area well enough from his hunting expeditions.

[mercurywater.livejournal.com]

Comment and icon love!

[starlight976.livejournal.com]

I'm so jealous! Your yard is beautiful, and your dogs are adorable! Especially Scout.

[greedyskunk.livejournal.com]

Despite the alternating rain and snow yesterday, I'm starting to see things sprouting. In my years in Oregon, I've noticed that if plant life gets any bit of sun (nevermind the temperature), it will just go for it. The forecast calls for sun for the next few days,so I'm sure I'll wake up one morning and see flowers everywhere.

The temp may even get to 60, so I'm sure I'll see a lot of pasty white legs as people break out the shorts, too, but that's a different story.

[cesario.livejournal.com]

I love looking at other people's around the house candids. :-D

[eldritch-flame.livejournal.com]

Damn. That is beautiful. And here I'm still thinking how nice it is that we can see some bits of grass through the snow now ;)

And your dogs are soooo cute!

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

We still hav sno :(

tl;dr comment

[flamingo-bandit.livejournal.com]

It's bizarre and wonderful to see SPRING in your pictures, as it's still snowing and slushy and dead in Minneapolis. (/envy.) I'm so distracted by the brightness of all the flowers. I like the shots of the camellias especially.

Also, I have to mention this (http://www.flickr.com/photos/cleolinda/3345350944/) little drum set guy in your flickr. He makes me smile every time I open the link again. He's just so randomly, pointlessly cute.

Re: tl;dr comment

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Hee, yeah. My stepfather's a drummer (as a hobby, I mean), so my mom got a local artist to make that for him when they got married.

[bardintraining.livejournal.com]

I love Scout's look-out.

We've still got an unreasonable dumping of snow and now it's melting away, but only two days ago the cherry tree was >< this close to budding/blooming, I think. And now it's just in shock and like "...what in the heck is going on here?"

[mumford519.livejournal.com]

So pretty, our house is new and we haven't done any landscaping so there is a sad lack of flowers, but the weather has been nice so it must have been good to get out in it.
My 2 year old was very excited about your dogs and we had to look at all your animal pictures and now your dogs and cat have a little fan.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Aw!

[all-ephemera.livejournal.com]

I especially like the framing you did on the first shot posted, with the yellow flowers and the wooden latticework and the light play. Very nice!

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Aw, thanks. It was about 8:30 this morning, so I had great light.

[bluebren.livejournal.com]

The lookout post one is so great. And plant macros never get old, either.

[foresthouse.livejournal.com]

Saaam! So cute. :)

It's nice to see all that green - we're still shaking off the end of winter here.

Also, I can't really tell, but that tree looks vaguely like it might be a honey locust? I think they're called? I dunno, we had one once that was taller than the house. Does it shed tiny stems full of leaves sometimes?

[elendiari22.livejournal.com]

What a gorgeous yard! I love all the trees, and the flowers are wonderful. I'd love to plant jasmine and camellias some day.

[scornedsaint.livejournal.com]

You are not helping my desire to have a dog.

But your yard is very pretty!

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

Yeah, around Birmingham nature is like "Just try and stop us from growing around here! Go on!"

It was such a shock to visit the Southwest when I'd lived in the South for so long. No green! It was strange going out there, but it was stranger coming back and realizing how alive everything is down here.

[willowtreeling2.livejournal.com]

why is Scout so freakin' cute? He/She (?) looks like a redhead, long tailed version of my Riley, the Wheaten Terrier:) Actually, all your furbabies are cute!