Lily Loving Llamas

Blame it all on this endless rain.

The ground is like butter when you put a shovel in it, making weeding, edging and digging holes a breeze.

Sort of.

No mosquitoes, few flies, temperatures in the 70’s. Am I really in Illinois? So instead of cleaning the bathroom I go outside and play.

My Burr Road client:

Coming home from a landscape job with a big honking clump of daylily had me wandering around looking for a place to dig another hole. Without a weedwacker, fences and corners can quickly get out of control. It didn’t take long to find a weedy mess that needed some taming.

I dragged an old piece of plywood out of the barn and made a hillbilly patio that I can easily mow over. The big chunk of daylily went into the corner with a Heptacodium branch that I dragged out of the burn pile.

Voila!

All done – except of course for Dusty and Lefty who were watching all this activity with great interest.

Farewell Daylilies!

Dusty and Lefty are my two remaining llamas from our backpacking days. Each carried up to 60 lbs of food, tent, beer and other essentials into the wilds of Colorado and Wyoming in years gone by. The gear remains in the barn and Dusty and Lefty remain as resident pasture poodles.

They have a good life.

The following day they came back for seconds – as if there was anything left! Some chicken wire next year may inhibit them from stretching their long necks through the fence. But this year I just have to shake my head and chuckle.

Now, readers, it’s your turn!

I’m getting more response from posting a picture of a skunk on Facebook than I do from this blog. Should I continue to post? Here are some topics I was thinking of writing about:

A recap of one of our old llama adventures:

Comparing different Echinaceas or Coneflowers for Illinois gardens:

Traveling to the southwest with my sister, Karen:

Flowers, flowers and more flowers:

So, what shall it be?

Should I continue posting?

An update to my original post. A month later and I’ve made some improvements — after scraping and four coats of paint an old window from our house in Glen Ellyn gets hung on the barn wall. The branch leaning in the corner is a dead Heptacodium that I dragged out of the burn pile. Chicken wire stapled to the fence keeps Lefty from reaching the Daylilies. Everything here is re-purposed junk and giveaways.

Thanks to all who encouraged me to continue this blog!