More Iris on Order

I found the two Iris plants that Superstition Iris Gardens were sold out of. The first one is Spice Lord, a brownish red with white. Very striking.

The other one I tried to order was Bowled Over. I don't have anything like it. Very special.

I was thrilled to find these two from the "Iris Sisters" in Oregon.
So then as I was browsing through ALL of their pretty Iris flowers, I found another one that I just had to have.
It's called "Fashionista." And that's what it is. Very beautiful. I guess it's a slow grower, because it says not many increases. It will be special. I'll be getting these in July. For sure I am not buying any more Iris plants. I am out of room!!

Iris Plants on Order

Last Friday, I drove 3 ladies to Cathey's Valley to the Superstition Iris Gardens. The flowers were early this year, so it looked like peak season was maybe last week, but still lots of pretty Iris plants to consider. Three of us had our cameras out and were taking pictures of our favorites. I had photos of 26 different flowers. Way more than I wanted to order. We all decided to go home and look at our pictures on our computers and decide which ones to order.
I had already looked at pictures of them online; Superstition Iris Gardens is on facebook. One I really wanted was sold out early, even before we went up there. That was "Spice Lord." I got my list of what to order down to 7, then found out another favorite, "Bowled Over" sold out yesterday.
So, these are the six that I have on order. All are very beautiful, but next year I am going to order a few VERY EARLY. This first one is Croft's Caress.



This one is Dusky Challenger


This black one is "Here Comes the Night."


This eye-catching flower is "Solar Fire."


This is "Wedding Night."


This last one is "Company of One."

Lunch in Turlock

Jane invited us to lunch today at her house. We were there to meet Linda, a professor from Washington who teaches at Washington State. It was a very enjoyable day; great food; see the beautiful salad below.

We also had some pasta which was very nice. Here are some of us sitting around the table.

Later we sat on the patio and had delicious dessert. Here is Jane by a rose bush. It's a little fuzzy. My battery was too low.

We had a wonderful afternoon.

Photos at Winton Cemetery District

After a couple of months of neglecting to take tombstone pictures at the Winton Cemetery, I finally went there again a week ago. More than 100 photos have been added, so now there are more than 1,800 to browse through. If you are looking for a name, it's much easier to go to the sets. If you just want to browse, click on this link.
Some of these have memorials at Find A Grave.
The above picture was taken around Memorial Day last year. The cemetery is especially pretty at that time.

Almost Spring

It's been a long time since I posted anything here and now it's almost spring.
I bought a new Stella Cherry tree to replace the one that died last year. When Joe and Keith were digging the hole to plant the tree, they discovered why the other tree died. I have hardpan!! So, they had to dig a really big hole and use the pick-axe to get below the hardpan. The picture shows Keith using the pick-axe. So, now the new tree is planted and I hope all is well.
It's been so dry here all winter. Lately we've had a couple of good rain storms, but not enough to make up for the rain we didn't get earlier or for the snow the mountains usually get.
We had some nice spring weather and so it's hard not to buy plants to dig in the ground. I've bought the tomato plants already and planted them in large pots that I bought last year. One variety is new to me, "Park's Whopper." My sister and brother-in-law had very good luck with them last year. They just kept producing while my tomato plants produced very little. I hope I get a lot of tomatoes this year, I have 5 plants, counting one cherry tomato.
The peach and nectarine trees are blooming and the apricot is close behind. The cherry trees are always the last to bloom. I haven't seen any bees yet. Sure hope they show up when the cherry trees are blooming. I don't know how to hand pollinate.

The Christmas Season

Christmas will soon be here. Seems like we just had Thanksgiving.
I don't do Christmas shopping for anyone, so that takes a lot of pressure off. I send them a small check and they have to do their own shopping. They don't seem to mind, thank goodness. I hate to waste money, so never liked to buy for someone else. It's fun to buy toys for small kids, but after that, ugg. I never know what to get.
I enjoy shopping on Black Friday, but only for myself. It's a good time to get bargains.
Christmas Eve, I'll be going to the candle light service at the Atwater Methodist Church. We were told this morning to bring a friend. Oh Boy. Who to ask? Everybody I know already has a church. Anybody want to volunteer to be my guest?
Next month, I have 7 appointments, before, during and after I have my Cataract removed. I didn't know it took so many appointments to have that done. This Cataract in my right eye has been slowly growing for a long time. My appointment in early December really shocked me!! I couldn't read one single letter on the chart with my right eye. Soooo Blurry!! I don't know how it got so bad so quickly. Maybe high blood sugar has something to do with it? I'll be glad to get this over with.
In January I want to get two new bare root fruit trees. One Stella Cherry to replace the one that died and a standard "O Henry" peach tree. I had no fresh fruit in August last year. The Fantasia Nectarine was ripe in July and the peaches were also gone by August. O Henry ripens in August. So, that's the plan for this year. I'll have to have the "SunCrest" semi-dwarf peach tree removed to make room for O Henry. But that's o.k. Flavorcrest is still my favorite peach.

Fall is Here

The Winton Old Timers reunion has come and gone. We had a total of 200 attend this year. Down from prior years, but still everyone seemed to enjoy it.
Pictured above are the 90+ guests; from the left: Gene Hill, Clifford Jantz, Edna Jantz, Curtis Jantz (Edna's husband), Wilma Arnold, Leona Eason and Elsie Koehn.
Leona is 102 this year and was again the oldest one in attendance. She is doing great!
I got a chance to take a few pictures, but still I missed some people I would have liked to have a picture of. A few people came late.
I finally got the September/October newsletter printed. We have one long story in it this time.
Maybe our members will decide to send in their memories now. They can see that we're having a hard time filling the pages. The long story is interesting to me and I hope to a lot of others. If not, I'll probably hear about it.
Two weeks ago I traded in my 2001 red Dodge Stratus for a 2013 Toyota Prius. I really like the way the new car drives. It gets good gas mileage, today when I got home from church it said I got 58+ miles per gallon. I guess that 10.4 gallon tank full of gas will last a long time. Especially when I just drive around Atwater. Then it runs off the large battery a lot. The large battery is under warranty for ten years. The rest of the car for 2 years.
Tomorrow my sister and I have appointments in Turlock. We go every month so our reflexologist can keep our blood flowing!! lol
The Atwater United Methodist Church had an Estate Sale in Ballico a couple of weeks ago. It was out in the country, so didn't get as much traffic as we usually do, but we did o.k. It was fun. Another lady and I were the cashiers and when we weren't busy, we did a lot of visiting. The time went fast and we had a very enjoyable time.