Scenes From the Garden...

The garden is a place of changing scenes...

A garden visitor who has just snacked in the garden and seemed to consider going back for more.

A place of quiet in the early morning stillness and light fog. 

The fog wraps around the fruit trees and highlights their beautiful shapes.

The view from a distance seems peaceful in the light of the rising sun.

                  Thank you for visiting today.  I would love to hear from you in the comments.
   

Farmstead Garden Pictures....

 What beautiful gardens on the farmstead. We sure enjoyed visiting them.

 We visited the Farmstead with my parents and we all had a good time. It was a special treat.


 Dad wore his straw hat to protect from the sun... and used his cane... and wore his insulated vest so he didn't get cold! :)   You can see him in the picture below.

 So many beautiful flowers...

 This shows my Dad, 2 of my daughters and one son.... and my son is actually pushing my mom in a wheelchair. She can walk, but long walks like this are too hard on her since she injured her back a couple of years ago, so we push her in a wheelchair for such a trip.

 This woodland garden was quiet and peaceful.  

There was a nice collection of large chimes in the trees in the woods and what a beautiful sound they made!

 A fun idea for a planter... appropriate for a farmstead garden!

  I  especially LOVE the picture below! That little girl had just hugged the statue of the little girl. I didn't get a photo of that, but I did get this photo of her saying good bye to the "little girl". So sweet!   :)

 The grain bin tops out there house an eagle, bobcat and other animals and birds.

 My dad loves the farm equipment and he tells us what each item is and if he used it when he was a kid on the farm. These are precious times.

 The bridges in the woods were closed because of flood damage and some of the paths were closed.  This tree's roots have become exposed by the flood waters and hopefully, the tree won't be damaged from it.

 I loved looking at the barn through the flowers. 

What beautiful gardens they have. We have been to this place before and I posted about it in this post:

Getting More Out of a Field Trip


The flowers are different this time... and so were some other things, but it was another enjoyable trip.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures of the homestead gardens.  Thank you for visiting today.  


#FarmsteadGardens #gardens  #farmstead






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Garden Suspect... In Theft of Blueberries!

We really like blueberries... and have a few bushes in our yard.... The problem is that we are not the only ones who like those blueberries. sigh.


Beautiful blueberry blossoms indicated a  good amount of blueberries for this season. We sure looked forward to harvesting them.

 They ripen at different times so we check them every day when they are starting to ripen. 

Most years, the birds eat so many of them that we don't get many at all. This year, my husband started picking them early... and they were a bit sour, but at least WE were eating them. :)

 Even some of the nice looking blue ones were still not sweet, but we enjoyed them anyway.

 What fun to see so many blueberries out there this year... and to be able to actually eat many of them.

  This week, I found about 5 of these beetles on the bushes and we killed as many of them as we could, but some got away. 

This is not a good thing to find Japanese Beetles as they can cause lots of damage. We will be careful to watch for them and kill them as we can. No, we will not be using pesticides, but will try to control them naturally.

 We keep checking and enjoying blueberries though, BUT... we have started to find blueberries with part of it gone... and suspected birds.

 When I was in the garden taking pictures yesterday, I was startled by this guy flying close to me to fly by the blueberry bush I was near. 

Then he landed on the fence.... and acted so innocent. (Notice the dark stuff on his beak... it is evidence!)

 Then he quickly took off again... and went back to the fence to sit and look innocent. Then I noticed the blueberry in his beak. I can't believe how fast he could fly through and get a blueberry or a part of one. 

It was also strange that I was standing only about 4 feet or so from where he was getting the blueberries, showing he wasn't scared of me being there. I guess those blueberries were just too enticing.


 So... when I saw the picture of the blueberry all over his beak, I made a fun picture and sent it to my family members on email. They laughed.

Now, lest you become alarmed that I am truly waging war on birds, rest assured that I do like birds and have written many blog posts showing that. Here are a few of them, if you want to click on the link and see the blog posts:

Cardinals Raise Their Young

Baby Birds and Baby Humans

Busy Bird Bath House

God Feeds the Birds... a Bread Stick?

Like Baby Birds

Birds of the Air

Beautiful Cardinals

These are just some of the posts I have written about birds... backyard birds. There are many others, including about a Blue Heron, Black Swans, Geese... and more. So.... I am NOT a bird hater. Please don't assume that I am. 

Sometimes we put netting on the blueberry bushes to protect them... other times, we have used a blow up "eye" that is supposed to scare the birds. We have used an owl statue in the garden... and old CDs or streamers blowing in the wind. They are persistent though... and they like our blueberries... and our blackberries... and the tomatoes and strawberries... and more. 

SO....  I am choosing to laugh about it and plan to do better again next year. :)  This year is so busy and I am thankful we were able to eat as many of the blueberries as we did... and we will keep checking the bushes each day in case the birds leave any for us!

  If you garden, you may also face sharing your produce with the birds. How do you deal with them? Have you found some great ideas... or some that didn't work too well?  Please feel free to share in the comments. 

Thank you for visiting. I hope you have a wonderful week.   🙂





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Top 10 Gentle Joy Photography 2015

These are the top 10 posts published in 2015
here on Gentle Joy Photography 

There are links to each post if you would like to visit them....just click the link and you will get to the post.

   Number 10

The Beauty of Being Known

     Number 9

Feeling Sympathy For Farmer McGregor 

 Number 8


 Pigtails and French Braids

    Number 7

Saving Money-Part 3-Buying Used 

    Number 6

Polycarp Movie Review-Trailer Included 

   Number 5

Allergy Tea-Homemade Herb Tea 

Number 4

Two More French Braid Hairstyles 

   

    Number 3

Saving Money-Part 2-Grocery Shopping 

  Number 2

Hidden In The Woods 

   Number 1 for   2015

The Number ONE Way I Save Money! 




 What a year it has been... filled with good times and challenging ones also. Thank you for joining me through the year... and I hope we find that 2016 will be even better. 




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Tumbleweed Contessa