Gardens and time

 I've been working hard trying to juggle three balls: the garden, the quilting, and getting the house straightened out in preparation for some visitors.  The only way I have decided to do this is to work in the garden for 2 - 4 hours, then chip away at the various problem areas in the house (while going to the doctors, the dentist, etc.), and then quilt at night.
I must admit, sometimes I am just to tired out to write.

But today, I thought I would share some things.  The first picture is a serendipitous "red, white and blue" patch in my garden.  The white are fragrant peonies, good old "Festiva maxima" which I don't think can be beat for fragrance and for longevity.  The "blue" is Siberian Iris "Caesar's Brother" and the red....well...believe it or not is is a "yellow frost free."  Well, it wasn't so "frost free" as the rose died and this is the rootstock rose which came up instead of the yellow.  I am going to dig out the rose as I'm trying to make this bed smaller..and some of the iris went home with a friend today.

Meanwhile, back in the pond, the toad tadpoles are getting bigger.  They eat a prodigious amount of algae.  They are getting the color of toads....I'm not sure who is eating them...I think there are fewer than I started out with...but there are two green frogs and of course the fish....all of whom could be snacking on the tadpoles.  There are still hundreds however.

This is the smaller of the two green frogs living in the pond at present...They're a bit hard to catch although I may have a go at it tomorrow morning as it will be cooler and they will be more sluggish.  This  little guy is about 3 - 4" long....the other one is much larger.  See the ridge by his eye? That ridge extends down the frogs back.  With a bullfrog, it only curves around the tympanum (the disk-like space behind the eye which is actually the frog's ear).