Hi every one! Can you believe it? I still cannot believe my luck and I was there!!! Again while on my way to work this morning there was someone white and *quite* chunky looking flying across the road. I pulled over, backed up a bit, and admired a stunningly beautiful snowy Owl perched on top of a utility pole. This one was much larger than the first Owl I had seen and was more heavily barred. The barring seemed darker / black. I believe this Owl was a female as her face, nape of the neck and center of the breast were white. From what I was able to research that does describe the female snowy. Maybe this was an immature but I did not find much description of them. Any way ... I am 113% sure this was another Snowy Owl! What a wonderful start to the day! As my luck would have it, I did not have my camera in the car for the past week. Had the camera been there then for sure the Owl would NOT! LOL! So that was a great start to the day. I was 20 minutes late to work but work is just soooo over-rated. LOL! The rest of the day was downhill but who cares? I saw another Snowy Owl! The Owl was about 1 mile south of the earlier sighting on Rt. 83 in N. Ridgeville again. C3D and 2 Snowy sightings this year!

O.K. Kay I went and found most of my receipts... Boy I wasn't as organized with those as I thought that I was. If I have received my orders I will tell you and list the bonuses as well. With Blue J you pick your bonuses and I forgot to separate those on my lists. And let's face it if they leave out some there are so many I'll be none the wiser. lol The daughter (I can't remember her name at the moment) was so very nice on the phone. And I guess since I started with the largest order 1st I'll just continue largest to smallest. Also you will notice some duplicates, that was due to me trying to go by memory what I had ordered. That was dumb Denny! And then one order I made at 2:30 A.M. Well that was ignorant as heck also! lol One of the Iris I ordered 4 of and it is an Aril and I don't even know yet if they'll live or die. Aw well live and learn. Last year I ordered a lot of several and for what? I dunno, so I tried not to do that again but failed with one order. So now I have a binder with all the Iris that I ordered (and previously owned) listed alphabetically. It helps but I still miss and accidentally order sometimes what I own already or have on order. A result of having had more seizures than I can count I believe. But alas life is good, my health is grand now! Hopefully my memory will follow suit. Without further ado... Echo Iris Garden - Owner Ernie is so very nice also. He had open heart surgery earlier this year and not a month later he was already peetering around in his iris gardens! You just can't keep a good gardener down! Acoma, Amigo, Beaux Art, Blue Shimmer, i. germanica, Jean Guymer, Los Coyotes, Mayan Poppy, Melody, Mme. Chereau, Nigerian Raspberry, Nordica, Paper Doll, Six Pack, Cascade Splendor, Butterscotch Kiss, Kona Coast, Mulberry Rose, Puccini, Queen In Calico, Queen's Circle, Purple Pepper, Purissima, Red Polish (can't wait to see this bloom in person), Syncopation, Whispering Spirits, Tennessee Woman, Tennessee Gentleman, Street Walker, Total Obsession, Melted Butter, Hot Line, Hey Looky, Aplomb. Napa Country Iris Garden - Louisa's Song, Mister Flounce, Jurassic Park, Aardvark Lark, Chocolate Moose, Dance Hall Dolly, Decadence, Drinks At Sunset, Grape Expectations, Grizzly Gosling (this is the one everyone thought was ugly, I think it's the most beautiful flower ever!), High Master, Moonlit Water, Peekaboo Zebu, Who's Your Daddy, Solar Fire, Squid Squirt, Spiced Tiger, Upper Hand This is an order from an e-bay seller - rebloomirislover Her name is Sherry and she is so very sweet! Her little boy Conner helps her with her gardens. Zebra Halo (variegated foliage), Reincarnation, Curtain Up, Sundown Saber, Ring Around Rosie, Odoratissima, Sneezy, Zebra Night (variegated foliage), Tropical Butterfly, Hotdogs & Mustard, Grape Snakez, Tanzanian Tangerine, Cantina, Bonus - Juicy Fruit, Violet Returns, Bengal Tiger & she said "other surprises" I'm excited for this order! I think she told me she would be shipping July 15 His Iris Garden - Constant communication from this seller as well. Very nice people. Double Click, Tropical Butterfly (yep I see the duplicate order, sigh), Abundant Sunshine, Larry Gaulter, Bay Rum, Stairway To Heaven, Mary Frances, Cabot Cove, Zebra Iris X2 (any variegated duplicates ARE on purpose as they are my favorites!), Becky Miller, Charlotte Rose, Infernal Fire received an e-mail that my order will ship out July 15 also. Williamson Farm Flowers - I spoke to Alicia Williamson by phone and she was so sweet also! Send me a nice plant I might remember you BE nice to me and I'll remember you always! A plant makes an indention in my ground, kindness makes an indention in my heart. -Rena'- Japanesque, Little Freak, Schortman's Garnet Ruffles, Tiger Talk, Jungle Warrior I received this order already and received 2 bonus Iris So Grand & Castle Stronghold an extra Japanesque, Little Freak & Jungle Warrior. These are all growing strong except So Grand, it is struggling. We'll see if it pulls through or not. Willow Bend Iris - Oyez (an Aril) X4 (you guessed it my 2:30 A.M. order, lol) Cherry Glen, Drama Queen X2 Daylilies By The Pond - Sara is so very kind also! Most of my order was daylilies but I did have 3 Iris on the order. Candy Apple Classic, Birthday Greetings & Dandy Candy. Sara sent an extra Candy Apple Classic & Dandy Candy. Sunshine Annie's - Invoice is AWOL So this one will have to wait 'til I find it. Also I am putting together an order for Rockytops. But I have so many coming that I might wait 'til next year on that one. O.K. Kay I better get some shut eye as I have 65 daylilies to plant and 30 lilies tomorrow. Rena'

I’m starting to think the herd of “animals” might have been females and adolescents! I definitely know what deer look like, and they’re way too big and don’t look really at all like what I saw. I don’t believe elk were ever that far east—in “modern times” at least—and they definitely weren’t elk anyway, not even females or young ones. The main thing that was so absolutely amazing about “these things” is the way the BOUNDED around—almost as if their “toes” weren’t even touching the ground! They almost looked like they were “floating up and down” they moved so easily across the ground! But because of that I think possibly they “looked smaller” than they really were! They MUST have been female/young antelope! And—Centennial didn’t exist when I lived down thataway! Parker Road was 2-lane too, and there was a stop sign at the intersection of Parker and Arapahoe! And Tagawa was the ONLY thing on the west side of Parker! ALL the rest of the land was Richlawn Turf Farm growing fields! (470 had just been opened and was still free when I was moving away from there!) I don’t even recognize the area when I occasionally get down there—get lost after living there for more than fifteen years! (Smoky Hill was built up already back then—pretty new subdivisions, but all houses already!) (I think Broncos at Dove Valley was just being built when I left!) Love your story about pointing out of a parked Wildlife Viewing Car!” He would have gotten me! [When I was a “kid” I was at the local movie with a friend—it was a horror movie called The Tingler, and we were sitting thru it a second time—theater was the only place that was cool in summer! It really was a dumb movie—the “evil thing” that was supposed to “scare” you looked like a strip of fake fur being pulled around on a piece of thread—and it wasn’t scary at all. Everybody else was screaming “at the appropriate times,” and we couldn’t figure out why! So we decided that we were both going to scream at a time when we knew nothing at all “scary” was gonna be happening! We did, and everybody else in the theater screamed too! We thought it was pretty funny—but then we got a “talking to” by the usher! It was still funny!] Another story! The first time (since 1949) that I went up to Yellowstone, 2006, I went in the east gate, and, less than a mile into the Park the cars were all stopped in the road. I was close enough to the ”front of the line” to be able to see the buffalo! Got out and started walking closer and there were a couple hundred buffalo grazing on both sides of the road—and roaming this way and that all over the road. We were parked there for a half an hour, and by then there were cars parked as far as you could see in both directions—everywhere—and just about as many people out of their cars as there were buffalo! (Yeah! Some folks were WAY too close!) We were all talking—the one couple I was talking to was from New York! I have NEVER seen so many people that were SO happy to be in a Traffic Jam! (And I think maybe putting a few buffalo here and there along the Interstates might be the perfect cure for Road Rage!) I went back in ’12—to see the buffalo again, and to see the “terraces” by the north entrance which had had way too many people in ’06! In 2012 there were virtually NO buffalo (near the roads), and the Terraces had “dried up” during the intervening years—but the people were still there! Yeah, I know you don’t see all those birds/animals in your yard—but you are SO lucky, first, to “work” somewhere where you have so much opportunity for wildlife viewing, and then to live where there’s still so much “open land” left—and closer to the foothills! The few birds I named above are pretty much all I EVER get up here—in my yard! And, instead of increasing in summer, for me I pretty much see the same ones! Usually get a few goldfinches in summer, plus some hummers, but then I normally lose most/all of the flickers and downies over summer—and rarely see a Junco in summer! Right now I’m trying to figure out a—possibly—new one I’m seeing! Maybe 6 weeks ago I saw small birds hanging onto the suet cages. My first impression, because of the basic shape, was that they were Juncos, but Juncos aren’t usually “clingers,” and after the first couple brief times I saw them I realized that they looked smaller than Juncos, and not as “roly-poly.” One time I had at least a dozen of them on the two cages! Some were back again today, and now I’m considering the possibility that they’re peewees! The head doesn’t look as “square” as peewees look in most of the pics, but I think that might be what they are! Boy! The illustrations/pics in my (FOUR) bird books sure do make them look different! Googled them and some of what I found look like what I have—and some don’t! Final decision still pending! By the way, on the “log” that I re-drilled to hang horizontally, I filled two little “dishes” on top with broken up nuts and the mealworms I bought, and also filled some of the holes on the sides with peanut butter. I HAVE seen a downy eating the peanut butter a few times, and this morning I saw a chickadee eating some of the nuts! The nuts and worms ARE getting gone, but I’m not seeing who’s eating them—could be blackbirds (which came back today!), so I’m not putting much out till I know for sure if some of the “good” birds (pardon my prejudice!) are getting the nuts and worms or not! With the mealworms I’m pretty surprised I haven’t seen any of the flickers or downies getting some of them! Did you see the recent (month ago?) PBS program about coywolves! Really interesting—I thought! Skybird

Thanks, Beth! I expect it to be a monster and to flower like a weed (which it has, and apparently produced its fair share of seed. Imagine this crossed with my Hugonis hybrids, Banksiae lutescens, Xanthina.... seeds are ready to plant!). I haven't been in the market for new roses for some time, preferring to spend my time using what I had, what I created and the very few newer additions (mostly older roses) to the "harem". I haven't had the room to grow just to explore new roses from other breeders, except for the few seedlings shared with me for test. I did obtain Chandos Beauty last year (WHAT A ROSE!) as a small, own root cutting. Chandos is NOT a "small" plant! The foliage looks plastic. The canes come fast and furiously and the blooms are beautiful with scent to blow your sinuses out of your head! It sets very oddly shaped hips with few, large seed, but there are some of those also ready to plant!