Icelandic Sheepdogs

 My Icelandic Sheepdogs routinely complain that post with their photos also have garden shots. They don't like that. We're special, they say. So here they are kind of separate. Clicking on photos will enlarge them.

Vinlands Sir Watson

Litter Sisters Vinlands Totty and Pila

Vinlands ABBA

Abba and Sam

Korkur Tailed Sam

Vinlands Tryggur

Tryggur and Sam

Vinlands Ulfbehrta Kit

When my puppy Icies are adopted, I expect them to live out their lives in their new homes with their new families. I try hard to screen my adopters to reduce the likelihood of a return but there may sometimes be a reason or reasons why the fit isn't good - a family death, a change in the families' living situation (divorce, separation), a health change, et cetera. So sometimes I get a dog or get a dog back. Normally I welcome that dog and I keep that dog. Kit, Pila, ABBA, and Bear and Sam came to me or back to me because of a life altering decision. I'm pleased that I could accept them back, integrate them into my life. It's not always easy to complete the integration but it is always ultimately worth it.

Rain - Finally June 14, 2023

 Gardens at San Salvatore have desperately needed rain which finally came. Usually I keep my watering of the gardens to an absolute minimum in order to make my plants work, to spread out their roots and absorb what there really is. However, desperate conditions call for desperate measures sometimes.

The gardens are definitely at the "leap" stage. (You, no doubt, no the stages of perennial growth? Sleep, Creep, Leap  - the resulting growths for the first three years after planting new perennials.) One of my big problems this time of the year is that I'm easily and pleasantly distracted from doing "work" or reading by the abundance, the long awaited abundance of my garden. When I step out from my office, I see this view of my front porch, turning to go back in, I get the same view reflected in the windows

Reading one of my Three Pines books in the great room, I look up and I'm distracted by one of my wild viburnums at its peak bloom period outside. Of course I have to get up and go to the door for a closer look. This is what I've waited for all winter!

 

Outside wandering with my pack of wild Icelandic Sheepdogs, I stope to admire them and the flowers leaping, yes, both are leaping - the flowers and the dogs, across the garden. Although Dame's Rocket is a wild plant, there is always going to be room for it my my garden. Ditto for the absolutely divinely scented Rosa rugosa in white, pink, single red, double red. Soon enough the Japanese beetle will be at work on their buds and flowers - but not yet.

It's also the height of the peony season. Some are "mine" as in I grew them from seeds, borrowed or loaned.

Iris and peonies are not related, technically. They are, however, seasonally related coming into flower at the same time and filling the garden with their intoxicating aromas. I don't spray for bugs. All are welcomed. My dogs have flea/tick collars and, if necessary, and rarely, I use a personal mosquito repellant. I am especially fond of my species bees although ubiquitous honeybees are welcomed of course. (I do try to keep rabbits and deer out of the fenced gardens and the dogs help - a lot.) The flickers apparently have nestlings now.