Fishes and flowers

The fish in the pond have been acting very strangely the last few days. I normally go out and feed them as soon as I get up in the morning. Generally, as soon as my shadow falls on the water they disappear. This morning, however, they were too busy to notice my shadow. Apparently, they were too busy to even eat. What were they busy doing? I'm not sure if it was an elaborately choreographed dance, a game of follow the leader, a pursuit of some sort or what it was. They raced in elaborate patterns around the pond, then gathered in spinning circles and generally played at being dervishes of some sort. The picture isn't very clear, but here are five of the seven spinning in a circle.


The zucchini are beginning to bloom. They appear to have only female flowers so far. That doesn't bode well for a crop, but the blooms there are are quite beautiful. The pattipan squash, the pumpkin squash and the pumpkins all have buds too.

Put in a new variety of Shasta daisy (Silver Princess) this spring, and its just beginning to bloom. The flowers on this one have a more ragged appearance than the Alaska variety. I'm hoping they become as prolific as the Alaskas have been.

The tickseed also are beginning to bloom. Their petals are not as densly packed as the heliopsis I posted a few days ago, and their centers are more defined. They bonus with these is that when they are dried the hold their color and shape really well. They look almost the same in January as they do when they are freshly cut in July. They add a real splash of summer color in the dreary mid witer days.

The hollyhocks showed their first blooms today. There aren't very many in the garden. They seem to be having a hard time getting established. Of course each year there are a few more plants and in a couple of more years when they take over the flower beds I'll probably be regretting my words, but they do make a cheerful addition.