Color by Mother Nature

Today, in an attempt to break from the negativity I've been feeling and my overall lack of inspiration to sew, I was going to get the dog to the groomer to (as Gwyneth says) "get the stink off of her". No really - that's what she says. It's actually more of a need for the dog to have a hair cut but Gwyn tends to point out the obvious that escapes the adults. Like, hello mom - the dog stinks. Anyway, the regular groomer had no openings for today when I phoned yesterday, so I called Petco. Normally they have plenty of openings but when I called this morning they were full. As I have to leave tomorrow, Fiona will simply have to wait. Maybe I can have K. make an appointment for me and we can leave her at the groomer on Saturday while we're out doing whatever. If not, oh well.

After I realized that I just wasn't getting the dog groomed today, I decided to take a cup of coffee out in the yard and take a look for some yard bags in the shed. There were none but the hydrangeas are now a riot of blooms and I was inspired to take some photos of them. I've read that the color of hydrangeas differs depending on the pH of the soil. Apparently the soil in my yard has a pH that varies every few inches or so, because on one bush alone there were several different colors.

As you can see, there are pink, white and purple blooms on this bush and some of these are even multi-hued within the blooms themselves:

This particular shot shows the bloom in the foreground whose flowers are lavender/blue with whitish centers and a pinker lavender on the edges. The bloom in the background is mostly creamy white but the edges of the individual blossoms are pink.
Another bush in a different part of the yard is mostly blue with hints of lavender-pink, though I did find one bloom that was almost completely pink.

I was also able to get some wonderful shots of the bumblebees who are busy pollinating the lacecap hydrangeas. In case you didn't know (and I didn't until we moved here and I wanted to find out about the hydrangeas) there are 4 main types of hydrangeas and the most common are mopheads, which I've already shown in the photos, and lacecaps. The lacecaps are the plants that have the sexual parts and therefore the pollen. See? Now you've learned something. Anyway, we have 1 lacecap bush which is the Blue Billow variety (I think) and it's planted between 2 mophead bushes. It happens that the lacecaps are right in front of the window where I have my computer and I've been seeing the bees buzzing around them. Today I was able to capture them while I was outside.


I'm not sure if you can see it in the photos but the pollen sacks on their legs were huge and I can only assume that means that they've been getting lots of pollen from these blooms.