The Garden Supervisor at Work

It's been a while since Queen Pepa (approximately) has made an appearance here, and since she hid the blog keys until I promised to devote a post to her, I of course, acceded to her demands (as I always seem to do, lol). So here she is, acting as general garden supervisor and sentry earlier this evening.

Tonight was one of those late spring evenings we prize so highly, especially given the wet weather of late. After work, we both went out, I with my trusty S700 and a beer, fully intending to take some shots of the flowers, but I never quite got around to it after I relaxed just a bit (after another über stressful day). So I decided to work with what I had around me, which just so happened to be Her Highness Herself, always a willing photographic subject.

Pepa is the quintessential terrier in her immense capacity to be a downright busybody, attentive to almost everything going on around (unless you happen to catch her snoozing, which happens a lot too). When we're working out back or within eyesight elsewhere, Pepa keeps a sharp supervisory eye on what we're doing, you can be sure of that, as I hope these shots demonstrate.

Just a quick note on shot number 3 ... you can obviously see some new peonies behind Ms. Pepa. These are the Karl Rosefeld peonies we bought a while back because they were such nice plants and at (what I consider) a bargain price of $9.95 each. Fernymoss had the day off and planted two of them, thinking that's all we had bought, until asked why he hadn't planted the third. He had overlooked it, not remembering that we had a third to go in ... but no worries, it will soon be joining its two companions you can see in the ground. We're rather excited about these new additions, because after reading up a bit on this cultivar, I think they're going to grow into splendid bloomers over the next few years. And, for a bit of perspective, they're just on the other side of the fence from the other peonies, and yes, downwind from Mr. Stinky.

For those of you who've asked about how the city has been faring given the flooding, rest assured that conditions are improving daily, and there are very slight chances of rain predicted well into early next week, so Mother Nature is finally giving us a reprieve. In Des Moines, the Birdland area is still under water and there are massive property losses there for the residents. It's going to take a long time to recover for them ... Iowa City and Cedar Rapids are improving as well, though that's a very relative term to use. CR residents are gradually getting back to their parts of the city, and what they're finding is just heartbreaking in its magnitude. If I had to characterize it, I'd say the situation is less dire daily, but that really minimizes the hit that city has taken, and Katrina comparisons of CR and Iowa City are heard rather frequently lately. I'm not sure that I necessarily concur with that characterization, but they have experienced conditions that can only be described as catastrophic proportions. I read yesterday that in Iowa City, the waters aren't expected to recede fully until later this summer ...! Again, recovery is going to be long, painful and difficult for them, as well as the thousands of other Iowans in many areas. I fear that some of the smaller, more rural towns will just disappear entirely, though I do hope that I am absolutely wrong in that prediction.

As always, if you're interested in updated coverage of the state, this link to the Des Moines Register, will sum it up for you, and it's regularly updated throughout the day.