This is my second summer at Fawn Hill. It’s an abbreviated one because of my Western travels last Spring and the Florida election this Fall. I will head back to Florida on September 5 and begin campaigning for Amendment 2, the medical marijuana initiative.

But even with an abbreviated stay of  about 12 weeks it has been a lovely time. The house has moved beyond the phase of everything seeming critical.  There are still plenty of fixer-upper things to do but last year’s sense of urgency is gone. More importantly, the hard work of last year has begun to pay.  The front side hill is a perfect example.  When we first arrived it was terribly overgrown with brambles and no small amount of poison ivy. It required most of last summer to eradicate both of those scourges.  But having cleaned out the mess I was then confronted with what to do with the space.  There were still plenty of things to do and so I let it slide.  When I arrived back in June of this year the wildflowers had begun to take over and I decided to let things go. It was the wait-and-see approach and it has been fun.

The center of the collage is an overall picture of what I currently have, a swatch of wildflowers. The always reliable Queen Anne’s Lace is a dominant player but there are others.  In the upper right is a close-up of what I now know is Punctureweed.  I have lots of it and have learned it is a scourge to grass eating creatures such as cows.  But the bees absolutely adore it and can’t seem to move fast enough to get every last bloom. Below that is a Butterfly Pea, a sweet little thing. The red Coreopsis, I confess, was bought and planted by me. I hope it lives long and prospers. I love the color. The last is Purple Milkwort and, as you can see, the bees like it also.

Next year I will help the area with some wildflower seed and perhaps some Cosmos seeds.  The area is so steep it is impossible to maintain anything too demanding. Wildflowers only demand the space to grow.  ❧