Catch Up! ~Okinawa Trip~ ~April/May Garden~ Part One

I will try to catch up since I am soooo far behind on posting news and new pictures.........

Our trip to Okinawa was wonderful to say the least. The 2 weeks we were there just flew by and I found myself wanting to stay longer, a lot longer. This is unusual for me since I tend to like being home and in my garden a lot.
Needless to say, being with my son, daughter-in-law, and our 2 grand kids were the highlight of the trip, you can tell that by these great pictures, which by the way, I took hundreds of pictures with my new camera. Here are just some of the my favorites of my Okinawa-based family.

My D-in-L is the greatest, not only did we invade her new home for 2 weeks (they moved in the first couple of days we were there), she made sure that we went to see some of the most beautiful places in Okinawa, especially the gardens. How I love to see gardens! We even drug the husbands to a couple of the beautiful gardens.
We went to see the Orchids in the Botanical Gardens. Words and pictures cannot express the beauty. Our Orchids here are pitiful compared to the size and variety in Okinawa.

The rest of the Botanical Gardens was just as breathtaking.

These Lily pads were huge! The larger ones were over 3 feet in diameter!

My silly family doing what they do best!

As if it could not get any prettier, we climbed this very tall tower to see these amazing views of the surrounding area.

I will post more pictures of our trip to Okinawa later on, the gardens were amazing, the people were friendly and happy, and there is so much history on this Island. I cannot wait to go back!

On the home front, I had lots to do when we arrived home.....

We had lots of rain, which is a good thing, but some very cold days which are not a good thing for my starts that I took a chance on planting early. The beets came up and the tender tops were destroyed by the rain/cold. The spinach came up nicely only to be eaten by the dozens of black birds that thought I had started this early garden just for them.
The starts in my new greenhouse are doing wonderful! I just love my greenhouse!
My Irises came up and looked great! I love cutting these and putting them in the house, a promise of good things to come!

Last year a pair of Quail nested in my raised veggie garden area in some weeds that I did not pull out. I had forgotten about them until I went into the garden to pull weeds. They had gotten out of control while we were gone on our trip. Imagine my surprise (and hers) when I came nose-to-beak with Mama Quail sitting on her nest hidden in my clump of tall weeds! I backed away as soon as I could but she jumped off and ran away. Papa Quail sat up in the nearby Pine tree and scolded me loudly.

Papa Quail continued to try to distract me from the nest, allowing me to run to get my camera and walk up within 15 feet of him. Can you see him on our fence ? Anyway, that's what I get for not pulling the weeds BEFORE we left on our trip.....now I had a raised veggie box dedicated to 15 pretty Quail eggs and their parents!

*Update* I am happy to report that all the eggs hatched and the new family has moved to live under my Bottle Brush Hedge. I now can reclaim my veggie box to plant more goodies!

Come back tomorrow for my next post of more pictures/stories on our trip and what happened in Maggie's Garden for the months of April/May AND June/July!