Queen Alexander

During the past two days of rain storms, Queen Alexander made her royal appearance. I think she is one of the most beautiful of the oriental poppies with her light salmon-pink blooms. I thought she arrived alone, until I peeked inside.

I do love to photograph these white spiders.

I like the combination of this smokebush and the pink/purple iris's:

After work today I spent a little time outside cutting down the  majority of my iris plants. Isn't it amazing how fast they finish blooming? Way too fast in my humble opinion.

On my trip around the Ponderosa, I found this Tango Lily bud encased in the stem interesting:

If you love Vidalia onions, as we do, you may want to get some and freeze them before they are gone.

I cooked up about 10 big onions and froze them for winter 2012 use.  I may do a few more uncooked this weekend.  I am planning a stay-at-home-get-a-lot-of-work-done weekend!  How about you?

a few people asked me why I cook them before freezing... I only cooked them because it takes at least 30 minutes to get a properly caramelized onion and sometimes I don't have that long. So I caramelized them and froze them in little packets, so they would be done when I needed them.  I also save the time of washing the frying pan and all the stove splatters every time I want a few onions. I am all about cook one--eat twice (or more!).   I will freeze more raw and chopped to use for non-caramelized uses.