Sunday Summer Blooms

Kelly needed some mulch and planting soil for her little garden, so we headed up to Wanczyk Evergreen Nursery in Hadley, on Rte. 9. Though the name says 'evergreen nursery', they have a garden center, that Kelly had been wanting to check out for some time now. They have a sign out front that says "We're Bigger Than We Look!". Hmm. We'll be the judge of that...

The hot sticky afternoon had finally begun to shed some rain, as we pulled in to the Wanczyk Evergreen Nursery.





They have those neat Radio Flyer wagons, and you can use them to tow your stuff around. Kelly grabbed one, and ducked into one of the hangar/tents to browse around and wait out the downpour.





I roamed around and looked at the blooms, that were colorful even in the grey rain. This one was in the purple to blue end of the spectrum...



The stamens on this one, a Lilium, looked like little worms as they wiggled around, when the plant moved in the breeze.



More, from the blue end of the spectrum...





The rain persisted the whole time we were there, so we couldn't get too thorough a look around, but Kelly was impressed with the prices for the mulch and topsoil. So, we'll be back.



Of course, the rain began letting up not two minutes after we left Wanczyk's. I decided to pull in to the Northampton airport area next, to get some shots of the foggy Holyoke Range, and take in some of the hazy the summer afternoon.







The sky began to clear again, in short order, and the sudden sunlight brought the soaked air to a rapid boil.



The height of summer. Make no mistake about it. Everywhere: green, green...green...



Overgrowing everything, if left to it's own devices.



Even the wheat is shrouded in the color of summer.



Splashes of other colors also abound, sprinkled here and there, seasoning the landscape.



An Oriole is quickly spotted by Kelly's hawk-like eyes. About three minutes, and a few "You can't see that??"'s later, I finally catch what she's talking about. Oh, Ok, I see it. I was looking too high...



We parked and got out for a look at the Connecticut river, and Brunelle's Marina across the way.





The Blackberry's are almost ready. We picked a couple of the ripe ones for a taste bud sneak-peek at the summertime treat...





Ok Ok, we're going, stop bouncing off me already...We're going...

We've been taking the dog out with us alot lately, and now it's becoming nearly impossible to leave the house on weekends without him bouncing off the ceiling and expecting, no, demanding to go with us. So we had to incorporate him into this afternoon's outing, and tentatively planned to go up to the dog park in Northampton, after the garden center.



The trail is like Disney World for dogs. Nemo was in uber-excited mode, and at first, had to stop at just about every leaf along the way, for a sniff and to 'respond'. These tracks bear witness to the amount of canine traffic that comes through here...



Several parts of the trail were shaded, and gave a little cover from the sun, but there was no escaping the humid, tropical air.





As we predicted, the Mill river was the place to be, and the 'normal' dogs splashed about and played. One amiable critter made the mistake of getting too friendly with Nemo The Terrible, and paid the price.



He won't make that mistake twice. Nemo rules this Earth with his little iron paw...

There's always a human or two, splashing around in the river along with the dogs.



The trail loops around, and goes through some nice meadows. Birds singing everywhere.





The dog park is a pleasant walk for man and dog, and a good way to get some summer-time in.