A nice cool day to work outside

Woke up to a nice 57 degrees this morning.  Quite a pleasant change in the weather.  Since it probably won't last very long, I decided to get my jeans on and get out in the back area to cut shrubs and trees.  I thinned out of the trees behind the silverthorn hedge in the back. 

In back of all that lushness are viburnum that turned into trees.   That was my work area for the day.   A couple of weeks ago I took the pond out and put that flag stone area in place of the pond.   I was having too much trouble with racoons getting my fish.  Of course, now we have a ton of cuttings and tree limbs that need to be taken to the local dump.  Too bad I don't have a chipper!

While working in the back yard this weekend, I discovered that I have some new volunteers in the garden, and I can only assume the storms or birds brought the seed.   After much research I finally found out through a member of my garden group, that what I have is Maximillian Sunflower.  Some of these are now about 7 feet tall.  These are not large flowers, only about the size of a silver dollar or perhaps a little larger.   But I was glad to ID them as I was ready to pull them out because I thought perhaps they were weeds...  of course, one person's weed is another's treasured flower.

This is also called Prairie Sunflower. 

Well, I'm tired and it is getting to be the time Amazing Race comes on.... so I'm off to watch it!  Love that show!