Full Bloom

I have talked to different people about our backyard and the insane, yet gorgeous landscaping.  Today when we were in the back I took some pictures.  When we moved in I felt it was a little (or a lot) over the top for yooper style (consider a fair amount live in the woods in trailers), but now I know more.  Our landlord has his degree in horticultural design and the yard was his Master's project, so there is a little taste of everything.  Here are pictures of our waterfall and the pond.  There is also a fountain in the middle, which we usually leave off.

I also have to take back what I said this winter when I was making fun of having Koi fish in the pond.  They are amazing and wonderful.  Why you ask?  Because they eat algae like nobody's business.  A few weeks ago the landlord sent us 4-5 Koi and a few minow like fish.  It was later in the summer than when he usually puts them in, so the pond was dark and greenish, in fact we couldn't even see the fish.  After the first week when we never saw the fish once, we figured it was a lost cause.  Two weeks later....the pond is completely clean.  One can see every fish darting around and every rock on the bottom.    I think I like the fish better than the girls.  I think you can see the orange fish in this first picture on the right side of the pond if you enlarge the picture.  

Here are raspberries along the fence line.  I left the truck in the picture to place the location.  The fern-like plants between the raspberries and the truck are asparagus in full bloom.  Asparagus is a member of the fern family.  (who knew) It started coming up end of April and we would cut it off when it was the size like in the grocery stores.  At end of May we had to let the rest just grow so they would seed and produce more for next year.  We had asparagus about 3 times a week in May and it was so wonderful, Nora is now in love with it and she wouldn't touch it before.  I think the part of cutting it with our own scissors and then cooking it 2 minutes later was the trick, not to mention it was delicious.  (By the way, I knew none of this before this spring, the guy we are renting from filled us in on all of it).