Poppies!!!

For the last three days I have been observing the poppies in my yard.  Yes, I probably should have been working on my take-home exams or my final research paper but seriously I just want to play in the yard.

I observed some things about poppies that I didn't know so I'm going to share them with you. 

This is what I call a poppy head. I'm sure that you know that the bloom is inside the head.

 I captured this photo right before I went to bed one night.  I can't remember why I went outside to begin with but clearly I wasn't with it or I would have noticed something special about this head to bloom process.  Did you notice it?  If not look below and maybe that will help you out.

Yup, those are the "petals" which the bloom was inside.  Notice the silky, white inside and the hairy rough outside.  I guess Mother Nature is taking car of the bloom while it is maturing.

Pink poppy; I don't think this one bloomed last year and the bloom appears more delicate than the others.

Red/Orange poppy; I finally figured out why I can never remember what color this poppy is and I keep changing my mind- NO, I'm not color blind.  One time I look at it and it appears red and another orange.  I think its a conspiracy to prevent me from telling the property owner what color her poppies are.  Mother Nature is laughing at me but I still love her!

Here is the other thing about poppies; these pictures were taken the same evening as the above bloom pictures.  Do you see what they do that is different from many flowers such as irises?  There are two more pictures to help you out.

Did you figure it out?  The poppies close up during the evening and then re-bloom in the morning. Odd little things aren't they?  The other thing about them is the plant is UGLY!!! Yes, I said it UGLY.  If I didn't know it was a poppy, I would remove it from they yard because the plant looks like a weed unless it has a poppy head.  Fortunately, Anne told me what these guys were so I left them alone.  This year I weeded around them so they could get more water; they seem to need more water than the other flowers in the yard.

One final shout out to the poppies blooming next to the Irises.

On a personal note, I'm f*cking glad this semester is over with.  I walked into finals week with 2 A's and 1 maybe C.  I'm hoping to keep the A's and move the C up to a B; I have already determined my reward for such activities. Being a Ph.D. student is not easy; definitely not as easy as being a MS student.  I better be able to get a job after this.

With that being said, I look forward to lots of summer blogging.  I have several pictures already which I took while I should have been studying.  Consequently, there are multiple blogs in progress (cats, irises, insects, unknown flowers to be identified, and mutant dandelions) and hopefully I will get a couple of them done next week so be on the lookout.  That's right, I wrote "mutant dandelions" and you know you HAVE to know what that's all about!