I’m sitting on the glider, having a cup of coffee. As I finished FaceTiming with Don, I thought, “Why go inside? Bring the laptop outside!” And so I did. I’m writing to you from my comfy seat on the glider.

It was very foggy this morning and now the sun is making itself known, though it’s in and out. We’re due for big thunderstorms today, perhaps serious storms. That makes me nervous, of course. I want the lilacs to hang in there until Don gets home this Sunday. I stood by the lilac bush this morning and just inhaled the scent. Oh heavens, there’s nothing like it.

I gave up trying to do something with the bed behind the kitchen. When I worked on it on Sunday, I found poison ivy everywhere and it’s a far bigger job than I had imagined it would be. Maybe we’ll hire a crew to clear it out next year. I would like to change it, to have control over the bed and not have it control us, but it will have to wait.

Consequently, I had to find places in the other garden beds for the plants I purchased for that area. Thankfully, there weren’t a lot of them. I spent the morning digging holes and plopping plants in the gardens. I’m not sure about the new hosta. It may be getting too much sun where it is – if so, I’ll have to move it. The jury is still out.

Then I mowed the corral and the back forty. And then I was exhausted, so I went inside, took a shower and took it easy for the rest of the day.

The lavender that I planted in this pot is really taking off.

And the catalpa is finally showing new growth. These leaves will eventually big huge and heart-shaped. Mother Nature is extraordinary.

While chatting with Don this morning, I started crying as I spoke about this house and this garden.  I have to remind myself occasionally that having a cottage in the (sort-of) country was a dream of mine that I didn’t think would ever come to fruition. But it did. And then, when I look around at the porch and the garden beds, I am humbled by what we (but mostly me) have managed to create in the past twelve years. The only bed that was already in existence was the big garden bed and it had two plants in it. Oh, and there was the big hosta in the bed beside the porch entrance. That’s about it. A few hostas, some sedum Autumn Joy, the peonies down by the road and the daffodils, spread here and there on the property. Everything else came in the last 12 – almost 13 – years.

The gardens aren’t manicured. They’re sort of wild and very cottage-like. They suit the cottage and the uneven, hilly property on which we live. I’m so grateful for all of it; the cottage, the porch that is the porch of my dreams, the gardens, the critters and birds who live here. It’s a lot of work, and this year I really feel it, but it’s so, so worth it.

Happy Tuesday.