When you wake up at 5 am for the second morning in a row, edgy once again, the best cure is a walk outside with your camera. I took a lot of pictures this morning as the sun started to bathe the landscape with light. So beautiful. I really do see the world differently after seeing it through my camera lens.

The oriental poppy seed pod is a work of art. I look forward to the pods almost as much as the flowers.

There are at least ten tall milkweed plants that have self-seeded right in front of the porch. There are three over on the edge of the big garden bed. That doesn’t count the milkweed that springs up at the edge of the woods. Happily, the plants in front of the porch have obscured my rose bush, which is seeing its last summer, I believe. I had to cut it way back because there was a lot of dead wood. I do see some leaves, so I’m not giving up the ghost yet.

Anyway. Milkweed = monarch butterflies. Win-win.

Early morning clematis.

I’ll share more tomorrow.

I went to Milne Antiques and Design yesterday. My plan was to buy one chair for either the Secret Garden or the Back Forty – or B40, as Don abbreviates it in a text. I rather like B40. I may adopt it.

I arrived at 10 and Rebekah drove me over to their warehouse, where the chairs were being housed.

I came back with this:

You’re rubbing your eyes, saying “I see three  pieces of furniture here, Claudia.”

Yes. You do.

I had planned on buying the one on the left. But Rebekah pulled out another chair that I hadn’t seen when she sent me some pictures the day before. And then she remembered the table. This is not a set. They’re similar, of course, but they’re not match-matchy. Cause you know I don’t like match-matchy.

Since Don and I had had a conversation earlier in the day in which he said “We each get one more extravagance” or maybe he said indulgence – before we are back to our usual budget – I went for all three. Note: For us, an extravagance is still a very, very modest amount of money. We define it as something that doesn’t cost much, will make us happy, but isn’t absolutely essential. Don bought tennis shoes. Very, very nice tennis shoes. I told him that everyday shoes were a necessity, not an extravagance. The chairs and table, however, were only a necessity if you consider my current frame of mind and the need I have for visual beauty in the midst of stress. I can see them right outside the kitchen window. I can walk back there and be tucked away from the rest of the world. No one driving by can see me. I can read there. I can just be. They complete the little Secret Garden.

Here they are this morning, as the sun rises over the tops of the trees:

I tried all possible configurations because, though the ground looks flat, it isn’t. In fact, the only flat piece of ground on our property that I can think of is a little section of the B40. Everything else is slanted to some degree.

Vintage. Lovely. There were some green metal chairs at the warehouse that were very similar, but that would have been too much green. The garden needed a pop of white.

Now, we have three different seating areas; the porch, the funky patio, and the secret garden. Next year, I’ll add something to the B40, as well. We used to put the chairs that are now on the funky patio up on the B40.

It’s a gorgeous day out there. Monday, the day I travel to the city for two days, will have a high of 98 degrees. No, that is not a typo. 98 frigging degrees. I’m already thinking I should bring my porch plants inside before I leave. Not much I can do about the newer plants in the garden except water them heavily that morning. Yikes.

Happy Saturday.