garden — Page 124

Things to Do, Cars, Flowers & Mom

July 31, 2017 at 7:54 am by Claudia

Coneflowers self-seed so, over the years, they’ve spread throughout the garden, but this year! This year there are more than ever. I love it.

Every time I look at this photo, I see the reflection on the door and, for a moment, I think it’s one of the dogs. I have pictures of both Riley and Scout watching me from the other side of the glass. I catch my breath and am reminded of how much I miss them. Every day. It never stops.

We had fun at the car show yesterday. It was an absolutely beautiful day but I should have worn a sun hat. The bright sun beating down on all of us as we walked around this big, open field was sort of exhausting. There were a lot of cars, many of them of the newer variety. I really like the older cars, so I got a little bored after a while. I did see my faves: vintage Thunderbirds and mid-sixties Mustangs.

I can’t help it, I’m from Dearborn, Michigan, home of the Ford Motor Company. I grew up with test tracks, World Headquarters, manufacturing plants, and Fords everywhere. Several of the parents of my friends helped design those cars. I told Don that if we ever have mad money, I’d like a ’65 Mustang, please.

I’m leaving in a week and a half and I have so much to do. I’m rather overwhelmed at the moment, so I need to drink a second cup of coffee and start making some lists. I haven’t even seen Darko’s version of the script yet, though I know it’s on its way to me. Yikes. Too much to do, including prepping for the arrival of the stove. (It won’t be for a while yet, but our propane/boiler guy is coming a week from tomorrow to check things out.)

Today would have been my mom’s 90th birthday. Happy Birthday, Mom. You are in my heart always. I miss you.

Happy Monday.

Sunday

July 30, 2017 at 8:05 am by Claudia

It’s an awfully pretty time of year. The garden is in full bloom. Thanks to lots and lots and lots of rain this year, everything is a lush green.

Don was gone most of the morning yesterday. Later, we went out to run some errands and stopped at a neighbor’s barn sale. They live just down the road, I always see them from a distance, but when we stopped to check out what they had for sale, I realized the gentleman is someone I’ve seen and heard speak at our local meetings about the glamping resort (no updates on that at present.) Anyway, I had no idea he lived in that old farmhouse!

We got a few things – Don got a big old cowbell (cue SNL skit that never fails to make me laugh) and I bought two plant stands. I haven’t taken a picture of one of them yet but as to the other, when we were bringing things into the house, Don plopped it down near the living room chairs. I had planned to take it upstairs but it turns out it looks quite good right where it is.

$18. I’ll take it.

One of our errands was to explore a plant store in a neighboring town. Plant shops (not nurseries) are a rarity these days, and I wanted something a bit more unusual, so we stopped in. It was a beautiful shop and why the heck I didn’t take some pictures, I don’t know! The owner, by the way, said the reason you don’t see those shops very much is that plant suppliers only want to sell huge bulk shipments to places like Home Depot and Lowe’s. It’s hard to find suppliers for smaller shops.

I bought a couple of plants, plopped them inside a couple of the Guy Wolff pots and there you go.

There’s a car show in a neighboring town today. It’s the same town that has a neat antique shop, so we’ll have a nice little outing.

We watched Some Like It Hot last night. I never tire of it. It’s brilliant.

Happy Sunday.

Monarchs, Flowers, Paint & The Stove

July 29, 2017 at 9:14 am by Claudia

The butterfly bush has started blooming.

I spent time yesterday walking around the garden beds. Camera in hand, I wanted to record just what is blooming right now. And then I saw a Monarch butterfly.

I’m always so thrilled when I see them – usually around this time of year, and, I assume, emerging from our milkweed plants that are scattered around the property.

Anyway, that butterfly wasn’t about to sit still long enough for me to take a picture. He sensed my approach, even if I was far off. Not to be deterred, I kept up the ‘stalking’ while trying to water the porch plants at the same time. I finally captured a couple of pictures when he landed on the coneflowers on the far side of the house.

Then a second Monarch appeared and the two of them chased each other around the property. This one kept flitting around the area in front of the porch, never landing on anything for long, as if unsure where to go to get the nectar she needed. I found myself wondering if she had just emerged. It seemed that way – as if there might be a learning curve until she landed on a proper source of nourishment.

She landed on one of my hanging plants and, as I was trying to get a picture, she took off. This strangely wonderful photo emerged from that moment.

I’m completely fascinated by it. Her wings are beating furiously and I can see her body. Amazing!

I stopped off at Noble and Tina’s house to give them a little gift for watering my plants and we had a nice chat in their beautiful garden. Petey (their little dog) slept on my lap for a long time. He’s adorable.

And we officially paid our 40% deposit on the O’Keefe & Merritt stove. Huzzah!

We’re so excited about the stove but it will take a while until we get it. A bit more work needs to be done on it, then Antique Stove Heaven will crate it, then we have to call a shipper (recommended by them) and arrange pickup and delivery. In the meantime, our local plumbing and heating guy, Gino, will figure out where to put in a line for propane and get that ready. I also need him to trim some of the metal covering on our baseboard heating so that it doesn’t interfere with the placement of the stove.

Oh, and now we’re thinking of painting the kitchen a pale yellow. All of this came out of my suggestion that we paint the section of the wall behind the stove before it arrives so that we don’t have to move that heavy stove later. There’s lots to do and I only have less than two weeks here before I have to go to Hartford. Some of those days will be taken up with doing prep work on the text. Yikes.

We’re probably going to paint the kitchen a section at a time. Over time. So it may look like a crazy quilt for a while.

Happy Saturday.

Things to Do, Cars, Flowers & Mom

Sunday

Monarchs, Flowers, Paint & The Stove

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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