garden — Page 129

Blooming and Buzzing

June 18, 2017 at 9:05 am by Claudia

On a cloudy, occasionally rainy day yesterday, I took this photo of the cottage to give you an idea of what is blooming on this side of the porch: red roses, hydrangea blossoms have opened, though they’re still green, and pink spirea is in full bloom.

I planted the spirea and the annabelle hydrangea at the same time, having no idea how big they would become!

The hydrangea has pushed the spirea outward and the spirea takes up a lot of real estate, as well.

See?

I like that, actually, because my favorite kind of garden is a cottage garden, not a manicured one.

Both the pink spirea and the catmint have constant bee activity. Once I got close to the spirea, I was amazed by how many bumble bees there were. They were everywhere!

One of the things I love about gardens and gardening is the discovery. In this case, the discovery of all this activity, the buzzing, the flitting from one blossom to another, that isn’t apparent until I stop and watch and listen. There’s a whole world going on there. We have all sorts of bees around here and I’m glad they’re thriving.

Very humid today with the possibility of thunderstorms and the same is on the docket for tomorrow. The driveway and lawn are littered with catalpa blossoms that are slowly falling from the tree. Even though the skies are gray, it’s awfully pretty around here.

Happy Sunday.

Thursday Thoughts

June 15, 2017 at 9:39 am by Claudia

In about three weeks, I’ll see my husband. I have yet to make the plane reservation but I’m planning on traveling sometime during the first few days of July. His show closes July 9th. Then, on the 10th, we’ll start out on our trip home.

And in the ‘we’re never home at the same time’ category, I found out that my next show at Hartford Stage starts rehearsals on August 11th. Sigh. I guess we’ll have about three weeks together here at the cottage. I’m, as always, grateful for the work, but not so entranced by another separation.

Taken about 6:30 this morning, as I was trying to get a good picture of the Catalpa blossoms:

The blossoms are everywhere. Since we’re due for rain on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I fear they won’t be with us much longer. The scent is wonderful. As I do my work outside, it hovers in the air. Beautiful.

Roses and roses and roses.

Each stage of the unfurling is beautiful. If I had the time, I’d park myself on a bench and take pictures throughout the day, capturing all the changes.

I mowed the front of the property yesterday. It was a beautiful day; low eighties with no humidity and sunny. Today, the corral and the back forty and I’ll be good to go for another week. Life seems to consist of checking the weather forecast and calculating when I will be able to mow.

Next week, I will be in Manhattan on Tuesday and Wednesday to do a little checking in on Anastasia and to work with a couple of the actors. Working with the actors is always a pleasure and seeing the show again will be lovely.

Do you ever find yourself wanting to say “I warned you” or “I told you so” when talking about the current state of things in the Oval Office? I do. (I’m only human.) There were so many warnings from so many people about what would most likely happen if he was elected. And it’s all coming true with an extra dollop of corruption, collusion and greed.

Those of us who live in or near NYC were on to him years ago. His corruption was well known – there’s a reason New Yorkers didn’t vote for him. As you know, I wrote about him over the course of four or five posts and certain readers were angry about that and stopped reading the blog.

He’ll be a less than one-term President. Let’s hope that happens sooner rather than later. There is too much at stake.

The shootings that happened yesterday – in Virginia and San Francisco – were tragic. My thoughts are with everyone involved. Violence and guns are never the answer to any problem.

Peace.

Happy Thursday.

Flowers and a Chimney

June 14, 2017 at 9:28 am by Claudia

There she be! The newly bricked chimney is finished. The metal you see around the top is a cement mold and it will be removed in a week or so. I wanted the bricks to have a faded look and they do.

No more of the blue tarp that has been covering the bricks for at least three years. We had to come up with the money for this job and that took a while and when we were ready to have it done last year, they were already booked through the season. But they put us on their list for this year and we said goodbye to the tarp and it looks normal again up there.

The climbing hydrangea is in bloom. Someday, someday, I hope that it will be completely covered in blooms. I can’t get too close to the hydrangea because that’s where the nest is that Mama Robin is guarding so closely. I did peek in the other day and I saw two little heads peeking out of the nest. But I backed off quickly because I didn’t want to stress Mama.

These roses are making me very happy! Bloom after bloom is opening. My goodness, they’re gorgeous!

The peonies have bloomed (save one – I’ll have to check it today) and are winding down.

The catalpa tree is in full, glorious bloom but it’s so hard to get a good photo of it, partly because it’s a huge tree and partly because the white flowers, which are everywhere, look like little specks. I’ll work on that today. I can assure you, the scent is heavenly.

The remembrance rose is starting to open. My cup of roses runneth over.

Today? It will be warm but not nearly so hot and humid as yesterday, so it’s mowing time. It takes me two days to mow everything and Friday looks like it will be rainy. We never got the predicted thunderstorms yesterday, though there were rumbles of thunder.

I guess I’ll have to water again today!

I’m off to eat some breakfast and get ready to mow.

Happy Wednesday.

Blooming and Buzzing

Thursday Thoughts

Flowers and a Chimney

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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