gardening — Page 4

Garden Cleanup, Egg Cups & A Gift

April 17, 2019 at 8:10 am by Claudia

Now that the endless wind has died down, I’m going to work outside today and tomorrow. Rain is coming on Friday and throughout the weekend, so I have to grab some time while I can.

Meanwhile, in the yet uncovered big garden bed:

The hyacinths are blooming.

I’m tackling that bed today. Wish me luck.

Egg cups for today: Four double egg cups in the Harlequin pattern by Homer Laughlin. (Apparently, I forgot to remove the price tag on one of them!)

I received a lovely package in the mail from Kate, a reader of this blog. Kate asked me if she could send me two egg cups that she had in her home. Of course, I said yes. When the package arrived there were additional surprises!

First of all, two lovely lustreware egg cups.

Then two beautiful knives – my grandparents had a set of flatware like this.

And 4 cups/saucers made by Arabia in Finland. Are they demitasse? They’re on the small side. And this photo isn’t capturing the color, which leans a bit more toward green/yellow. They’re lovely – such simple and beautiful design. (I’ll try to capture the color in a future photo.)

Thank you so much, Kate! I’ve already made room in the kitchen china cabinet for the cups and saucers! The egg cups are in the cubby cabinet. And the knives have joined my stash of bakelite.

I’m blessed.

The winner of a copy of The Eighth Sister is Marilyn! Marilyn, I’ve already sent you an email. Just send me your mailing address and I’ll forward it on to the publisher.

Happy Wednesday.

On Sunday

May 27, 2018 at 10:20 am by Claudia

You think you see everything, but quite often, you’re missing something.

Case in point: I was taking a photo of fleabane. I saw a little bug on the plant, so I quickly snapped a picture.

I kept shooting because I wanted to make sure the fleabane was in focus. And look what I got:

Two little bugs flying around!

I love surprises like this.

The oriental poppies should be opening soon. (I hope it’s before I leave for NYC, otherwise I might miss them.)

This fern has been popping up in one of my beds for a couple of years. This year it’s pretty big. I’ll have to keep my eye on it, because it’s right next to some coneflowers. But I like it.

And this morning, I walked out to the porch and saw this:

First daylily blooms!

It’s a rainy day, but so far it’s a gentle rain. I sat on the glider as it began to fall. It’s a strong sense memory for me, afternoons sitting on the porch of my childhood home, watching the rain fall, staying there as long as possible before the rain started to hit my feet and legs and I had to run back inside the house.

Yesterday was incredibly hot and humid and my allergies have been through the roof, so I mainly stayed inside in the A/C. Of course, I couldn’t help but go outside a couple of times to pull a few weeds and I had to water everything as well, but mostly? Inside.

I watched hours of coverage from the Chelsea Flower Show on YouTube. Amazing. The British are true garden lovers, of course, but as far as I can tell – correct me, British readers, if I am wrong – the BBC covers the Chelsea Flower Show twice a day. There’s an afternoon show, and then there’s a prime time show in the evening. And I think it goes on for a full week.

Can you imagine that happening in this country? HGTV can’t even give us an hour or two of garden programming.

My ancestors were predominately British, so maybe it’s in my blood. Goodness! I love seeing their passion for gardening. I’m going to watch more today. The perfect escape.

Happy Sunday.

City Gardening & Old Friends

May 14, 2018 at 10:18 am by Claudia

What was to be a work day outside yesterday turned into a rainy day. All day. Not heavy rain, just a constant light rain. Curses! I was surprised by the rain. Did I check the updated weather forecast? I’m not sure now. All I can say is that I was sure it wasn’t going to rain, so at some point, that’s what the forecast said.

Anyway.

This is going to be one of those weeks where there are maybe two days without rain. Today is one of them. Thursday is the other. I know we need the rain, but frankly, it’s cramping my style!

I forgot to share these pictures with you. When I was in NYC last week, Don told me that he wanted to show me the courtyard behind his building, so we went out the back door and saw this:

Someone is gardening there. I suspect it is the tenant on the first floor because it looks like that apartment opens on to the courtyard and I saw some grow lights and seedlings inside. (Yes, I peeked through the window.) Is it open to all of the tenants? I think so, because you can get out there quite easily. Nevertheless, I think it’s probably part of that tenant’s lease. Don’s going to find out.

Isn’t that neat? Another way to grow things in the city.

I’m fascinated and want to learn more, of course. But we didn’t linger, just in case we weren’t supposed to be there. There are other raised beds and this contraption looks like it was an investment, so I think my instinct about it being the ground floor tenant’s domain is correct.

I saw her one day. Hopefully, I’ll run into her again and we can chat a bit.

Don’s great friend of 45 years and his wife were in town from California yesterday and they saw the show. They loved it, of course, as does everyone who sees it. Then the three of them went out for dinner. I chatted with them via FaceTime. There’s nothing like a friend who has known you for that long. Incidentally, both Don and his friend Adrian have the same surname. I’ve known Adrian as long as I’ve known Don, and I got to work with him when I was back at the Old Globe several years ago coaching the Shakespeare Summer Repertory. If you’ve been reading this blog for a long time, you might remember that Adrian had his dog with him and his apartment was right next to mine so I got to hang out with both of them.

Old friends are the best.

Happy Monday.

Garden Cleanup, Egg Cups & A Gift

On Sunday

City Gardening & Old Friends

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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