I love these misty fall mornings. Every day speaks of transition. As is fitting for this last weekend of summer, we’ll reach the low eighties today and that, my friends, looks like the last hurrah. The next ten days will bring temperatures in the seventies and sixties.
If you look in the upper left of the photo, you’ll see the bean pods hanging from the catalpa tree, otherwise known as the bean tree.
We are both very tired today. We’ve had lots going on and we’re ready for a day of rest. We’ve named today Self-care Saturday. Believe me, we need it.
I plan on finishing this post, paying a bill online, washing some towels, dressing Sophie in a new outfit, reading (I already did some reading early this morning), and, darn it, finishing that painting.
For the second or third summer in a row, my heavenly blue morning glories have yet to bloom. I was deleting a lot of photos the other day and I noticed that they used to start blooming in August. Now, I’m lucky if I get one bloom by the end of September. I can’t figure this one out. There are lots of leaves, lots of vines, but no buds. Last year, I saw one bloom before we had a frost that ended it all.
My plan is to enrich the soil next year and add in lots of compost. Any other advice? I don’t want to stop planting them, so I’m determined to figure this out.
Thanks for your lovely comments about Don’s venture. It means a great deal to us.
Edited to add: Just found out my nephew Jeff’s youngest daughter is in the hospital. She’s been there for several days with high fevers, a cyst in her abdomen and bowel problems. Jeff and his wife Raina are out of their minds with worry. Please pray for Greta. (Jeff is my brother’s child.)
Stay safe.
Happy Saturday.
Claudia, please pass on to Don how wonderful his new site is! I listened to just one song and have found an incredible new artist to listen to! I love that I will be able to make purchases through this site as well. And might I also say, I was blown away by some of the record covers.
The flower issue probably isn’t anything you are doing or not doing. These flowers love lots of sunshine (you’ve had lots of cloudy days), and any soil but prefers drier (you’ve had lots of moisture). They are fairly easy to grow, but I can tell you, the weather in our part of the country has kept many of the plants I usually count on from performing. Our giant sunflowers came up a month early and we’re finished a month early because we had so much heat. Frustrating. Even the leaves on some of our trees have failed to drop the last two years, creating a strange but beautiful look for winter, and a strange period for the new leaves struggling to come out in spring.
Have a lovely day!
I will happily pass this on to Don, Verna! Thank you.
Thanks so much for your thoughts on the morning glories.
Stay safe.
Claudia,
I will be praying for Greta’s healing and full recovery from these abdominal, bowel issues and for strength and Peace for Jeff and Raina during this anxious time of waiting!
It’s very worrying. Now there’s an abdominal blockage as well.
Thank you, Debbi.
Stay safe.
congratulations to don on a wonderful venture, a wonderful goal, a wonderful heart.
while the opening weekend deal is appreciated, i will wait and (when i can figure it out) be buying some music from him.
will be praying for greta, your nephew and the rest of your family.
my sweet little ten-year-old great-niece is still sick with covid (thankfully she is at home) and now her mother/my youngest niece is, too, despite having been fully vaccinated for months.
thanks to everyone praying for her, and for me and my job. i’d appreciate prayers for her mother/my youngest niece and everyone else in my family, too. and thanks to everyone praying for me and my job.
self-care saturday sounds right. hope it helps you and don, everyone.
i have no clue about the plants’ lack of blooms; sorry.
happy, easy, safe saturday to all.
kathy in iowa
Greta is very seriously ill and we are all worried about her. She has this rare cyst and now has an abdominal blockage. She hasn’t eaten since Monday and she can’t keep anything down.
Prayers for your family, Kathy.
Stay safe!
Further prayers for your family, Kathy. I believe that you can still catch Covid even though you may be double vaccinated but it hopefully prevents you needing hospitalization as the symptoms are supposed to be less severe.
Take care
..well you’ve sure got my prayers for you and your family, kathy; I hope you can have a Sunday with some restful peace, some freedom from the worry; I hadn’t picked up on the fact that your young relatives got Covid; so scary (sometimes I’m in a hurry and don’t take the time to read everyone’s comments here, although I do love the conversations [which Claudia is so gracious to allow among us readers!]; as I always say here, I learn a lot from everybody’s commentary here on MHC blog [I feel like we get to ‘know’ each other!], prompted by Claudia’s excellent and so-often, thought-provoking postings)…
I am so sorry about this concerning news of your great-niece; prayers indeed her way.
Yes, I love the fog; we have a lot of it where I live in Southern Calif. I’m 20 minutes from the beach; we get the coastal fog. Did errands in it this morning (so nice and cool; in parts of SoCalif next week, the Santa Anas return, and it’ll get hot, windy and drier); was about 9am and, weren’t going to, since weekend traffic is awful, but we went over to the ocean anyway; it’s a magnet and my happy place … but the sun broke out of the fog and it was so gorgeous; flat sea/sea green, low tide, sandpipers on heaps of washed-up seaweed. Lots of good, salty air to breathe in …
It was beach clean-up day, and all up and down the 101 Freeway North on the way to Santa Barbara, TONS of people with picking-tongs/grabbers and big sacks, collecting trash. This was going on at the dunes in the marina, at the piers, for MILES on the beach highway; just a marvelous volunteer effort, God bless ’em. There were periodic tents up for supplies and water so that the workers could stay hydrated as the sun grew more intense; but, overall this morning, the temps were cool and lovely in the 60s; of course as the day grows, warmer … and the worst sunburns come from ‘overcast’.
We saw another (odd to us!) thing back in our town. An absolutely HUGE throng of motorcycles, in a residential area as some sort of start-off point, but wall-to-wall parked motorcycles, just block after block after block! Have never seen ANYTHING like it. Then they left en masse and my husband and I thought we’d never get out of the cemetery (it’s the cross road; we’d been tending to graves in the family plot, using clippers, trimming where the mowers don’t go so as not to chip up grave markers). We just turned off the car motor; sat there and watched the spectacle. Don’t know if it was some kind of ‘memorial’ ride for someone, or what. I thought to myself, “Is this what Sturgis is in South Dakota(?) when they have that big annual rally?” It was slightly alarming because it was such a big, unexpected (to us) crowd and the noise of all those engines (and exhaust) was sort of overwhelming. I don’t know anything about motorcycles! I only rode on one once as a passenger and was terrified at 65mph. Never again!
We have motorcycles going up and down our road all the time. Big, long lines of them. They drive me crazy.
Thanks for your prayers. Greta is seriously ill.
Stay safe.
The poor dear; I’m, again, so sorry you all have this terrible worry, and that she is suffering. Is she a grown person or a small child; a teen?
No, she’s a little girl. I’m not sure of her exact age (I have a lot of nieces and nephews and great-nieces and nephews) but she’s somewhere between 8 and 10.
Yes, please tell Don Congrats on his new venture! May he find great success. I recently read an article by Björn Ulvaeus of ABBA speaking of the same thing about streaming music and how unfair it is to the musicians.
Thought and prayers to your niece, Greta. Too much sadness and pain in the world.
I think Verna said what many of us have experienced this year with our plants. The extreme heat and the lack of or the excess of rain have messed with everything. We are supposed to be near 90* tomorrow and then by Wed a high of 64* and low of 41*. Crazy. They have also said the lack of rain here over the past months will likely affect the color this Fall. So far the farmers in this area have said that we did receive the rain needed exactly when it was needed, so the crops are still looking pretty good at this point. But in farming, that can be lost in a day, we all know that.
Hope your day goes well, and you both can catch your breath. Take care.
We’ve had too much rain. Way too much. Extremes everywhere. And our maples are losing their leaves early – they’re just turning brown, no color.
Stay safe, Chris.
Prayers for you nephews daughter. Those are such scary times in a parents life. I hope you got some rest and self care today. Hugs.
It’s very frightening. The antibiotics haven’t been working and now they’ve discovered an intestinal blockage.
Stay safe, Linda.
Prayers for your great niece Greta and her family at this time of worry. Prayers for the medical staff that they are able to give her the help she needs and quickly.
Thank you, Dee Dee.
Stay safe.
Such a thoughtful project of Don’s. It must be very involved to pull something like that together. Congratulations and all the best!!
Greta’s health crisis is surely a shocking development and i feel for the distress of all of the family.
Kathy ‘s worries for her niece and daughter add extra concern to the job scenario.
There is just so much to contend with at this time for so many.
Prayers for healing and Peace
We are very worried. She’s a little girl and she has to endure so much right now.
Stay safe, Grace.