garden visitors...

I've had quite a few visitors to my little garden this past week.  These are just a few that have been hanging around.

The remarkable thing about these photos (at least to me) is that I took every one of them from inside my house.  Not bad, huh?

It has been pretty hot out so I've been spending my time indoors.  I head out early morning to water and check the plants, but that is about it.  

What kind of visitors do you get to your garden?

thanks for stopping in for a read...
love & blessings
~*~

in the garden...

I thought I'd share a little peek at what is going on in my little garden these days.  There is not a whole lot going on, but what there is I find fascinating.

I've been watching the busy bee spending lots of time in the basil and now is resting on my screen door.  He's been there since last night and I'm a bit worried about him.  Hopefully he will get home safely soon.

The hummingbird vine is still sending out little blooms, as is the morning glory (a volunteer plant).  I still have tomatoes ripening and jalapenos growing.  Yesterday dawned cloudless and sunny but later in the day the clouds arrived.  Today is completely cloud covered and drizzly.  

I took the glass out of my back storm door yesterday and put in the screen.  I'm going to enjoy that as the weather cools.  I would have opened it today but the humidity is 100%, so even though the temps are in the low 70's it is still too muggy and hot to open the windows.  Hopefully tomorrow.  :-)

I've been working this week on an upgrade in my studio.  Most of my time is taken up with painting wood that is going to become shelving.  

I'm having so many ideas of things I want to make right now, but all of my craft supplies are boxed up behind stacks of materials so I can't get to any of it.  I'm hoping the muse will stick with me until I can get to things.  Hopefully, she'll at least stay long enough for me to make some notes on the things I want to make.  

Anywho, that's what is going on around here this week. How are things in your neighbourhood? Anything still growing in your garden?

thanks for stopping by!
love & blessings
~*~

a little bit grey a little bit light

The sky, early this morning, was the perfect image for how I've been feeling this past week.  The headaches have been getting the best of me again and I've not really been trying to move past it.  I feel beaten down by this constant pain and as I sat in the garden, looking up at the cloudy sky, I wondered if I'd ever move on, ever be free from this pain.  

 Then I started to take another look around me.  I wandered the garden looking at all the overgrown weeds in the pumpkin patch, the stray treelings that like to pop up in the wrong places, the general craziness of the garden, amid which I spotted this...

the butterflies seem to love the Joe Pye Weed.  Their bright colors and fluttering wings brought a smile to my face and helped me to remember that I can't give up.  I have to keep trying, no matter what.  So I dug down deep inside and spent about two hours working on pulling weeds from the pumpkin patch (after wandering around and snapping lots of pictures of course.)

I made quite a dent in the pumpkin patch weeds, working on trying to get a new pathway into the garden.  My regular path between the raised beds and pumpkin patch has become blocked by the volunteer from the composter, the zucchini and the cucumbers merging toward each other.

This is the volunteer.  I've been trying for months to figure out what it is, squash, zucchini or pumpkin, but the mystery is solved.

   

 It's Pumpkin!  I found this baby yesterday and this morning it was already much larger.  There are several babies on it and I'm so excited to see them.  Yet another thing that reminded me to keep going, keep trying.  I can't wait to see how they grow and what kind of pumpkin it turns out to be.

 Tomorrow is full of doctor appointments so I hope to get back to work in the garden on Friday.  Maybe I can have a pumpkin/garden progress post later this weekend. 

I want to take this chance to thank Joane at Ivory Pumpkin for the package that arrived a few days ago.  I won this beautiful skeleton key pendant necklace from her Pre-Halloween Give Away and she included a beautiful fairy pendant as well.  I love them both.  I have a thing for skeleton keys and am always drawn to them so this was an especially wonderful gift.  :-)

If you haven't visited her site, please stop by.  She's counting down to Halloween with lots of neat holiday related posts.  And as evidenced by the beautiful pendants below is a very talented artist.  Thank you, Joane!!

I'm going to say good night now and head on to bed.  I hope to be back here soon!
blessings
~*~

peachy

Are you all rested up from the weekend party?  It took me two days to go through all the Tea Party Posts but it was great fun.  Plus, I came across several new blogs to follow and a few old ones that had slipped through the cracks.  I love finding new kindred out there in bloglandia.

Huge Thank You! (s) to everyone that visited for the Mad Tea Party and for all the sweet and lovely comments.  You guys made my day!  And a GINORMOUS Thank you to Vanessa for hosting such a wonderful party every year.  (I'm already making plans for next years party!)  ;-)

 So I've been feeling pretty peach.  (Not physically unfortunately.)  But one of my favorite things about summer is fresh peaches.  Last summer I went out of my comfort zone and made a few jars of  peach jam.  It was such a hit with myself, as well as my family, that this year called for loads of jam.  While at the farmer's market this weekend, I picked up a box of peaches and yesterday made 4 batches of jam.  I still had half the box left so today I cut up the peaches and froze some with a little lemon juice and sugar, put up some in 4 jam jars and covered with vodka and made something called an "Easy Peach Dump Cake".  It was super easy but I haven't tried it yet.  Once I do, if it is any good, I'll make a special post about it.


This morning I woke up before 6am (my goal each day is 5am) and took care of my usual chores (cat feeding, bp and glucose checks, med taking, etc.) before heading out to the garden to water (which I forgot to do yesterday).  It was 76 degrees at 6:30 this morning and the humidity was around 90+%.  It was horrid.  But I got everything watered so it could make it through another 90 degree day.  While I was watering, this little fella jumped out of a section of weeds.  I had to snap a pic as I've never seen a live cicada before.  I hear them singing all night long and some during the day but I only ever find their dessicated bodies when working in the garden.  He's kinda creepy looking but I'm happy to have made his acquaintance.

This is the sunset we had last night.  I was watching TV and happened to glance outside and realized how beautiful the sunset was so I took off with my camera to the back yard where I could get the best view.

 The clouds make me think of cotton candy...


 My cucumbers have escaped and are on a rampage.  I really must get a real trellis situated for them next year.  I'm not even sure how to stick my hand down in there to look for cukes.  But there are tons of blooms and when I was out this morning one of the happiest sights I saw were all the bees going from plant to plant.  They were all over the pumpkins and the cucumbers.

I had to run errands this morning and I arrived home to find a package waiting at my door.  If you aren't familiar with Heather at Audrey Eclectic, you really should go visit her.   She is a fabulous artist.  Her art makes my heart yearn for old fashioned life, back before all the technology took over the world.  (Although without the technology I might never have found her art!) 

About a week ago she showcased a new painting on her blog titled "The Witch's Garden".  Now with a title like that how could I not look!  I fell in love with that painting but didn't really think about buying it.  I figured it would get snapped up pretty quick.  A few days later I saw on Facebook that it was still available in her Etsy shop. 

Well, my spirit just screamed at me to get right on Etsy, I listened and now this beauty lives with me.  I know where I'm going to hang her but as I told Heather when I emailed her today to thank her, I just want to carry her around with me so I can look at her all the time!  :-)  I highly recommend checking out Heather's shop.  It is so lovely!

That is about all for me tonight.  I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow and then hope to be able to get back out into the garden on Friday.  Lots of weeding still to do to protect all those pumpkin plants. 

I'll be back soon with a real garden update and maybe a recipe.  :-)

blessings
~*~

ps..I've decided that every day should be full of Madness and Muchness...doesn't it sound grand?

a little bliss to brighten my week (and maybe yours...)

I just wanted to pop in to say I made it home a day early from hospital.  It was a difficult week with loads of ups and downs but with some possible answers and potential for hope.  I thought I'd share a few photos I took before I left home.  I was allowed my laptop so I played around online some but mostly just slept.  When I was awake I would look through the photos I'd taken so I could have some bright spots to remind me of why I needed to take that step.

My Russian sunflowers started to bloom.  I loved watching this bee searching for pollen.  Go little bee, bring your friends and tell them there is lots to find in my garden.

Cosmos are one of my favorites.  I really have so many favorite flowers it seems unfair to pick one or two out and say they are my favorites.  But I do love cosmos.

Another tiny sunflower, called Moonshadow.  It is such a pale yellow and so pretty.

One of my dahlias (I have two).  I can't remember the name of it, I planted it a few years ago and this year it has three giant blooms on it.  Lovely.

I was so happy to come home last night to find the garden still growing well.  In fact, things are just shooting up.  Practically the first thing I did was go out to check the garden, particularly the pumpkin patch.  I've still got a lot to weed around some of the pumpkins, but am giving myself a few days to recover before trying to get right out there again.  (Today would have been a perfect day, it is mostly overcast with temps in the mid 70's and we had a really good rain last night so it would have been perfect weed pulling time.)   I can't take the chance of overdoing and ruining what little progress was made at hospital. 

I went out a little bit ago and snipped some of my hydrangea blooms to bring in.  They made such a sweet little bouquet.  So, today I'm resting, futzing around the house and getting things finalized for tomorrow's Tea Party.  I do so hope you'll be able to attend.  I'm hoping to go to farmer's market tomorrow morning early (I haven't been in weeks) and then coming home and spending the day party hopping.  It should be grand fun!

I'm off to finish getting it all together.  Have a wonderful weekend!
blessings
~*~

ps...did i mention?  there are blooms on the pumpkins!  on almost all of the plants!!  yay!!

The Garden: July 1

Hello again.

I've been slowly playing catchup in bloglandia again and have noticed some of my favorite bloggers do regular garden updates.  Amanda and Vanessa's are two of my absolute favorites and if you have not been to see them, you must take the time.   They are so different - but so inspirational in lots of good ways.

I thought maybe I could put together my own garden up date today.  The rain is still with us (although right now the sun is trying to peak through.  We've had so much rain that getting into the garden to work is spotty right now.

This is a how my garden looks from the front as of about 10 minutes ago.

 

 

 Potential sugar baby watermelon's here.  They are growing well, but I've never grown watermelon and this is just an experiment from some seeds I'd saved from a watermelon from last summer.

 My first harvest - a few days ago.  I was out of onion so I sauteed the squash in butter, salt and pepper and tossed in some green beans.  I was surprised how I ended up liking the sauteed green beans.  

This was the pumpkin patch after it was all cleared and tilled and planted.  You can see the dark small mounds where I planted seeds.

The pumpkin patch last week.  Yes there really are pumpkin plants growing in there.  I've not seen flowers yet, but it I'm hopeful.  This is the next project between the hit and miss rain, running out to weed and mulch the pumpkin patch.  (Note to self - mulch as you plant...much less work!)

 The last view is the garden from the very back corner of my land.  The dark brown box to the left of the photo is my composter which has seemed to sprout something huge growing from the bottom.  I can't tell yet what they are but they look a little like pumpkins, squash, cucumber or zucchini and have started blooming.  I'm going to weed around it and see what happens.

So this is my garden to date.I hope it hasn't been too boring of a post.  The rain seems to have taken a break for now.  Maybe I should through on my grubbies and get out there.  :-)

blessings
~*~

ps...my plans for the next couple weeks went all wonky and now everything has changed.  i'll try to get back here soonest as soon.  ;-)

L. R. A. or how I deal...

In my current life experience there are three very important words - Learning, Recognizing and Accepting.  I live with a chronic illness.  For those of you that have been reading my blog for a while, this is not news.  For any newbies, it is news and it might explain a few things (for everybody really).  I have chronic severe headaches.  I have not had a single moment without severe pain in over six years.  Prior to that I would go for days and months with severe headaches and then they would lessen and sometimes even stop for an hour or two. 

I have seen many doctors, had tons of tests, surgeries, been on more medicine that you could find in a pharmacy and still they can find nothing to explain or even give a bit of relief.  All of this has been taking its toll for a while now.  I had to leave work and have been on disability for a few years.  I am unable to socialize very well (not that I was that great at it to begin with, but...).  I'm extremely sensitive to sound and sometimes light.  I don't know if it is the constant pain or all the medicines, but my cognitive reasoning and functioning is becoming much more difficult.  To add to all this, the past month or two I've started having panic attacks again.  Fifteen years ago I was in a constant state of panic and even locked in my home for 3 months.  But I got past it with Paxil and therapy.


Hmmm... I have digressed.  Back to LRA.  With a chronic illness comes learning limits.  One must learn that they have them, then learn to recognize them (see what I did there) and then of course one must learn to accept them.  I've been having a lot of problems with this you see.  But I think, maybe, I've finally caught on.  Today I had a breakthrough or epiphany.  Today, I recognized my limits and I accepted them.

As I've written recently we've had loads of cold, wet days.  Yesterday was our first good day of warm sunshine in a while.  I would have loved to head out to the garden and weed (it is very meditative for me), everything was just too wet.  So, I sat on the deck in my pretty blue chair and soaked in some vitamin d.

Today, it is a perfect garden day.  So of course, I wanted to take advantage of that fact.  I got the mowing done first and then rested a little bit while trying to decide what garden project needed attention next. 

I picked on of the beds to work on as I want to get angelica, rue, hollyhocks and echinacea planted there.  I worked there for a little while and started to feel nauseous.  Since I hadn't had breakfast I thought maybe my blood sugar was acting wonky again (yes I'm diabetic too).  Went in and checked and it was at a good number but I thought I should fix myself a little something.  I took my half sandwich to my pretty blue chair and was only able to eat less than half before I started feeling even more nauseous and sick.  I drank a lot of water and rested for a wee bit before getting back to work in the garden bed.  In my head I could hear a few different voices (not a thing unusual in that, I assure you).  One was saying it was time to stop, that I could work again on another day but today was not a good one for me.  The other voice chimed in saying to stop listening to the first and to get cracking.  I have so much to do and if I stop I'll never get it done.  Don't be a lazy sod about it all.  (Yes my inner voices are mostly British, Scottish and Welsh accented, tee hee!)

I sat there pulling weeds, bending and digging while listening to these voices (and a few others that chimed in).  I kept telling myself, just get half way done and that will be good. Come on, just a little bit more.  It's a lovely day after all and you really need to take advantage of it.  Keep going, keep going, keep going...

Then it happened... I stopped.  I looked at what I'd done and what I had left to go and I said, Enough.  Of course I was almost at the point of vomiting and passing out, but I got the message.  My body is just not up to it today.   I looked at my unfinished bed (not quite halfway done, but close) and said to myself, it's OKAY to stop.  Let's go rest.

 I put away the mower, took my tools inside and came out for my water bottle and camera and found this lovely little guy.  He's so beautiful and I wish I could keep him close so that when he changes into a butterfly I'll know just which one he is.  I wonder what he'll look like and hope he'll be as beautiful as he is now.

 

 

 But here's the thing, he reminded me that we have to stop being one thing, in order to become something else entirely.  For me that means that I have to stop pushing myself to the point of dropping, take that rest that my body obviously requires and then become something again.  It's like every time I am able to step out into the sun and work in the garden I'm taking back a tiny portion of the life I lost when I got sick.  I think it is a good way to look at it and it is a healthy way to look at it, for me at least.

I hope I haven't bored anyone to tears or made you run screaming demanding the past few minutes of your life back.  I really appreciate having a place to share my life (I don't have many friends or people to talk to IRL) and I appreciate everyone taking the time to read these posts.

Monday is new doctor meeting day for me and I'm extra nervous, but extra hopeful too.  I may be a few days before I get back here, but please know I wish everyone a wonderful weekend and Happy Mother's Day!

In honor of the beautiful Miss V, I snipped my one blooming rose bud today and hung it  in the twinkle lights in my kitchen entry.  There is a storm blowing in tonight and tomorrow and if I hadn't picked it it would have fallen apart by Sunday.  The scent is heaven and I'm going to search for more plants as soon as I finish my nap.  :-)

Anywho, thanks for being here, it means a lot...

blessings
~*~

Is it really time for Spring?

I walked out to the garden today. My garlics and collards seem to have weathered the winter very well. I'm going to have to dig up my garlics when I get ready for new planting. I'll have to till and am planning to expand the size of my garden. I also checked on my pots and it seems my sage, oregano and chives are all starting to come out. If I could be assured of a decent snowfall, then I would love to have one more blast of winter. But if I can't have snow, then I'm ready for spring. I'm ready to open the windows and air out the house. I'm ready for warmth and flowers, planting and watching what I plant grow over time. It makes me feel as if I've done something important.

I still haven't decided what to plant this year in the vegetable garden. I'd also like to expand my herb collection.

Blessings,
~*~

Pictures, pictures...

Before we go any further let me warn you now...this blog is going to be very picture heavy. Now that I have a good camera, I'm going to explore one of my favorite things, photography. There will be pictures upon pictures on this blog. Some will be good and some will be bad and some will make you go, Huh? But hopefully it will be fun!

So, on to the rest of the post. I meant to get online yesterday to post, but never had a chance. Work was busy and when I got home, I took down the holiday decorations and that involved cleaning out the bins that I store them in and getting rid of some stuff that I have never used. It all goes back to that cleaning up my life thing I talked about a while back on my other blog. Anyway, that took most of the night and by the time I was done I just didn't have the energy to get online.

I did want to share with you New Year's Day dessert. :-)

Remember the chocolate chunk brownies with creme cheese frosting? Well here is a big piece with Edy's Peppermint Ice Cream. It was very yummy! :-)

Last night, there was no cooking or even eating. I was just too tired to mess with anything. I did get outside for a few minutes when I arrived home and was able to check the gardens.


I have a vegetable garden and an herb garden. This isn't a very good picture, but if you look closely you can see two of my collard plants and a few garlics that are growing.


Here are some closeups: To the top right is collard and if you look
closely you can see the holes where something is eating them. Just below that is a closeup of a garlic plant. I have been enjoying watching them grow and can't wait until they are ready. I planted about 20 sets of garlic and hopefully most of them will do well.

With all this warm weather we have had it is making me want to work in my gardens. I desperately need to weed my herb bed. I had done this a few months ago, but never put down any cover to keep the weeds from crawling back up and taking over. Now they are coming back and it looks like I need to get out there soon. I only have four things planted in my herb bed. I hope to expand it this spring with more herbs. I currently have mint, lavender, rosemary and thyme. I have several other herbs in pots, but I think most of those will go in the herb garden this spring.

Anyway, I'm going to run for now. I have work to do and need to head out to a site. I'm going to leave you with a picture I took during dusk last night. I thought it was pretty cool.

Blessings,
~*~