Garden Tour

About a month ago I went on a garden tour that was being promoted by the library system in the county I live in.  The book this year to read was The Language of Flowers.

I copied the picture above from Amazon so the "Look Inside" is not going to work for you.  This was a wonderful book and I think anyone that loves flowers would enjoy it even though the story is somewhat sad at times.  In the back of the book is a listing of flowers and their meanings.  On this garden tour some of the gardeners incorporated those flower meanings in their gardens.  I went on this tour with my Mom-in-Love and another friend of ours.  I think we visited 5 gardens total.  The first picture is of mom and friend on a deck that had Wisteria growing on it.

Friend on Left/Mom In Love on the Right

I have not kept the pictures in order of the gardens we visited and promise not to say a lot more because there a quite a few that I thought might give you some inspiration for your gardens next year.  Love the stacked rocks that were all over in the garden of the first picture.  

 

This garden had a good size area set up as a fairy garden.  And the gardener's grandchildren each had a building to plant around and decorate.  By next summer I will have 8 grandchildren.  I may have to do this with them.  I better start building some fairy dwellings this winter.

It is hard to see well but the next picture is the complete fairy garden.

Some of the Language of Flowers.

I really think I need a fountain.  This one had so much going on.

The next pictures are from a garden that was acres large.  Rows and rows of flowers.  We did not even walk the complete area.  The gardener had an area that she sold plants out of, but in this area where we found many we wanted she did not want to part with any.  Wonder why?  

I wanted some of this plant.  It is a California Poppy and do not transplant well.  I need to find seed because it is an annual here, but if it does well it will re-seed itself and come up on its own the following years.

Anyone know what the next plant is?

I worked on my shady pathway this summer but as always I did not get as much done as I wanted in our short growing season.  I cannot imagine I will ever have such beautiful gardens but I will not quit trying.  

Blessings from our home in the woods!

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My Day Off

I have a part-time job and have Tuesdays and Thursdays off.  This week I am filling in for another lady in the office so I only had today off.  I wanted to sew the entire day, that was the plan.  But the green beans that we picked yesterday evening needed to be canned, there were a couple of errands I needed to run and the bills needed to be paid.  Then like magic it was 3:00 P.M.  I decided I would make my way down to my sewing area and see what I could get done.  Over the weekend I started sewing together this back for a Chenille Baby Blanket gift I am working on.  Tutorial is by Mama Spark you can find it here.

 I finished piecing it today.  This is the second time I have used this tutorial and cannot say enough how easy the directions are to follow.  Now I need to get to town to pick up the flannel to finish it off.

Are any of you stitching along with Red Brolly's Girls Own Stitching Club.  I have finally caught up and am ready for the next block which I expect will be posted soon.  

Here are the four blocks.  Just a little hint.  I think it is best to always print out your patterns from the same printer.  My stitching's did not end up the same size and I did not notice it until I had them all finished.  But I decided as long as the finished blocks were the correct sizes I could live with it.  It has been a rainy day so I could not find a good place to take pictures today. 

You will find a button on my side bar that matches the one below.  If you click on it, it will take you to the first block if you would like to join in the fun.

Wishing you a wonderful week!  Blessings from our home in the woods.

Brenda

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The Garden That Almost Wasn't

This summer I have not posted anything about our vegetable garden because it just did not start out well at all.  Anybody that lives in Michigan or the surrounding states know about the rains and the flooding this past spring.  Our garden area was so wet that we were not able to plant until the first week of June and we were planting in the muck at that point.  We bought two trailer loads of compost from a local farmer to add as we worked and added more later, finally things dried up enough we could plant some seed and the nursery plants that we had put in started to take hold.  But along with the garden starting to grow came grass and weeds that we have never had growing in our garden before.  We think we brought the seed in with the new compost we bought. So there are no pictures of the garden because it is not pretty.  We have not been able to keep up with the weeds even though we have tried.   While everything is coming on very late the garden is not a total bust.  Today we picked a sink full of green beans.

We started picking beans last week and this is the largest pick yet.  I think I have canned 11 quarts so far and expect there are close to that in the sink waiting for me to snap.

We are also getting a lot of the small sweet tomatoes right now.  Usually I have these starting in July and have only started picking them the last couple of weeks.  Most of the larger tomatoes are still green.

They looked pretty on my dinner salad tonight.  The grilled eggplant was from the garden and also the handful of blackberries.  Leftover rainbow trout that hubs grilled last night with some feta cheese over the top.  I have really learned the art of making a salad with many different vegetables and fruits since I joined Weight Watchers last November.   And since I have not reported for quite a while how I have been doing, I would like to let you know that I have lost 30 pounds and have made my goal.  

I have finished my yummy salad and now I need to start snapping those green beans, I think it will take me a while.  Hope you are having a great Monday!  Blessings from our home in the woods.

Brenda

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Sunday Praise

This and That

I am happy to report that I finally received my computer back from the geek shop in working order.  It has been weeks since I have been able to post so I am just picking out a little of this and that to share with you tonight. I will share some of the projects I have finished recently first.  I've missed sharing with you all!

Up first is a sampler from a pattern from Bareroots called Sewing Things.  The instructions gave a quick and easy way to frame it.  Since you are not really suppose to put stitching's behind glass, I don't always follow that rule, they suggest you remove the glass stretch the stitching around the glass and tape it to the back and reinsert it in the frame.  I bought a frame from Hobby Lobby when they had them 1/2 off so it was a great way to save some money.

 I also made my newest sewing machine a new cover.  I cannot tell you what pattern I used because I have already passed it on to a friend.  Decided I would probably not use again.  But I do love how it turned out.

I have finally pieced all the Great Granny Squares together that I had pieces cut for.  Here they are on my wall for a picture before I put them away to wait for many more to be added to the stack.  I want to put together enough of these blocks for a twin size bed.  This was a SAL with Lori at Bee In My Bonnet, the link will not take you to the SAL because it has came and gone, but you can follow the button in the side bar to the SAL for the instructions.

Vacation Bible School has came and gone a couple of weeks ago where I attend church.  All my grands came and spent a couple of nights to go with me along with their mothers.  My oldest grandson was a helper with the youth group.  I think he ate his weight in cotton candy on this night.

 And then there was crazy hair day.  The children got tickets to spend at the game stand if they participated in each nights special event.  There was a lot of red and blue hair dye on the sides of our showers and tubs later that night.  And some of these blonds were a little pink in places for days.

Sisters

 Cousins.

Cousins

Cousins again!

Cutie!

Cousins

I have a lot to catch you up with in our lives but I think I better finish with this:

This is Hendrix, he is either 15 or 16 years old.  Here he is in hubs lap, his favorite spot.  He got a reprieve today from the end of his life.  He has not been doing well and I took him to the Vet today thinking he would not be coming back home.  Going to try some meds to see if he feels better because I just could not give the word yet.  So I leave you with a happy Hendrix and a happy me.

Blessings from our home in the woods!

Brenda

Linking up with some of my favorite weekend parties: