Monday, October 31, 2011

Lots of rain for us

Good afternoon Folks ~ First of all I want to thank all of my commenters on my last post. I appreciate each and every one and I know my friend who I mentioned also appreciates them.

Yesterday morning I woke up feeling thankful, not for any particular reason, and then as I took a walk around outside, my thankfulness grew.

It was gray and windy yesterday and then we had rain in the afternoon and off and on all night and the same for today, minus the wind. South of us had flooding because they got something like 8” of rain. The rain sure is doing our gardens good though and I’m not complaining after being in drought conditions for almost 5 years.  The rain is a blessing.

Saturday after I got home from work, DH asked me if I noticed anything while looking out the scullery window. I looked and said, No-o-o. I had to look some more and then saw what I was supposed to see, the lattice was gone from the back of the bench.  He had taken it down.  We wanted a view into the secret garden from the caravan so the lattice had to come down and the plant material needed trimming too.  He said he pulled the vines out of the lattice gently (passion vine and crossvines). Well, I trimmed everything yesterday, and it looks pretty bare right now, but will soon fill out again.  The Passion vine will be winding down for the year too, and will die back.

Pics below show before and after.

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It was starting to rain again when I took the picture below.  The big leaf plant is a bird of paradise, there are a couple of crepe myrtles, and thunbergia shrub as well as the cross vine, which makes a nice hedge and has the pale salmon colored flowers.

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I’m playing around with potted plants by the caravan. I don’t like the green pot, which has a ficus in it and some oyster plant, along with orchids, and spiderwort. I will leave the purple/green Moses-in-the-bullrushes plants.  Tradescantia-spathacea-variegata or Oyster Plant. I am starting to put this plant everywhere as it does so well with little care and spreads like crazy too.

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Yesterday when we were eating lunch, something huge hit our living room roof.  It freaked us both out and we immediately thought ‘retaliation’ by the punks. Not so, which was a relief, but what happened still got our hearts to pounding.

It was a palm frond from the palm tree that is about 40’ high.  It was really windy yesterday and this thing came down. Sheesh!  Here’s a pic of the tree.  We moved the frond into the driveway to be easier to cut up.

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The fat part that is wrapped around the tree, was about 5’ tall so you can imagine how long this frond is.

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I’ve got turkey pot pie ingredients simmered and into the casserole, then I’m going to make up drop biscuits to drop on top and bake.  Got the recipe idea from Sandra at Full Bellies Make Happy Kids. I had turkey and broth from the turkey, cut up some potatoes, carrots, onion, added sage, thyme and marjoram, onion and garlic powders and simmered away, adding a can of peas near the end.  It smells good in here.

That’s it for now.  Hope you all have a great week.

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5 comments:

Jillayne said...

I can smell it now - I love turkey pot pie, especially with biscuits!
I like how your garden looks with the trellis taken down - seems more welcoming and natural. What a great DH!

gld said...

I hope it didn't damage the roof! We stay out of parts of the yard on windy days. We have some old damaged trees that worry us.

I love the new view from the scullery window.

The turkey pie sounds delicious. Pot pie is a favorite of ours.

Gayle said...

All your plants/trees/shrubs grow so fast and big, I bet it is a lot of work to keep them trimmed and from going wild.

GRACE PETERSON said...

Your cooking inspires me. I'm glad that palm branch didn't cause any damage. Hooray for the rain. I hope you're enjoying the nicer season.

sweetbay said...

I think the view from the scullery window does look better with the lattice down. The picket fence looks fantastic!