A Sunny Sunday Afternoon

I sure hope you all are having wonderful weather and a great day wherever you are and whatever you are doing.

We had a really heavy rain in the wee hours of the morning, more is expected this afternoon and the next few afternoons as that is our usual summer weather. The rain was great and I am thankful for it.

I took some pictures this morning after having coffee. Click on them for larger view.

This is at the back of my main garden on the west side.
That is a cane of Phyllis Bide hanging down over the Lady.

The next two pictures are of Phyllis again from different angles.

Here is another cane of Phyllis that I looped over the iron torch holder.

This sweet little rose is La Marne.

Here is the Lady again with Phyllis Bide overhead,
and the picture below this one
shows a close up of her wonderful, colorful patina.

Here we have the delightful Dwarf White Orchid tree,
Bauhinia acuminata.
Grown from seed.
She has so many blooms this year.
I'm thrilled. Her scent is delicate.

Bridal Wreath vine blooms are taking their sweet time in opening.
It's hard to be patient, but that's what we sometimes have to be.

Colour

Colour is a lovely thing.
Given to soothe our sight,
Blue for sky, green for grass,
And brown for roads where we folks pass;
Golden sun that shines o'er head,
Silver for moon, for sunset red,
Soft cool black for night!

Author Unknown
Taken from the
'Book of 1,000 Poems'

Zone 10 ~ s.e. FL

The weekend is here

Good morning everyone. I hope you all have a nice long weekend. This holiday is one to remember those who have given their lives for our freedoms that we hold dear in this country. May this country continue to stay free.

Below are some pictures from the last couple of days. I'm still waiting for the Bridal Vine flowers to open.

Here we have a Zebra Longwing, our state butterfly, sipping nectar from Hamelia patens or Firebush blossoms. There are LOTS of bees here too and other butterflies. Hummingbirds also visit this shrub occasionally.



Inside our screened room, we have the yellow blooms of
Dwarf Poinciana, Caesalpinia lutea, or Barbados Pride or Peacock Flower,
in the foreground, ficus in the background along with something else I can't remember the name of right this minute. :-)



This is an unknown to me.
Is a creeper of sorts, horizontally and vertically,
plus it spits seeds everywhere.



This is trumpet vine, Campsis radicans.



Here are two baby gardenia bushes,
compliments of Tom from Seventh Street Cottage.
He rooted these in his great clone machine.
They are very healthy looking,
have wonderful root systems,
and I hope they grow well and give me lots of blooms.
Gardenias are one of my earliest girlhood memories of FL.
They will be living in our screened room for awhile
so that I can keep an eye on them.
I'll keep you all posted on their progress.
Thanks again Tom.




This is a Ti plant.
I just love the way the sunlight was hitting the leaves.



Here are the first buds on our Queen Crepe.



These are buds from another crepe myrtle in the main garden,
which also has purple blooms.



Here we have Phyllis Bide,
which is growing over my little lattice covered resting spot
at the northwest corner of the main garden.



Penelope



Love



Kathleen



This is a Sulphur butterfly,
hard to get as they flit all over the place,
hardly stopping at all.



This is a Gulf Fritillary.



First Mexican palo verde
blooms.



Even if something is left undone,
everyone must take time to sit still
and watch the leaves turn.

Elizabeth Lawrence

Zone 10 ~ s.e. FL

It's a beautiful morning

This song came into my head before getting out of bed this morning. I thought 'oh yes, it's Sunday, time to get up and make our pot of 2 c. each of coffee, as that's what I do on Sunday mornings, instead of our one cup each. I went out into the scullery and the sky was starting to lighten and it just felt good. Then somewhere in my fuddled brain I realized it wasn't Sunday, it was Saturday and I work again today at my job. Must have been wishful thinking on my part about it being Sunday. But, it's still a beautiful morning.

Here is the song sung by The Young Rascals in the late 60's. Turn off the music in my sidebar to listen to this happy little tune.


It's a beautiful mornin', Ahhh,
I think I'll go outside a while,
An jus' smile.
Just take in some clean fresh air, boy!
Ain't no sense in stayin' inside
If the weather's fine an' you got the time.
It's your chance to wake up and plan another brand new day.
Either way,
It's a beautiful mornin', Ahhh,
Each bird keeps singin' his own song.
So long!
I've got to be on my way, now.
Ain't no fun just hangin' around,
I've got to cover ground, you couldn't keep me down.
It just ain't no good if the sun shines
When you're still inside,
Shouldn't hide, still inside, shouldn't hide,
Ahhhh..Oh! (shouldn't hide) Ah, ah, Oh.....

(Do, do, Waaa) (Do, do, Waaa)

There will be children with robins and flowers;
Sunshine caresses each new waking hour.
Seems to me that the people keep seeing
More and more each day, gotta say, lead the way,
It's okay, wednesday, thursday, it's okay,
(Ahhh) monday, wednesday, friday, weekday, Ah, Ah, Ohhh.

Zone 10 ~ s.e. FL

Evening post

Hi Folks ~ It is almost 8:30 p.m. I've got dishes to wash, then I plan on heading off to bed to read for awhile.

This afternoon while I was washing dishes in the scullery I noticed white blooms in the growth outside the window that I hadn't seen before. I thought oh my gosh, I think those are Madagascar vine or Bridal Wreath vine, Stephanotis floribunda. I went outside, saw that that's exactly what it was, got the step ladder and proceeded to unwind the vine from some rose canes, so that they would hang down lower and I could enjoy the blooms beauty and scent. Tomorrow they will probably be open. I've had this for a few years and have not had any blooms since I first got it, so this is thrilling to me. I took pictures of the two clusters, shown below.

Here are some clouds on this warm, humid evening.

That's it for now. Have a great weekend.

Zone 10 ~ s.e. FL

View out scullery window

Good afternoon everyone ~ Hope your day is going well. I took the pictures below just a little while ago. It's my view as I wash dishes. This time of year the Royal Poinciana blooms and it is gorgeous. I love the orange with the blue sky.

This morning I trimmed the hedgerow along the sidewalk out front, and some along the driveway as well, then raked and bagged it up to be picked up tomorrow. I was pooped when I came in and had had enough of the heat, humidity and sweating. We've now had lunch and I feel ready for a short nap.

Have an nice afternoon and evening.

Zone 10 ~ s.e. FL

A new day

Good morning Folks ~ Here it is another middle of the work week day, Wednesday. I hope you all have a good day today whatever you do, wherever you are.

I hate to even say what I might do today as plans can be changed at the blink of an eye, any given day. I 'was' going to do laundry yesterday, and realized I didn't have any detergent, so I came back inside, got out my supplies and went to work. The Zote soap smells so good. Grating it is tiring work, but now I have enough to keep me going for awhile. I didn't get to do laundry, because we had a few sprinkles, and later a good ole' downpour. Hurray, we needed that. There's a chance of a thunderstorm this afternoon, so I better get out early so I can hang up the wash and hope it dries before the storm comes.

After making up the laundry detergent, I filled 200 caps with powdered dandelion root. I 'hope' to do up another 200 today. That is tedious, but so rewarding, as herbs are great for our health and well-being.

Here is a picture of those two projects.

Here is Kathleen, one of my favorite single roses. Her scent is wonderful too. I really need to see if I can get cuttings of her to root, I've tried a couple of times and had no luck so far.

Here is my next bird for embroidering. I've still go to put the drawing to the material, and get started, but I am intimidated with each new work. Maybe I'll get started with that today, we'll see. I also want to 'maybe' do one of the rose above, time will tell. :-)


Last night I started a new blog, can you believe it. What is my problem? Anyway, this one is called FlowerLady's Favorites, and will be a music blog.

Thanks again for visiting and all of your comments.

Do what you can,
with what you have,
where you are.
Theodore Roosevelt

Zone 10 ~ s.e. FL

Oasis

Turn off my playlist, and turn up your speakers. :-)

Zone 10 ~ s.e. FL

A Quiet Sunday

Good morning Folks ~ Sunday's are really nice here on the 'autobahn' as the traffic is so much lighter than the rest of the week. It is breezy, warm and humid, partly cloudy too. It is currently 83 and feels like it is 90. No rain expected in the next couple of days, and we sure could use it. I did some hand watering this morning.

I also did some filling of gelatin capsules with powdered yarrow. We take different herbs for our health and well being as well as use essential oils. We've been buying some herbs in bulk as it is cheaper that way. The leafy herbs we usually drink as tea, and the powdered herbs get put into caps using a little handy-dandy tool called cap-m-quick. Here is where we get our bulk herbs, and I have no affiliation with these people at all, other than buying from them. HerbalCom. You can buy herbs already in capsules also, usually 300 to the bag and they are much cheaper than buying 100 at a time. Buying bulk and not in capsules is even cheaper.

There is a loaf of Instant Potato Bread that just finished baking in the bread machine.

1/2 c. water
2/3 c. buttermilk
1 1/2 TBS olive oil
1 1/2 TBS. dark honey

2 1/2 c. bread flour
1/3 c. instant potato flakes
1 TBS. gluten
1 1/4 tsp. salt

2 1/4 tsp. yeast

Add ingredients according to your bread machine instructions. Basic cycle.

**

Hope you all are having a nice day today.

Zone 10 ~ s.e. FL

Have a great weekend

Good morning Folks ~ I hope you all have a great weekend whatever you do. I'm working again today at my job. It was very quiet there yesterday, today is usually 'looker day', which means people are looking and rarely buying. But you never know.

It is very warm and humid out already. I was doing some things in our screened room, plus have been moving the sprinkler around the main garden. Today is one of my two watering days here.

Below are some pics taken yesterday and this morning.

First we an unknown lily grown from seed. I think they were candy lilies from an exchange, but I don't know for sure. Guess I won't know until I see the flowers. No sign of them yet. I think these are two years old, maybe three.



Here is our bird bath, that has tadpoles in it so I hate to clean it out. The do take care of some of the mosquito population. The reflections caught my eye.



This was also grown from seed and is some kind of honeywort.
I just noticed these blooms this morning.



Hamelia patens and Vanda orchids in the morning sunlight.



Coleus and a lancepod tree seedling.



Avocado seedling.

Zone 10 ~ s.e. FL

First and the Last

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.