On the island and off

Good afternoon Folks ~ Hope you are enjoying your day.

This morning I needed to go to work to take some measurements to email a prospective buyer, so we took the scenic ocean drive and I took a few pictures.

Not my usual photos, that’s for sure. It was nice having DH driving. I don’t take my camera to work and I don’t always take this route, only occasionally. Sunday morning is a perfect time to be out as the traffic is so light.

Looking east, it was around 7:30 I think. No public beaches along this stretch.

We turned down this little street. You can see the Intra-coastal waterway at the very end. The island isn’t all that wide in some parts.

Here was the mansion on the right. We need to go back on this drive on another Sunday morning to take more pictures of some of these lovely old mansions like this one from the 1920’s.

Some of these places are boarded up because no one is here during the summer. This is a more modern place.

I loved the doorway on this one below.

Now I’m at the end of the street. I took a short path to a cement ledge about 2’ wide or so and stood there to take the pictures following this one.

These look across the intra-coastal waterway to the ‘other’ side.

I work about 5 blocks or so west of those building in the picture below.

Now, I’m looking east back up the street toward the ocean.

We then headed south on the ocean road, and I took a picture of Mar-a-Lago’s entry gate. They had the two statues covered I guess to protect them, must only have them showing when the ‘season’ is going on down here.

Mar-a-Lago was built 1924-1927, it is the name of the Marjorie Merriweather Post estate.

And speaking of Mar-a-lago, here is Trump’s International Golf Club. It covers a huge piece of real estate and is surrounded by high, two foot thick hedges and with palm trees on the front edge. It looks nice. One funny thing about this is, the county jail house which is several stories high, overlooks the golf course. I don’t know if the prisoners have a view or not. This is not on the island.

Main entry. Gold and black. They change the flower beds with the seasons. They have caladiums growing there now. Sometimes there are colorful salvias or impatiens.

Now below, we are definitley ‘off the island’ and this building is next to the first railroad track heading west. (I’m more comfortable on this side of the intra-coastal waterway, that’s for sure). I just loved how the sunlight was hitting this old corrugated tin building. I wonder what this building was used for when it was first built.

We live a few miles west of the second railroad track from the island, and it sure felt good to pull into our driveway, to our humble little Plum Cottage. We were home sweet home.

Hope you enjoyed the little tour of how some of the wealthier half of society lives.

This has put me in the mood to do more little tours of the surrounding areas here, from rich to poor and anything in between.

Good news ~ I am working this month after all, as my boss decided not to close up shop for the month of August. Hurray.

Hope you all have a great week.

Life is what we make it,

always has been,

always will be.

Grandma Moses

Life at Plum Cottage

Dear Folks ~ Here it is another Friday. Almost August, and that seems amazing.  Where is this year going?  We will be glad when Oct/Nov arrive when our temps and the humidity will be much lower.  Until then we will just have to take the heat and sweat it out.

Hope you all have had a great week and that your weekend is wonderful.

Thank you all for your kind comments about my latest artistic photo endeavors. Gimp is fun, although there is a learning curve, and it will take me some time to learn what all this ‘free’ program can do.  What I really like is the scissor tool., which allows you to cut out a portion, which in my case were the roses or main flower, inverting the images, so that I can fuzz out the background.  We did notice that there is a sort of halo or bleed-out around the flowers, so have to tweak the settings and not quite sure what is needed to do that yet.  All in good time.

Below is an image that I used some sort of edge enhancement tool. The rose is Dainty Bess. I really love how this turned out.

Now, below are some garden pictures.

This is Miss Muffett a sweet caladium from Meems.  These are growing in our screened room.

The next two pictures are of Miss Muffett in a huge pot with frangipani and firebush.  The firebush are rooted cuttings from Darla and the caladiums seem happy growing here and the pot is in the new picket fence garden area to the east of the Gypsy Wagon.

Next is a Zebra Longwing butterfly with hamelia paten blooms.

Below is that hamelia paten bush, that I grew from a cutting.  It is about 13 years old now, and has grown up to about 10’ tall and is covering the lattice arbor and my shed’s roof.  It just keep growing and growing.  The bees, hummers, and butterflies all love the blooms.

When I went out the morning of the 20th, I could smell something sweet, and finally found the source. Maman Cochet, my climbing rose. She had creeped across the lattice and mixed in with the hamelia paten and another rose, and orchids, and passion vines too.

This wonderfully colored bougainvillea was here when we move in 38 years ago.

Next are self sown celosia. I just love the colors of the foliage and the blooms are wonderful too.

Next is Clerodendrum, which I call ‘bleeding hearts’.

Here is Copperleaf, a favorite of mine

Passion vine blooms and hamelia paten blooms.

A close-up of crepe myrtle.

Porterweed and a Zebra Longwing.

A murder/suicide happened in our area this afternoon, and it has left my heart heavy for lives lost.

Be thankful for your many blessings.  Love and cherish your loved ones. Let them know how much they mean to you, in word and in actions.

May you all be blessed with love and peace in your lives, from God the Great Creator of all life.

Hugs ~ FlowerLady

Prosperity Roses

Good evening Folks ~ We worked outside this morning doing some clean up, and moving planters around, etc. I’ll show pictures later of this ‘curbside shopped’ planter, made of cement with raised flowers and birds on it.

I also got a load of laundry washed, hung out and brought back in. Rain was predicted, but we’ve had none ‘yet’. I do hope we get some.

Sat. we hooked up city water to the garden faucets. PVC work, but now all faucets are hooked up and ready to hand water.

DH got my GIMP art/photo program ready to go for me and I’ve been having fun ever since. I already posted one photo I did using Louis Philippe rose, below is the next one of Prosperity roses.

Just before I sat down to do this post, I made up Cottage Cheese Breakfast Roll dough. It is in the fridge. In the morning I will divide the dough into two balls, roll out circles, and cut each circle into 10 pie wedge shapes. Roll up from the wide end and bake for 20 minutes, then frost with a crm. cheese, powdered sugar frosting. This is a new recipe for me, from Hosta Lady.

Hope you all are enjoying the many moments that are making up your day/evening, and enjoy the rest of the week.

Testing Gimp

Playing with textures and PSP Ultimate Photo x2

Good morning Folks ~ I saw some lovely photographs by Georgianna Lane the other day and would love to do what she does. She is a professional though and I’m an amateur, big difference. Maybe with time and practice I can do what she does. She is an inspiration to me.

I even dreamed there was a tool in my toolbar in PSP that I could just click on and it would make a lovely whispy background image. No such thing when I woke up.

Anyway, I got into my program and started playing with textures, layers, borders and picture frames and below is what I did for today.

DH was a help too when I couldn’t seem to figure things out with layers. (My computer geek hero to the rescue.)

If anyone out there knows any good tutorials about backgrounds, etc. using PSP I’d be grateful for links to them.

Thank you for taking the time to look. I’ll have another post about gardening down here in s.e. FL, later.

(I had written this yesterday afternoon, so changed the wording this morning. Last evening DH and I talked more about all of this and he suggested I download GIMP because it is a great FREE open source program. It will be a new learning experience as the program is different than what I am used to. So, if I'm not posting in here as much, you'll know where I am.)

The end of a gift of another day

Hi Folks ~ Here it is the end of another day, which was a gift, from the giver of all gifts.

We had a thunderstorm blow over early yesterday evening, giving us a good bit of rain.  I am thankful.

This morning I got out early to the so-called ‘back 40’ to pull tall weeds, which fortunately came up easy, then DH got back there and mowed.  What a difference.  He went around to the backside of our little barn and mowed there too.  Then I mowed what I usually mow, then I got out the electric hedge clippers and did the front hedgerow.  That wore me out.  Tomorrow I will take care of some other stuff that needs to be raked and bagged for the county to pick up.  What we put out there for them they turn into free mulch for the taking.

I’m not sure of the distance, where the stars are is the front entry sidewalk and gate, which we keep locked, to keep the night people out and any others who happened to think they can just walk in.

This is the front gate, part of one bird has fallen off, and I need to find another piece of weathered wood to make another one with.  There is a sidewalk on the other side of the gate.  The front patio which I look out onto from my little creative space indoor, is just on the other side of the greenery.

Here is the entry gate from the driveway.  It also stays locked most of the time.  We’ve had people come into our property at night before we put up this gate and the one across the driveway. It feels better having barriers from the outside world that’s for sure.

Now for some blooms taken today. Below is Jewels of Opar.  A sweet plant that I’ve grown from seeds from a FL gardening friend who lives in the middle of the state. This plant reseeds easily.

Here is my pink crepe myrtle.  Have several of these around the property.

This is a little rose called Golden Sun, which I bought many years ago online from a lady in the middle of the state.  The blooms are no more than 2” across, if that.

The clouds caught my eye. 

I worked on this piece this afternoon.  Hadn’t touched it in over a week.  I enjoyed sitting here listening to soothing music working with needle and thread.

Well, that’s it for this evening.  I need to get up to head into the scullery to wash dishes before it gets too late.

Have a nice evening/morning and a great day tomorrow/today wherever you are.

Don't go through life, grow through life.
Eric Butterworth