Sunday, July 22, 2012

Tropical wave & Tropical blooms

 

Good afternoon Folks ~ This morning I went out to work in my main garden, to finish what I had started a couple of weeks ago. I was going along, sweating buckets, then it lightly started to rain, and since it wasn’t thundering and lightening I continued to work, and it wasn’t so bad. I was getting a lot accomplished, then thunder happened, so I grabbed my tools and headed indoors.  Then the bottom fell out and we got some heavy rain and more thunder and lightening.

I just checked our weather because it’s raining again, and there is a tropical wave off FL that I didn’t even know about.  At least it’s not a hurricane.  I wasn’t able to mow this past week because of rain, then I worked Thurs-Sat, I thought about it this morning, but it lightly rained, and it is Sunday afterall.  It could wait another few days.  We’re supposed to have rain tomorrow too, then sunshiny skies starting Tuesday. Hopefully then, I can get sort of caught up with what I was doing, well at least make a dent in the overgrowth.

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DH worked in the caravan yesterday with more insulation work. This morning he wired another outlet, so that now the electrical is done. Hurray for that.

The photo above was from 1:30 p.m. it’s now 2:45.  I’ve been editing pictures to put in this post.  The wad of green has moved further north now.  I hear thunder off over the ocean, it is lightly raining here so far.

Water is heating for a cup of herbal tea, and we’ll split a humongous blueberry muffin. Our local Salvation Army thrift store gives out free bread. Each person is allowed 2 pkgs. We’ve happened to have been there on the right day the past couple of weeks, it’s never the same, so I’ve got bread in the freezer. Dinner rolls, muffins, rosemary/olive oil bread, bagels, and bear claws. This bread is usually on the last date of expiration for the store it had been in so they donate it to the SA. There is nothing wrong with it at all.

Now on with photos from the past couple of days.

First the latest caravan work.  DH almost has the insulation work done, then he can put up the wall paneling, which we will paint white. We’ve had the paneling in our stash, some we took off our own walls, because it was on the walls when we got here, and some we’ve picked up curbside.

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You can see in the left bottom corner in picture above and in the right hand corner in the picture below, the original tail lights. DH wanted to leave them open to the room instead of just covering them up. They do let in a little light, and they will be under the bench/bed that will be on that wall when we are all done.

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Here’s one of the tail lights from the outside.

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Here is a bit of insulation work over the stove area. You can see one of the pair of wrought iron dragons we have just outside the window here. We’ve had these since we had our antique shop which is about 17 years ago now. They are 8’ tall and about 3’ deep. We’re planning on mounting them to DH’s workshop north outside wall, over the two little arched windows that are there.  All in due time. These two dragons are from the early 1920’s, maybe earlier, and came off of some mansion in Palm Beach that was torn down. They are really cool looking. (These are for sale, we just haven’t advertised them yet.)

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DH did quite a bit of restoration on these as the wings were  pretty ragged out when we got them.

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Here is ‘Miss’ Tork. When she was a kitten she had these little markings that we thought were ‘fuzz nuts’ so we thought she was a he.  When we took her to be fixed we found out otherwise. She doesn’t know that her name is sort of masculine. We call her several names actually and she comes to them all.

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Here are more pics of the night blooming cereus cactus blooms. The third one is not getting any bigger looking like it might fall off, but these two are doing great and I’m excited. These blooms are huge and said to smell wonderful.  DH said the scent will probably be too much for him, as are other things that bloom at night. Some can be rather overpowering.

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Here we have the yellow walking iris.  What a wonderful plant. It bends over, touches the ground and roots come out and another plant is started.  It is loving all of this rain as are other things.

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Crepe myrtles are not tropical plants, but it is growing here in our tropical cottage gardens.

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Now we are inside the secret garden.  You can see the crepe upper right side. My shed’s door can be seen on other side of the bird bath. My washing machine is in there, and I store paper goods and other stuff in there.

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Here’s a view looking northwest. The caravan is on the other side of the hedge.

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That’s it for now. Hope you all have a nice week wherever you are, whatever you are doing. Give thanks for each new day, do the best you can with what you’ve got, God bless you.

FlowerLady Lorraine

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Dust storm from Africa

Today it is very hazy, breezy and hot. My boss told me about this dust storm from Africa so I looked it up on Accu-weather and sure enough we are getting this.  You can read about it here.

The sunsets are supposed to be spectacular so I’ll see if I can get any pictures tonight.

Right now at 1:25 p.m. EST. it is 88 and feels like it is 101. No rain in the forecast.

I’m thankful for air-conditioning.

That’s it for now.  I just thought you might find the dust storm from Africa interesting.

FlowerLady

 

Hamelia paten ~ Firebush

Good morning Friends,

This bush is one of my favorite, easy to grow plants in our gardens here at Plum Cottage.  I got this as a little cutting about 17 years ago. It took awhile to get going, but once it hit it’s stride, it hasn’t stopped.  Around our area we see these as tightly clipped shrubs and hedges.  I don’t remember ever seeing one that grows like ours is.  Of course, I’m a procrastinator when it comes to pruning, but I love the way this has taken over my shed, along with roses and several flowering vines too.

Hamelia paten is a butterfly magnet all year long, and hummers visit too during the time of year that they are here.

I went out this morning with camera in hand to see what would catch my eye, and it was while taking a picture of the caravan garden area that I thought to make a post showing this wonderful bloomer. It comes up out of the hedge behind the ‘solar dryer’ and heads over to arbor, then over the lattice grotto area and over the shed east and south, and west too for that matter.

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Here are a couple of the main branches.

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Beside butterflies and hummers loving this, bees do to.

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This is a view from the east/driveway side.

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This is looking north and it’s now out to the front edge of my shed.

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This is inside the secret garden looking up and northeast.

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This is our state butterfly, the zebra longwing, which just LOVES the nectar of this shrub. Some days there are lots of zebies gently flitting around. They make me feel happy and relaxed and thankful to God the Great Creator.

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That’s it, I’ve got to get ready to head off to work today.

Don’t forget to count your many blessings.  We all have them even on bad days.

I read a great post this morning called * I always have enough *, click here, for the story.

FlowerLady Lorraine

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Mid July

Good afternoon Folks,

It is hard to believe it is the middle of July already.  That’s fine with us though, we look forward to fall, as I’m sure many of you are also.  I worked outside yesterday morning and this morning for about 3 hours each, and was sopping wet both mornings and stopped when I’d had enough.  You can only do what you can do, especially at this age and in the heat and humidity. We’ve been having lots of rain and I don’t want to say that too much because so many of you are in drought conditions, as we were for the last 5 years.  Rain will come again to all of you, hang in there. Anyway, we’ve had so much that I cannot keep up with all the overgrowth of vines, weeds, etc. Why on earth would I want a larger piece of property, this is enough right here, our little 1/4 acre.

This morning when I was working out front, I noticed 3 flower buds on our night blooming cereus.  I am THRILLED. A customer where I work gave me a piece of theirs quite a few years ago and it climbed and grew up the pine tree at the back of the property. I’ve not been able to get good photos or smell their scent as the blooms are too high to appreciate. I will be taking pictures of these as they grow and bloom.  The open blooms only last a night.

I stuck a section of this cactus next to our front gate on the inside and it has grown up and clung to the gate arbor.

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Blanket flower with the lovely foliage of a hibiscus.

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Vanda orchids that I just plopped into the lattice surrounding the rain barrel.

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What a surprise to see this azalea in bloom today.

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Blackberry lily.

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Caladiums.

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Tork .

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Tork

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Longview looking north.

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Shed garden.

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Borderer.

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Penelope

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Below:

St. George’s church taken from Venice 1973.

You can read more about this lovely church here.

This is an old slide of ours, that DH took a picture of with my camera just to see how it would come out. We have LOTS of slides from our three years in Europe and would like to get them on CD. We’re buying an adapter for my camera to see if it will work with some of his camera gear from back then, if it doesn’t we will buy the piece that will work.  We had a Minolta SLR back then, developed our own slides and made some prints too, all in our tiny bathroom in Rota, Spain where DH was stationed for 3 years in the US Navy. The colors have faded, but hopefully that won’t matter too much.

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Venice was one of our very favorite places.  We stayed there 6 days.

We look forward to going through our slides and hopefully most of them will be good enough to put on CD.  They sure will bring back some fantastic memories from our early 20’s.

That’s it for now.

FlowerLady Lorraine

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

T-storms, blooms, needlework

Hi Folks ~

Here it is Wednesday afternoon for us, it’s been a gray, dreary day today, t-storms around midnight last night with one of the biggest claps of thunder I’ve ever heard.  Sheesh.  Lots of rain too, then we had another thunder storm this morning but not as bad, and LOTS more rain so that the driveway was flooded and the main garden was covered in water again too.  I guess you could say our 5 year drought is over. I’m glad to read that a lot of you have started getting some much needed rain too and that temps have cooled down somewhat.

I got a load of laundry hung out to dry and brought in yesterday, and also mowed, just in the nick of time. I did nothing outside today, except for a quick walk around.

Here are some photos of blooms taken the other day.

This little lovely is Fringe Flower.  I bought it along with 6 other plants around my bday in March. I just love these blooms.

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Look what shows up once the petals fall off.  Amazing. A petal is in each one of these bits of loveliness. They look like miniature flowers themselves.

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Hibiscus.

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Spicy jatropha.

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Mixed caladiums, including Miss Muffet, from Meems. Thanks again Meems.

Also volunteer vincas.

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Resurrection ferns growing up the Norfolk pine tree. When it hasn’t rained, these ferns are dried up and dead looking.  As soon as it rains, they look like this, hence the name resurrection fern.

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Shells

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Cocktail roses, past their prime.

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Fading Phyllis Bide roses.

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Kathleen

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Louis Philippe

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My latest needlework creation, which you can read about in my other blog here.

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That’s it for now.

Time for a glass of pre-dinner wine while I figure out what to fix for supper. Smile

FlowerLady Lorraine