Cereus night blooming cactus video on you tube

Good morning Friends,

Hope you all have a good weekend.

I finally got photos in order and made a video with them of the night blooming cereus that is growing on our front gate arbor. To me the flower didn’t have much of a scent at all so I was disappointed after hearing so much about the wonderful scents these flowers have. The bloom is fantastic though as you will see.

Enjoy. Click on full screen if you’d like. There is gentle music playing with this also.

On a sad note, an online friend of ours lost her husband from a heart attack yesterday. He was in his mid 60’s, our age. Please keep her and her family in your prayers at this time. Thank you.

FlowerLady Lorraine

***

Every day you are alive is a special occasion. 

Every minute, every breath, is a gift from God. 

Mary Manin Morrissey

I am thankful for . . .

Good afternoon Friends,

It is almost time to fix supper and I’m happy to report that my first item to be thankful for is that DearHusband is going to be eating talapia, mashed potatoes and a veggie for supper instead of more soup.  Last night along with soup, he had a little meatloaf, which I was having, and then he had a couple of bites of pumpkin cookie. Hurray! The soups have been delicious, but soup gets old eating it two times a day, with smoothies for breakfast. He did tell me each night that the soups were good.  They were and I will be fixing them again especially now that cooler weather is coming.

The second thing I am thankful for is that on the 28th is the four year anniversary of this blog. I want to thank all of you who visit, who leave comments, who have become followers and friends, for those who have prayed and sent good wishes. From my heart, thank you. Here is a link to my very first post, Beginnings.

Next on my thankful list is our home and gardens here on 1/4 acre. It is paid for, and even though our cottage is tiny, it is our home sweet home. We have a workshop, a barn, a storage building, (that we built ourselves with permits) two storage sheds and our stationary ‘caravan’. These past six weeks of stress for both of us have made us appreciate so much. Our home is easy to heat and cool. It ‘should’ be easy to keep spic and span too, but I’m a procrastinator and would rather be out in the gardens, or needleworking,  or reading blogs or helping DH with projects. Although, there have been no projects being worked on lately due to unforeseen circumstances. We’re taking things slow and easy. I have gone into our little caravan to sit quietly, ponder and pray. It smells new, it is a sweet little work in progress and we’ll really enjoy finishing it up after this hiatus from it. 

Next, I am thankful for my job. I’ve been working there almost 16 years. The last 4 years I’ve seen my pay and time cut at work, but at least I still have the job and we are surviving.

Then my gardens give me much to be thankful for as you all know.

This first photo is of a rock bordered bed filled with ferns, aloe, begonias, one caladium that shows up every year, a couple of other things and no doubt some weeds and a rose called Maggie.

These are the blooms that these begonias have, this begonia is blooming in a pot elsewhere.

Pretty rain flower.

Yellow datura grown from seeds from Nell Jean, of Seed Scatterer.

Here I am standing just inside our driveway gates. I had mowed earlier and it always looks so nice after doing that. I noticed that the cereus cactus bloomed again. I don’t know how many times it has bloomed this year, several. You can see how high they are up in the pine tree.

Closer view.

Here they are, their night of glory being past. I really need to get my progression pictures up of one of these lovely blooms from bud to it’s closure.

From the driveway, this is looking east at our little cottage. This is our entry. The window to the left is the living room, you enter into the kitchen, and the scullery is to the right. The corner iron supports of the screened porch were found curbside. The people had taken these down and put up 4x4 posts. Their loss our gain.

You can barely see my shed these days, and if you look closely you can see the open gate where you enter into the secret garden behind our cottage.

You can see the driveway and gate to the left in the picture below. Where the worn patches of grass are on the bottom, is the driveway area that leads to parking area and out buildings. The secret garden is behind the greenery on backside of this little garden area and you can see my ‘solar dryer’ where I hang out the laundry. The picket fencing was found curbside in 2-3 ft. sections, unpainted.

Here’s a glimpse of the ‘caravan’, Rebecca and Karen. Also little back entry into the garden area. It needs weeding in there desperately. All in good time.

This is an azalea that I got for my birthday in March. It has bloomed several times since then and I am really happy with it and love the color.

This is a sweet Penelope rose bloom.  So different than how it looks when it has fully opened.

Here is a bloom on the wane from my climbing Maman Cochet, still has some beauty and scent.

None of us knows what any given day will bring us. Times are rough and may get rougher with the economy here in our own country and with the global economy. I try to keep a positive outlook but things have me apprehensive that’s for sure. Our country was #3 on the list of great countries to live in, now it’s down to #18. That is horrible. More rules and regulations are being laid down that we must follow or else. What happened to our ‘freedom filled’ country? What happened to being praised for being brave to start your own business and make it into something that will support you and/or others? There’s more that I could get going on, but I won’t.

I started this last night and am finishing it up this morning. We have more rain expected over the next few days. Thunder is rumbling as I type. The temps are in the mid 80’s feeling like the mid 90’s. At least we had a ‘glimpse’ of autumn the other day, so we know it’s coming.

I am thankful for all of our days, for each breath we take, each meal that we have, for fresh water, a roof over our heads, books to read, music to make our hearts soar.

I am thankful for my DH, for the love we share. For all the many things that he does around here to care for our home and creatively also. For all the love and encouragement he has given me through the years.

I am thankful to God for our many blessings. For giving us strength, for filling our hearts with peace, hope, love and joy.

FlowerLady Lorraine

***

"Winter is an etching,

spring a watercolor,

summer an oil painting

and autumn a mosaic of them all."

Stanley Horowitz

Blooms, lost-found, tide will turn, lots of photos

Hello Folks ~

I hope you are all doing well. I want to thank you again for get well wishes and prayers for DH. He is getting better and we are thankful for that. Since it hurts him to chew food, I’ve been making him smoothies for breakfast, and different soups for lunch and supper. We’ve had pumpkin/potato, potato/carrot, cauliflower/broccoli and there’s a pot of split pea soup for tomorrow. I’ve been adding organic beef and vegetable broths, herbs, spices, onion and garlic. I want to make a beet soup next. These soups are all blended so that he can just drink it up from a cup. 

I am so glad that he’s doing better. There’s still a way to go until he’s back to normal, but he’s so much better than he was. As oldsters, we think we are still able to do things, but age, heat, humidity, vitamin depletion, etc. can and do take their toll. We’ve learned from this experience in many ways. I’ve also been thinking more about those in chronic pain and about care-givers.

We felt a change in the air today when we were out running an errand.  It is the end of Sept. so there should be some changes going on and we enjoyed being outside.

Over the past week or so I ‘lost’ two things, couldn’t find them anywhere and I looked high and low. I finally told DH (dear husband) and he started thinking of places for me to look, some I had already looked into and others, no findy items. Yesterday morning I was still frustrated by not being able to find them,  I picked up my library book bag and ‘found’ one of the items, an embroidery book underneath. I let out a whoop and DH said you’re going to find the ‘scissors' next.  Between 5-10 minutes later, I was sitting here in my chair, and pulled the bigger scizzors out of their pouch stuck my fingers in the space, and lo and behold, there was the pair I was looking for. I was thrilled.  I hate misplacing things.  I usually find them sooner than I did these two items. I’ve been flustered and preoccupied with DH and how he’s feeling that it’s a wonder I didn’t lose more things.

The little scissors I got when my late MIL passed away, with other craft items, so they mean a lot to me. I love the patina on them.

You can see that the scissors each have their own little space in my pincushion, scissor and debris bag,(I won this several years ago in a drawing and love it).  I absentmindedly put the little scissors in the wrong pouch, then put the larger scissors on top of them. Now they are where they belong once again. Sheesh.

This is the heart I’ve been working on. I added the lace stitched on with French knots. I’ve still more embroidery and beading to do before I feel it is finished. The colors are a bit more subdued than in these two photos, because of the lighting.

This is a little heart I worked on the past few days.  I love it.  It is 2 1/2 inches wide by 2 1/4 inches high.

Now, here are blooms I took photos of yesterday morning. It was very cloudy.

Blanket flowers

A weed, that I think is a Florida native, not sure though.

A fallen frangipani bloom.

Hibiscus

Passion flower. These are so amazing I can’t quit taking photos of them.  They are still blooming and there are quite a few buds too.

Philippine violet

An old poinsettia that is getting ready for it’s time of year.

Salvia greggii

La Marne roses.

Louis Philippe

Climbing Maman Cochet

Louis Philippe growing up over my shed.

Front gate from the sidewalk.

Side front entry gate into patio area, off the driveway.

Driveway gate. I love the plumbago from next door, very pretty.

That’s it from soggy s.e. FL. We had quite a bit of rain over the weekend and lots of cloud cover. I hope today to be able to wash and hang out laundry as we’re supposed to have some sunshine and little if any rain.

I’ll close this with a quote I came across recently.

FlowerLady Lorraine

***

“When you get in a tight place and everything goes against you,

till it seems as though you could not hold on a minute longer,

never give up then,

for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn”.

Harriet Beecher Stowe, abolitionist and author.

Autumn

Good morning Friends,

It is Friday, gray, warm and drippy here.  We had some light rain earlier. I’ll be heading off to work later. DH is still healing up from his neck cramping earlier. This takes time. Keep us in your prayers.

Autumn is here but doesn’t feel like it or look like it down here in s.e. FL. No cooler temps yet either, something we are so looking forward to. I did mow the other day, and it rained afterwards. Yesterday I did some weed wacking. There is still much to do but I don’t have the energy or the inclination while it is still hot and humid.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading, fiction and non-fiction. I love going to the library to see what gems I can bring home with me. I’ve also found a couple of books at a local thrift store and a yard sale. From the thrift store, ‘Captured by Grace ~ No one is Beyond the Reach of a Loving God’. From the library two fiction by Debbie Macomber and three books on beading and embroidery. From our own personal library I took out this book this morning to see what I could find for my day and will post it here.

The excerpt is from a great little book ‘A Well-watered Garden ~ A Gardener’s Guide to Spirituality’ by Harriet Crosby, given to me by a friend many years ago.

This is under the section about Autumn.

“ Our gardens teach us that we are stewards, caretakers of God’s creation.  We cannot make a flower bloom or a tree grow. We can only work to make the conditions right for growth.  And sometimes we can’t even do that – sometimes the weather is too hot or too cold, too dry or too wet.

Our garden are gifts from God that teach us that all life, all growth is in his hands.  Only God has the power to create and sustain life.  All life seems more precious because of the care we lavish on our gardens.  Taking care of them extends our appreciation for other living things.  God made us stewards over his creation so that we could rejoice in it, admire it, and love it as much as God does. And we never take for granted a single bloom, a ripe tomato, or the red leaves of a maple tree.”

I hope you all have wonderful weekends. For those going through tough times whether it be physical, financial, emotional or spiritual, may you feel the love, peace and healing of God surrounding you and flowing through you.

FlowerLady

Overgrown gardens, more rain, heat and humidity

Good evening everyone ~ This morning I took some photos of our overgrown spaces, and then headed out to work on them. I worked in the secret garden area with the weed wacker,  the tree saw and the pole cutter. It looks better but there is still more that needs doing. 

I also did a load of laundry, got it hung on the lines to dry and what does it do before too much time goes by, rains. So the laundry has been super rinsed more than once and will get even more rinsing from the way it looks outside.

It was 84 and felt like it was 100 and I was sweating buckets, drinking my Gatorade as I worked. If the weather co-operates, I’ll be back out there again tomorrow morning working another area. Doing it in stages gets it done without killing me. I’m thankful we only have 1/4 of an acre. I have wished for acreage, but not anymore, at least not to have to control.

The pathway material in and around the main garden is roll roofing, the cheaper variety and it lasted about 5 years before getting cracked up and now grass is coming up in the paths. It’s not a priority right now to replace it so I’ll just use my weedwacker to take care of  the renegades.

This is the path on the west side of the garden. I can hardly believe how bad this is. Where is the dang path?

Along the front.

This is the front patio looking west to the main garden. Where is the path? The patio and concrete benches need pressure cleaning.

 

This is the path off the patio.

Another smaller path just in front of the little fencing almost gone.

This is the front path, sidewalk and street to the left.

Here is my shed’s garden. I did weedwack on the left side this morning, so that the rock border now shows up. I just need to weed the path to St. Francis.

I just went out and took a couple of pictures this evening. Below is the after of the scene above, except that I need to still weed the path.

Here is the secret garden looking east towards my shed. The ‘catrium’ is to the right.

Here we have a blue peavine blossom.  I love this color.

Spiderworts blooms all year long and are a favorite.

This is a rain battered spray of tiny orchids.

This is a bloom from my climbing Maman Cochet.

This is Louis Philippe against the bark of the Norfolk pine tree.

Here are some shots of the sky this evening. Rain heavy clouds.

Thank you all for your kind comments about my watercolors.

Remember that we all have talents. They are gifts from our Creator. Go with your creative flow, feel free, and enjoy the process. Life is a gift, savor every moment.

That’s it for now. I’m starting to feel ready to get horizontal to read before sleep.

Tomorrow is another day.

Hugs ~ FlowerLady Lorraine