This and that

Good morning everyone ~ I hope you all had a great weekend. It is starting to feel like summer here in s.e. FL.  We did have a good although short heavy rain Saturday night. The winds blew, rain pelted windows, I prayed. I do NOT like storms. The start of hurricane season is here too. UGH!

Now on with some pictures.

The piece below is an outdoor bar of some sort, found curbside many years ago. You can see by the house wall behind, how it needs to be painted, but first I need to get the peeling paint off. UGH!  Prep work just isn’t fun at all, but oh so necessary.

I am grouping plants together for easier care on my part, and for keeping things out of the afternoon heat and sun.  This is on the east side, gets 2-3 hours morning sun, I’m guessing.

The old but still useable cushions, are faded and jaded, but still a lot more life left in them. I didn’t spend a lot of time on painting them with my samples of Behr Ext. Premium Plus Ultra paint. Although, it did take a little time and some going over and tweaking.  They aren’t perfect, but they work for me.  Beats paying $40, for the cheapest cushions, which were like half the thickness of these. The colors aren’t the same on both cushions, as I mixed paint up with a bit of water in small batches. I don’t really care, they just look so much better than they did.  I can always add more color later.

Here’s the start of the first cushion.

After

Before

After

I did get my new electric lawn mower put together.  The hardest part which really turned out so ‘easy’ I am embarrassed, took the longest time.  I just couldn’t figure out the directions by reading them, and looking at the tiny pic in the instructions.  I got online and got the PDF instructions, saved and blew up the picture so I could really ‘see’ it, and finally figured it out.  Sheesh!

This plastic bit is supposed to go into the slot next to the handle.

And, after much frustration, it does, easily. For Pete’s sake.

This mower is so much lighter than the gas one. I can hardly wait to use it. I’ll let you know how I like it after using it.

Now I just have to buy a 100’ 12 gauge extension cord. I have one but it has a two plug-in box at the one end, and that’s not going to work for plugging in the mower.

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Below are some blooms/buds taken this morning.  These are datura. I got these as stick cuttings last year, 6 of them, I gave one away after it rooted since I had two of the same. I have two this size now, and two tiny ones hanging on. I don’t know what color these are until they open. I’m excited.

Red geraniums from my friends Nanci & John.  They’ve given me lots of flowers and plants through the 17 years of working next door to them.

The green/purple veined leaves in the middle are African Blue Basil that I got at the local botanical garden nursery last year.  This basil is more of a perennial and is very hardy for south FL.

Gorgeous hibiscus.

This is my Queen Crepe, with lots of buds on it.

Here is one of the first open blooms. They are huge compared to the regular crepe myrtle flowers.

This is looking out through the west bedroom window into my main garden.

This is part of the east side of my tropical, cottage, jungle gardens. Back through the open lattice gate is the secret garden on the north side of cottage.

This is standing in the same spot, but looking south west.

Well, I’ve overloaded you all once again with pictures, so will end this post.

I want to say a heart-felt thank you for your kind comments about this little place called ‘Plum Cottage’ and about my dear husband and the love we shared and my love that continues to grow for him even though he is no longer here physically. I’m working on a post of my ‘musings’ on more of this, but it’s in the thought stages at the moment.

I will close this post with a link to a wonderful writing I came across the other day that really touched my heart, encouraged and blessed my soul.

The article is by J.R. Miller 1903 – One Day at a Time.

Have a good week wherever you are, whatever you are doing. Live in each moment that you are blessed with.

FlowerLady