Beauty at the workplace

 

Hello Folks ~ Here it is Friday already.  This week has zipped by fast. My going to visit, feed, letting Bella and Max out three times a day, plus my own life, is keeping me busy. My quiet little life has been altered for this period of time. I will enjoy getting back to my needlework projects after this is done.

***

I took some pictures of the beauty surrounding this home.

This is a ponytail palm,

with a staghorn fern attached and growing at the center.

Looking from another angle.

Here is a smaller one. 

(I have a real small one in a pot, but after seeing these two, I’m inspired to plant mine in the ground.)

Bella and Max also in the picture.

I love this chair, one of a pair.  The little potted tree behind it is a Norfolk Pine.

This is a Royal Poinciana, with a close-up of one of the pretty blooms.

This is a neat head with a lovely patina.

This is Mock Orange, or Orange Jessamine, Murraya paniculata.

I have this growing here too. The scent is wonderful.

This is a lovely, thick arch of greenery and flowering shrubs.

Hibiscus

The Lady of the house loves orchids and has them hanging in several of the trees and from the wall in the area beside their patio. This plant is massive. I can only imagine what it must look like when it is loaded with blooms. Orchids are hidden everywhere.

There was this one spray on the other side of the tree.

This is a great piece of artwork, made by an artist that the husband and wife whose garden this is, and myself and my DH both knew. I have a different piece in my gardens.  In fact, I have two different ones, I just remembered a smaller one of a horse.

This is a beautiful bougainvillea at the corner of their patio area.

A gardenia picked from their huge shrub.

Hope you’ve enjoyed these lovely bits from this garden.  Being here inspires me to work more in my own gardens.  It gives me a different perspective and way of looking at things.

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It’s hot and humid here, but not as bad as it is in TX and other places. We’ve had some rain, not as much as was predicted though. I mowed yesterday.

Stopped by a new little off the wall plant nursery the other day which I’ll tell about in another post.

Have a nice weekend wherever in the world you are, and count your blessings.

FlowerLady

Flowers, critters, an upcoming ‘event’

 

Hello Friends ~ It’s a little after 5 p.m. EST. Supper is heating up, the wind is picking up and T-storms are predicted in about an hour.  They’ve been predicted several times this week and we’ve gotten zilcho, nada. I was out hand watering this morning, and the sweat was just beading up as it was in the high 80’s and with the humidity felt like it was in the low 100’s. I worked outside the last three mornings a total of 9 1/2 hours. There is still more to do, but this morning I just didn’t feel like it. I moved potted plants to the main garden so that I can take care of them better.

The before pictures were taken the 19th of last month, so the overgrowth was even worse when I went in and weedwacked and trimmed this week.

Before

 

After

Before

After

There were a couple other paths too. I want to lay roll-roofing down again for the paths, just haven’t bought it yet. It lasted 7-8 years. Did it so I wouldn’t have to weed wack the paths.

Lots of butterflies are visiting. Flowers are blooming. The spider is keeping his web strung across the driveway, a bit higher than my van.

Love this pink hibiscus.

Love the shadow on the petals.

All three of these roses are unknowns to me, the bottom two are miniatures.

Here are the two sweet canine critters I’ll be visiting/babysitting for 36 days. When I first met these two, I was intimidated because they are BIG dogs and Bella has a LOUD bark. The owner of these two said they were harmless, but he was surprised when old Max came up to where I was sitting and wanted to be petted.  He said he doesn’t do that normally to strangers, so, they accepted me. Dogs have scared me, especially big ones since I was young.

My husband and I had dogs, Pup, a little terrier, and Blub, a blue tick hound. I was afraid of Blub when we first got him, because he was big and black, but he was a real sweetheart.

Bella ~ look how she’s looking right at me.

Max ~ was shy, but I’ll try to get some better pics when I’m with them this next month.

On the property where they and their owners live, is a huge star fruit tree. It is loaded with fruit. I plan to pick as many as I can to give away and to eat myself.  When you cut crosswise into the fruit, the shape is a star.  I’ll show you in a later post. I once made a star fruit and green grape pie, good and different.  The star fruit was from this very tree.

Here we have sapodilla. Oh my gosh, I’d never had this before. The owner gave me one that was ripe and told me to eat it. WOW, it tasted of buttery, brown sugar and was absolutely wonderful.  You can read about the health benefits here. I’m going to see about getting my own little sapodilla tree.

This morning I got a phone call from the owner, left a message, as I was outside working, saying he had two tickets for he and his wife to see VAREKAI BY CIRQUE DU SOLEIL in August , but they will be in Finland. Would I want the tickets free of charge? Oh my goodness, yes! I emailed my sis-in-law to see if she would want to go and she emailed back yes. I am excited and nervous, as this is out of my comfort zone.  I am a home body, but I’ve seen bits and pieces of this circus and they are wonderfully amazing. I can hardly wait.

https://www.cirquedusoleil.com/en/shows/varekai/media/official-video.aspx

Well, we had a nasty thunderstorm with strong winds and heavy rains blow over a little while ago. I hate to admit it, but storms FREAK me out, always have. In this little wooden house with metal awnings it sounds pretty loud and intense at times. I prayed, read from a spiritually uplifting book and ate my supper and before I knew it the storm had passed. A relief!

Here’s the heart with the beaded butterfly on it, soon to be uploaded into my Etsy shop. The little silver piece says BELIEVE.

That’s it from Plum Cottage.

Thank you all for visiting.

Have a nice weekend ~ FlowerLady

Rain, wind, hail, flowers, goodies, etc.

 

Hi Folks ~ This will no doubt be another rambling post.  It’s been a week since the last one.

I meant to mention the beautiful full moon a week or so ago, the first morning I saw it when opening bedroom curtains. I aaahed at it’s beauteous bigness, thanked God for it and burst into tears. I’ve never done that before but the beauty of it through the trees touched me deeply.

A couple of days ago, some scary weather blew over, freaking out Miss Tork and I. She disappeared under the bed, I just hunkered on the sofa/love seat and prayed.  We had big strong, gusty wind, heavy rain and even hail. I was glad when it had passed on over.  The rain was good for all growing things, but it did not help with the heat and humidity, in fact I think it’s been worse.

Sunday morning as I was closing the driveway gate, after having been out for awhile, a mail truck pulled up. I reopened the gate and went out there.  I’ve never had a delivery on Sunday before. This was a pkg. from Amazon. Inside were a couple of books, a pkg. of 25 watt and one of 15 watt bulbs for the two Himalayan Salt Lamps I’d ordered. The box was heavy.  I hoped these lamps were whole and not broken, and they were fine. I read about salt lamps in someone’s blog, not sure which one now, and looked them up online. After reading quite a few reviews, I decided to buy two of these for my little cottage.  You can read about them here on Amazon’s site. Himalayan Salt Lamps.  You can read about the health benefits here. The ones I bought from Amazon have a dimmer switch, which is really nice. I have them brighter during the day.  One is in the living room close to my little creative space, which I have on in the daytime, turning it off at night.  The one in the bedroom is on for awhile bright mode before sleep, then I dim it down to use for a night light, which is ‘very comforting’.

This is the one in the bedroom, pretty bright to get the negative ions doing their thing. Having this dimmed down at night for a night light does something for me. It’s calming. Two of the benefits for these, is sleep and moods.

The one in the living room.

Here it is dimmed down with the overhead light turned off. I really love the dimmer switch.

I am not getting anything from this company for posting about this.

***

My sis-in-law, Sue saw them when she was here yesterday and she loved them. Speaking of Sue, she is my brother-in-law, Todd’s wife. We went on a ‘shopping jaunt’ yesterday to some thrift places looking for a sofa for their son’s new apt.

We didn’t really find anything although there were some possibilities. We went to ‘Faith Farm’ (which is a ministry for addiction recovery), thrift place, huge, been around for years and years. DH and I went to this many years ago. Yesterday was sr. citizen’s day and the place was ‘packed’. Sue took pics of sofas and sent them to her son via her phone. We checked out different bins, etc. for ourselves. She found some really pretty wine glasses at a GREAT price. I bought one little glass piece. It was 45 cents but with my discount, I got it for 34 cents. It looks pretty with this little creamer-sugar set from my friend Nanci.  (It had been her mothers and I knew her mother for quite a few years before she passed away. She and I shared the same birthday.)

From there we went to Habitat for Humanity’s ‘Restore’ store. It is really close to me, just opened last month.  I’m thrilled. Sue was thrilled too even though they live a little over an hour away from here. She found more glasses, and I found two for 25 cents each, plus I found a couple of books, hardbacks are 50 cents and paperbacks a quarter.

Then we went on down the road toward home, and stopped at the Salvation Army Thrift store. I bought two books there, and Sue bought me the yarn shown below, (which I use to crochet ‘comforters’, which have gone to widows or someone ill. I enjoy making them, they are lap size.)

One bummer about the crocheted flowers book is that I cannot use any thing I create from her patterns for selling purposes, strictly personal use.

Sue and Todd were recently in Georgia and brought back some fresh picked corn and blueberries.  Also some Vidalia onions, from Vidalia, GA. They graciously shared with me and she also brought me some homemade spaghetti which I plan to have for supper tonight.  I am thankful for these gifts.

Sue and I went to Pollo Tropical for lunch.  We both had Mojo pork over rice, with black beans, etc. and she got some boiled yucca, I got fried yucca and a really good and ‘garlicky’ sauce. I’m going to start fixing yucca myself.  The boiled was good. I don’t really do deep fried foods here at home.

Todd and I talked the other morning via phone, and we’re going to be working on my bedroom and the bathroom too, hopefully in August or September. YIPPEE!

I am going to be doing the house-dog-sitting type job for 36 days, going there 2-3 times a day to feed, let the dogs out and visit with them. Vacuum once a week, wash their bedding. It’s close to home, and I am thankful for the job. The have wi-fi so I can take my laptop and be online while there, or I can just sit and read a book in a different space other than here at home.

Ok, here are a few flowers and spider pics, then I’ll close this long-winded post.

Hibiscus and Spotted Horsemint.

This guy was ‘huge’ maybe 3-4 inches across.  His web is stretched across the driveway, higher up.

‘Granada’

‘Rose de Rescht’.

What I’m creating now on some antique French linen from my friends Nanci & John. John bought it on one of his trips to France, to use to upholster pieces for their antique shop. Nanci hand washed them. and before they closed up shop, she gave me a nice piece of it.

Ok, that’s truly it for now.

Have a wonderful weekend, wherever you are, whatever you are doing.

Count your blessings.

FlowerLady

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Edited at 3:30 p.m.

At 1:41 there was a HUGE EXPLOSION at the front corner of our property. Miss Tork leaped off her chair out of sound sleep and I just gasped in the kitchen. Power was shut off immediately. All was quiet except for the wind chimes making music on the porch. It was raining but thunder and lightening were off to the east. I figured it was the transformer across the street as that’s the one that usually goes. Well, it was the one on this side of the street, right at the corner of our driveway. The electric co. got here 2:55, and by 3:15 power was back on.  I went out and told the guy thank you. I wouldn’t want to have to do his job.

I had just turned off the a.c. and the computer before the explosion. Both are ok. Sheesh! All’s well that ends well.