Thank you all

Good morning Friends ~ Words can’t express the thankfulness I have for all of your prayers, encouraging words, your friendship. I am blessed.

It has been a tad cooler, with less humidity, which makes it nicer and easier to work outside. Plus, my feet don’t hurt like they did. I have more energy, and it is a joy being outside working. I’ve been outside every morning from 2-3 hours, stopping when my body says ‘Ok, that’s enough’. I take water outside with me, and I wear a little fanny pack that holds my cell phone. This was a suggestion made by my relatives, in case something should happen while I’m out working.

I got a lovely pkg in the mail earlier this week, but I can’t share it until we have the ‘reveal’ for the 9th teacup/mug exchange. It was my first time participating and it was a real treat, buying for one lady, and receiving from another lady. I forgot to take a photo of what I sent but hopefully the lady I sent to will post about it on her blog.  My pkg received was wonderful and a bright spot after the scary adventure of dealing with getting ready for hurricane Matthew.

As to Matthew, we were not told to evacuate down here. Up along the coasts of northern FL, GA, SC and NC were. The flooding has been the worst for them, even now a week after the storm. My husband and I have lived here since we were just kids, and the storms we had that we ‘really’ had to deal with were Frances & Jeanne, 2004, then Wilma in 2005. All three scary, but Wilma was the worst and we had the eye go right over us. That is truly amazing. Sunny, blue sky, no wind, and then bam, here comes the back side of the storm which was worse than the front side. Hurricane season is 6 months long. The most active time Sept-Oct.

It has been rather peaceful and I’ve had some rain here in my gardens.  I am really enjoying working outside again.

You can’t really see much here, but the top half of a dead pine fell into these overhanging limbs from the neighbors.

The night blooming cactus had grown up this tree,  and combine it’s heaviness with the wind, it snapped off the tree.

This was taken after I cut away some of the limbs. I didn’t want to cut away the wrong limbs and then get frapped in the face as they came out from under the dead tree. I’m having a tree trimmer I used before to come out and take care of some things that need to be taken down. DH used to do all of this, and I would help cut it all up smaller to be picked up by the ‘brush’ people. The tree trimmer will be back from vacation around the 25th. He did tell me I could make payments instead of having to pay the full amount right up front.

I worked clearing the path in the little St Francis garden one morning. This was done with hand clippers and pulling with my hands, otherwise known as ‘weeding’. I still need to fix my weed-whacker so that I can trim the edge on the left hand side.

This was taken on the 8th. I had mowed and laundry was drying on the lines. All was peaceful.

Here is ‘shovel bird’ resting on his perch, with the back jungle behind him. We bought this in GA on our way home from NC in 2006. This was at a roadside home/stand. Lots of metal works of art some really huge.

I was out early one morning and saw how the stained glass light shade looked through the heart cutout of hurricane shutter.

There were some flower buds on the night blooming cactus that came down with the dead pine tree section, so I put this section where I would hopefully remember to take some pics. I missed one, and I totally missed them full open.

These shots I remembered to take the next morning, all of the same flower. The first two were with the flash on.

This is without the flash.

The next blooms are of bromeliads.

Next are the sweet blooms of Duranta erecta or Golden Dewdrop. The flowers smell like licorice to me.

Now for some roses. The first is “Barnhouse” bought from Rose Petals Nursery. A real delight and a sweet light scent.

This is an unkn. Rather wind beaten.

This is ‘Cemetery Rose’ from Connie at Harwood Roses, in a trade. Thank you Connie. This is one very sweet little rose, scentwise and in the delicacy of the blooms.

I forgot to turn the flash off on the picture below. Nice picture of the bee though.

This rose is ‘Prosperity’. You can see the rose cutter bees have been taking samples out of the leaves. Maybe this is one of those types of bees, I don’t know.

Without the flash.

Here’s a dragonfly. I love these flying critters. Have a lot of them, different kinds too. They are great for eating up mosquitoes.

Ok, I think that’s it for now. I have enjoyed reading blog posts about cooling temps and seeing homes decorated for fall and all of the gorgeous colors of the trees. WOW.

Have a wonderful weekend, count your blessings and be kind and encouraging.

Love & hugs ~ FlowerLady