Blooms, rain & more rain

Well friends, we needed rain down here in s.e. FL and we’ve certainly gotten it last week, every day with some this week although not as much & more is expected over this weekend. At least I’m not having to pay for water to water gardens and containers. God is watering everything for ‘free’. There was a break in the weather on Monday so I was able to get out to mow. Glad to have that job done.

I hope you are all doing well. It’s hard to believe the month of May is almost gone. The older I get, the faster time seems to zip along.

Here are some photos taken in the last month. I’ve not posted in a month so there are quite a few to share with you.

Vanda orchid ‘Miss Joachim’

‘Blue Lips’

What a wonderful surprise I had the other day as I was standing near this plant. A sweet scent was filling the air and I said to myself, ‘What is that?’ These blue flowers were right beside me so I bent over and sniffed. WOW! I’ve had this plant for a year now and didn’t realize until now with all of the blooms that it has this lovely scent.

‘Bahinia’ scented white orchid tree. I have this in a pot.  Grew it from seed. Have had it many years now.

‘Thunbergia’

I don’t know what this is. Got it for free from a small, private nursery 2-3 years ago. This spreads by seeds and I love it.

‘Garlic Vine’

‘Blue Pea’ vine

‘Hugs-n-kisses’ hibiscus, flowers on the same shrub. I bought this a couple of months after my dear husband left this planet to be with the Great Creator.

These next photos are of a brugmansia bloom over 2-3 days.

I don’t know what this rose is, have had it for years.

‘Louis Philippe’

‘Maman Cochet’ climbing rose

‘Carpet Rose’

NOID when I bought this, has a wonderful scent and a lovely color.

A miniature rose bought at Walmart.

‘Carnation Rose’ next two photos.

‘Zebra Longwing’ on ‘hamelia paten’ blooms and on ‘spinach tree’ blooms.

This palm tree, a Royal Palm, sheds its’ fronds on a regularly basis. I called around, emailed tree removal places also, and only one person got back in touch with me, and his quote was $800. I’ll just deal with it, as it’s not something I can afford at this time. 

This happened Monday morning. The fronds hitting the metal awning ALWAYS FREAKS me out. I got out my tree saw and cut it up to manageable sizes to be picked up.

These next photos are of the little caravan outside and inside, an old pick-up camper that had had a pop up roof so that you could stand up in it. We saved the  camper body (sold the little old truck to business who buys junk cars) and built it up to what it is now. It was a work in progress when DH became ill and then God took him home, so it’s been a sad little neglected space.

Caravan front.

Some part from an old pot-metal light fixture that I painted .

Photo taken a few minutes ago, it was lightly sprinkling. I hang up my laundry on my compact ‘solar dryer’ , that is to the left of caravan. Oh yea, there is electricity in the caravan and a little a.c. unit, which I turn on when I’m going to be in there for a bit.

I recently bought an ‘Inspire’ journal Bible and a set of colored pencils which I’ll do a post on later. The Bible was the inspiration (no pun intended, but it is what it is), to do something happy to this little space. I looked in our ‘stash’ of all kinds of stuff to see if I could find a nice piece to make a  workspace/desktop that would cover the tops of two plastic drawer storage units. Found nothing. Decided to go to HD to see what they might have and after looking around, I finally found on the bottom shelf, really nice finished plywood 17 3/8” by 72”. Perfect. 

I went back to the oops! section in the paint dept. and got a sample can in a light lavender for 50 cents. The plywood was right around $20. I almost used up the sample can of paint, after painting the plywood with three coats.

I had some lace curtains I’d gotten at a small flea market a few years ago, $1 a panel, I bought all she had, 5 of them. These were hanging at the entrance into my bedroom, now they grace the humble caravan with their feminine beauty.  I am looking forward to using this space for journaling, meditating, praying, creating. It is 6’ x 9’.

I had a fold up mattress that folded into a chair or a mattress to sleep on. It is resting on top of a curbside find I found on my way to work many years ago, a cedar hope chest painted yellow. I had the fabric to cover it in my stash, and the two pillow shams I’d bought at a bargain place for $2 each I think years ago and they are gypsyish looking so perfect for the look I’m going for.

As you can see, it is not finished off inside. I’ve been going over and over in my mind how I could finish this off, and am still  mulling it over. My dear husband was the builder, I was his helper.

Here I am resting, I fit in that space laying down.

Here’s my view looking out the window.

This morning I got out some satiny fabric, black with embroidered roses and gold thread bordering, and this is what I did with it. Tacked it to the 2x4 framing. The green lace curtain was in some stuff DH found curbside a long time ago. (How I miss his coming home from juants, with ‘free’ goodies. Through the years, we’ve found some wonderful things curbside, some we sold and some we kept.)

I will post more pics as I go along with this project. It’s on a frugal budget.

Below, my sweet ‘Miss Tork’ taken yesterday morning.

(Footboard and headboard, this is footboard in photo, found ‘roadside’ dumped in a pile in Spain, DH was stationed in Spain while in the US Navy. We loaded the two pieces onto the top of our car, drove around the base to get to our apt. as we did not have permission to bring this through the base. Then we loaded it into our apt. and got back on the road again as we had just started out on a vacation when we found these. They are made from beech wood, I stained them dark on our apt. balcony, this was early 70’s. Later, the property owner had painted a huge sign saying “No ponga la basura”. = don’t put your garbage. We got a kick out of that.)

Ok, I’ve probably overloaded you with photos, so I’ll quit for now.

For those in the US, have a great long Memorial Day weekend. May everyone else also have a wonderful weekend wherever you are.

Count your blessings,

thank God

&

Love others,

FlowerLady