Summer Project

Good afternoon Folks, It is a gray, very warm and humid day. We’ve been having rain off and on for several days now, and for that we are very thankful. Everything is greening up down here, and before long it will be a tropical jungle once again. I thought I’d write more about our restoration/repurposing project. We call this our stationary gypsy wagon. The fiberglass half of this was the camper on an old pickup that had seen better days. We took the camper body off, and sold the truck last autumn. DH used his CAD program to draw up plans and we’ve been using as much materials as we already have either from other projects or curbside shopped. Plus 4 small stained glass windows we bought years ago. We have three tin panels that we are using on the roof. We have some terra cotta colored roofing paint that we found that is great stuff, and will be painting the tin with it. It feels so good to be using up ‘stuff’ from our stash. I’ve already been working on the courtyard garden that is on the back side/east side of the gypsy wagon. On the south side will be a partial view into the ‘secret garden’, DH’s workshop and our screened room where the jacuzzi is. Below is a picture of the front side. DH will be making a door, using the paned glass window, shown at the bottom of my last post. Here is the first of two little stained glass windows that for the front wall. You can see the bougainvillea from our neighbor’s property in the center piece. This is a side view. I know this doesn’t look like much now, and some of you might be running and hiding your eyes, but it will look much better when it is finished. We have two matching top windows that we found curbside many years ago, and have now put them to use above the windows in the original camper. All four of these windows have a sliding glass panel and a screen to let in breezes. The side facing us is where the little refrigerator, tiny stainless steel sink, and the propane stove go, with a small counter. The refrigerator runs on either electricity or propane. Here is a look at the inside as it is right now, well, we do that the window in on the right now. This little space is only 6’x8’. We were given the back window which cranks out and is also tinted for sun and double paned. We installed a frame on the inside of windows space and put in a screen the other morning. We are going to insulate it with foam board and also 2” thick styrofoam. The walls and ceiling will be paneling painted white.DH is going to paint faux tiles on the floor, and then I’ll put an old Oriental rug in there too. We will put a bench under the back window all across the back. We will use the two canvas folding chairs, cleaned up, and a nice couple of solid wood TV trays also. We want to keep it airy looking in here. Once the counter and little appliances are back on the other side where they were originally, it will start feeling cramped .The other night we thought of using this space to sleep in while we remodel our bedroom, with flooring we have stacked in DH’s workshop, and paint the walls. We have an old Army cot that DH will sleep on where the chairs are now sitting and I will sleep on the cushioned bench at the back. Here is the back. We will have two more little stained glass windows on either side of the window in the top wood. I just thought of these two little windows the other night. They were sitting in my scullery window. I told DH my idea and he thought it a good idea. I took a picture of one of the windows which is below this picture. We have siding to go on over the tar papered wall over the window. This is the view of the courtyard in progress from inside. You can see my ‘solar dryer’. This is a pleasant area to hang out the laundry. Butterflies, birds, bees and hummingbirds, foliage, wonderful scents.

The flower below is on my bush Grand Duke Jasmine. It is loaded with these wonderful smelling flowers.

These two are in bloom in the hedge of the ‘secret garden’, which is to the south of the courtyard area. The ‘Incense’ passion bloom fills the air with its sweet scent too.

My friend Nanci, who has the shop next to where I work, gave me 5 orchids that I’ve shown the flowers of before. I was thrilled to say the least. She was going away for a few weeks and didn’t want them to die. She had already lost a couple of plants. I don’t know the name of this orchid or what type it is. I hope and am pretty sure that someone out there will be able to tell me. Here is a picture I took and posted awhile back. They have big oval shaped leaves. They had all seen better days, but I hope to keep them alive and have them thrive.

Ok, that’s it for now. I hope you all are keeping as cool as possible. Don’t work too hard, or too long in the heat and drink plenty of water.

The sky is dark, the wind is blowing, and thunder is rolling.

Bye for now.

Plum Cottage Blooms, Easter dinner, etc.

Good morning all, It's a new week, and I hope it's a good one. This was an early morning sky shot yesterday. We had had a little rain and the clouds were a welcome sight. I love the light of the sun shining in the sky and hitting the clouds.

We had a lovely Easter dinner. Roasted lamb, with gray poupon mustard, mint jelly, LeSuer Peas, mashed potatoes and a glass of merlot. For dessert, I tried a new recipe, Chocolate Ricotta dessert, which was different and good.

Lamb was dang expensive this year, but we decided to get it anyway, as it is what we like and look forward to have for our Easter celebratory dinner .

I slice off the excess fat, usually cut slits in the meat and insert garlic slivers, but this year didn't have fresh garlic, so I just sprinkled on some dried garlic bits, after spreading on some Gray Poupon mustard all over the top of meat. Then I sprinkled on some Italian bread crumbs, and some fresh rosemary.

Roast it at 425 degrees for 15 minutes, then roast at 350 for 10-15 minutes per lb.

Our dinner.

Chocolate Ricotta Dessert - different and delicious. I doubled the recipe so that we could have 4 servings, two for another meal.

I found the recipe here.

Chocolate Ricotta dessert

Ingredients: (2 servings)

* 1/2 cup Ricotta cheese
* 2 tbsp light agave nectar (I used sugar)
* 2 tbsp cocoa powder
* 1/2 tsp vanilla (I added orange extract also)
* 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie (I used 5 spice blend)

* Put all the ingredients in a small 3-cup food processor starting with the ricotta.
* Press the process button and let the machine do its thing until the ricotta is smooth to your liking.
* Your done!

I just mixed this really well by hand. Oh yea, on top I spooned a bit of Duck Sauce.



Now for some blooms from our Plum Cottage gardens.

Kathleen a hybrid musk, in the next two pictures, with some unknown critter sipping nectar.



Maggie

Grand Duke jasmine ~ I LOVE the scent of this jasmine.

Don Juan

I believe this is a blanket flower.


Now for a couple of things that were not pleasant last week. First of all, DH was bitten by our neighbor's pit bull. I was at work when it happened and wanted to race home to take care of him. This neighbor lives on the street west of us, but his property goes across the back of ours. This dumb, mean dog, races up and down our privacy fencing, slamming his body into the fence and growls and snarls and barks, whenever we are back there. He scares the you know what out of me, and DH isn't comfortable about this dog either. He loves dogs and always makes friends with them. Well, there is construction going on on this street, across the street from the neighbor, and DH has been talking with the contractor and the crew while building is going on. The neighbor was sitting on his porch with the dog sleeping there, and DH decided to go over to talk a bit with neighbor, and maybe make friends with the dog. There is a chainlink fence in part of the front, and metal post fencing too, the back is privacy fencing. DH and the guy were talking and the dog jumps up and races to where DH is about a foot away from the chainlink fencing, the guy did not call his dog back, and the dog slams into the fence, which gave way because of not being secured to top rail, and sagged out toward DH and the dog lunged and bit DH's right hand while having a bit of the fence in his mouth too. It's a good thing the fence was there to stop the dog from ripping a bite out of DH's hand, because the dog was pulling. DH couldn't believe it because it all happened so fast, and he told the neighbor, hey, your dog just bit me. The guy jumped up, chased the dog with his shoe, then got some hydrogen peroxide and poured it on DH's hand.

The neighbor said the dog has had his shots. DH came home, called me, asking if we had any iodine. I wasn't sure. He said he was going to walk to the grocery pharmacy to see what they recommended and I said I'd look up essential oils online too. The pharmacist told him to get neo-sporin because it had three antibiotics in it, so he got that. I read that tea tree oil, lavender, and helichrysum are all good for fighting infection, pain, swelling, etc. and we have all three in our essential oil collection. DH even talked with a canine cop who happened to be at the 7/11 across the street from grocery, and the guy told him to leave it open to the air so that the healing could go from inside out. He said he's been bit many times by their dogs.

Of course, I was a semi-wreck until I got home, then seeing DH's hand was almost too much. It was bloody and bruised and swollen. But, it is healing nicely. We are thankful it wasn't any worse. I won't show pictures.

Next event in the neighborhood with transient apartment complex to the east of us. Kids have been shooting bb's into our property for quite some time, plus, other stuff, then they want to come over the privacy fencing into our space to retrieve whatever it is they threw over. Anyway, this latest bb incident I was out back just starting to putter in new garden area, when I hear cock-ping, cock-ping several times, so I head for cover under my sheds awning, and the next thing I know the shed is hit. That did it. I went inside and told DH I had just been freaked out by the dang pit bull when I went back to my potting area, and now bb's were flying. That did it for him too. He went outside and could hear the cock-ping ( ping meaning bushes, fencing or whatever being hit). He yelled over the fencing and trees for them to please stop shooting into our property. A teen voice comes back saying we're only shooting into the trees, and he yelled back ...... They shot off a few more times and DH asked me to come in to call the non-emergency sheriff number and I did, and told them what had happened. She told me to stay indoors until someone got there. Someone did come and we talked to them, and they went next door. The sheriff told us eyes could be put out if hit, so this is serious. Hopefully, there will be no repercussions. These people also have a pit bull. Our neighborhood has changed so much from when we first moved in here in 1973. It used to be quiet, filled with elderly Finnish people, but they have all gone away, more construction has gone on to pack people in, there are more transients, here today gone tomorrow and it's why we'd move if the opportunity arose. This is our home though, our little haven we're continually working on. It just gets to us to have our peace imposed on by others who could care less. We just try to mind our own business, doing our own thing.

Yesterday when we were out doing errands we looked for and found one of those ultrasonic devices to use on dogs. Maybe this will keep him from slamming into our back fence. We'll see.

On a positive note, DH went to the construction site while I was writing this post, and came back with a cantaloupe from one of the workers. So I cut it up along with some banana, dried cranberries, and dried figs, topped with some plain yogurt, and a drizzle of honey. Delicious breakfast this morning.

I do feel somewhat depressed this morning and told DH. I'm usually a happy, positive person, but these events have piled up and I woke up in a blah/bluesy state of mind. I need to get up, do some homecaring, baking, etc. take a walk around my gardens, and go/grow from there. Unfortunately, crap does come our way, we can either fall under, or rise above. I choose to rise above, one step at a time.

There are a lot of buds on my passion vine, my Easter lily has a nice bud ( I was hoping for an Easter opening, but alas), our Queen crepe has buds. Roses are doing well. Pesto Basil seeds have sprouted.

Thanks for reading my post, if you made it this far. It was rather long.

Hope your day whatever you are doing or going through is a growing day, in your mind, spirit, your body, in your business, your crafts, your gardens, with your family. May we all be blessed with peace, strength and love.

Sincerely,

Zone 10 ~ s.e. FL

'Grand Duke of Tuscany' Jasminum sambac

This is my favorite jasmine. I don't even remember where I got this. I just realized in the past few weeks how easily this roots, so I am thrilled to be adding more of this around in our gardens and the screened room.

I just did a Google search for some info to share here and TopTropicals says this:

Jasminum sambac is an evergreen shrub, that often reaches 5 ft in height in pots. Called "pikake" in Hawaii, Jasminum Sambac is the plant used to flavor the jasmine tea and making perfumes.

"Grand Duke of Tuscany " ('Butt Mograw', 'Rose Jasmine') Origin: Iran. A slow growing Jasmine but grandest of them all, with the largest flowers. Up to 1.5" double flowers look like miniature roses. This tall growing shrub has Gardenia type flowers. The older plants seem to be more fascinating in providing flowers of different shapes and sizes on the same plant at the same time. A flower stays for a long time (few days) and doesn't drop off and in most cases will dry right on the plant. Same sweet fragrance of Maid of Orleans but stronger. This bushy compact plant needs a little more special attention than other Jasmines. Flower is used for tea and religious ceremonies. Requires frequent pruning for denser shape, otherwise becomes leggy. Everbloomer.

Strongly fragrant, very double, 1.5", white blooms are borne continuously. Deep green glossy foliage on twining vine or scrambling shrub to 8'.

Here are pictures I took this afternoon of these wonderful blooms. They go from tight buds of green to creamy white fat blossoms.

Zone 10 ~ s.e. FL

After some rain

Good afternoon blogging friends. We had some much needed rain Monday evening when a T-storm passed over, maybe about 3 - 4 inches. Then more yesterday morning, but not as much. It was just what the plant life needed down here after being in drought conditions for so long.

Here are some pictures after the rains.

Grand Duke jasmine

Red Castor Bean

Hibiscus

Thunbergia Shrub

Spiderwort

Periwinkle

Old blush

Mutabilis

Million bells

Mm. Laurette Messimy

Ducher

******

How beautiful is the rain!
After the dust and the heat,
In the broad and fiery street,
In the narrow lane,
How beautiful is the rain!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Rain in Summer