Hot, humid, wind, rain, hail, granola, needlework

Some title huh? It is 4:22 p.m. 93 and with the heat index feels like it is 103. Yesterday morning there wasn’t a cloud anywhere and I said a little prayer asking for rain. Well, last evening a thunderstorm blew in with plenty of thunder and lightening, heavy rain and some hail too. Yikes! Tork ( our indoor/outdoor feline girl) started yowling like crazy and hid under the chopping block table in the kitchen, next to the freezer’s vent space. It must have been comforting under there. More rain is expected early this evening, we’ll see. The predictions aren’t always right that’s for sure.

Yesterday morning I made homemade granola for the first time. It smelled so good while baking in the oven and it is delicious as cereal in the morning. I will be doing this again.

The other afternoon I drew up another bit of needlework to work on. Haven’t started yet, but at least the drawing is done.

We’ve been working on our ‘project’ in the mornings, and even then it is miserable out. We did have quite a bit of cloud cover this morning and even cool breezes in the shade. It’s just the beginning of summer. Cool temps are a long way off for us, if we’re lucky it will be around Oct.-Nov. Just hoping we don’t get any hurricanes, the season has started and doesn’t end until the end of Nov.

Thank you all for your input on the unknown bird visitors we had the other morning. I do believe after doing research on one possibility that they were Spot-breasted Orioles.

Well, it’s almost time to get supper started. Tonight we are having flounder in a green curry sauce, served over jasmine rice with yellow squash, and white wine. Sounds good to me.

I’ll be working the next three days so not much puttering will be done around here. Hope you all have a great weekend whatever you do.

Still hot and humid :-(

Good evening Folks. I hope you all had a really nice weekend. The past couple of mornings while reading blogs I've been so inspired to get out and work in my own gardens again. So, I headed outside, started weeding, trimming, and sweating buckets. There was hardly a stir of a breeze. I kept on, started digging a hole to plant a potted Queen's wreath and Philippine Violet combo, and had to quit before I croaked. I just started to feel like I'd had enough. I did not want to end up keeled over in the garden. I was so bummed out. Sheesh, when is the cooler weather going to come down here? We are so ready for the heat and humidity (especially the latter) to be GONE.

Since I couldn't work outside, I got inspired looking at the embroidery book from the library, and took a picture of one of our iron gates with arbor that DH made, then came in to the computer to get it edited and printed. Then I traced it onto fabric, and started drawing plants roughly that I plan to put into this piece. I really look forward to working on this. When the colorful threads start being stitched, it starts coming to life. Maybe I'll start tonight, maybe not.



A big pot full of vegetable, Italian sausage soup is simmering on the stove and smelling really good. I think I'll cook up some noodles to add to it too. Made a loaf of Coconut milk, flax meal bread in the bread machine this morning while I was working outside. Will serve that too, along with a glass of wine.

I want to say thanks to all of you bloggers for sharing your garden spaces. They are inspiring to look at, and encouraging too. Every garden is different. Blotanical is such a wonderful place to read about all kinds of gardens all over the world. It's really amazing how connected we all are.

***

I have found, through years of practice,

that people garden in order to make something grow;

to interact with nature; to share, to find sanctuary, to heal,

to honor the earth,

to leave a mark.

Through gardening,

we feel whole

as we make our personal work of art upon our land.

Julie Moir Messervy, The Inward Garden, 1995

***

Hope you all have a great week.

Zone 10 ~ s.e. FL