Hot and humid ~ summer is here!

Good afternoon Folks ~ I do hope you are enjoying your week. Summer has most definitely started down here in s.e. FL. It’s in the mid 80’s and feels like 98.  Humidity makes it awful for sure.  At least my dear husband doesn’t have to suffer through that this summer.  He’s where the weather is ‘perfect’.

I mowed and weed-wacked yesterday, trimmed vines, trees and shrubs this morning, pulled weeds too and washed and hung out a load of laundry. I can’t work outside after a certain time as it is just too dang much.  Had a couple of sprinkles as the laundry was washing, but that was it.  Some thunder later to the west of us, but no rain, which we could use more of.  We haven’t had any since Andrea dumped that last deluge on us a week and a half ago. I have to hand water things that are in containers as they dry out quickly.

Monday was my fourth meeting with my widow friends.  Here is the link to the blog and the day’s meeting.  You can look at tabs to get more info etc.  Friends Needing Friends

Flowers and weeds are growing like crazy.  I lost some things to the overly saturated ground from the rain, agastache and another sweet ground cover that was doing well.  Boo hoo!

But, I’ve still plenty of blooms drawing lots of butterflies and I am thankful.

Zebra longwing and hamelia paten blooms.  Hummingbirds love this also

Garlic vine blossoms

Hibsicus tree blooms in the driveway.  On the tree they are bright yellow. Hibiscus tiliaceus is a species of flowering tree in the mallow family.

Queen crepe blooms with palm and blue skies behind.

Gazania or blanket flower

Pentas

Purple top verbena.  I love this. Bought it at the spring plant sale and the butterflies love it and I love how tall it is and seeing it sway in the breezes.

Sunflowers

Front entry looking from the driveway

Start of front  path

Looking toward the driveway from entry patio

View of caravan garden

Now, below may not look like much to you, but to me, it means a lot. My dear husband was always drawing up plans for one project or another around here and I came across this one the other day and of course the tears just came. It’s little things like this that make me miss him every day.

I am thankful that he enjoyed working and creating with his hands.  He was that way from when he was just a boy. He would sit and build with his erector set while listening to Harry Belafonte on albums of his mother’s. He said whenever she put this album on he felt like building.  He liked using a hammer and nails, took shop in school, built furniture then for his bedroom at home.  In Spain we went to the woodworking shop on base and built furniture there out of teak. His dream was to have a work shop and we built one from the ground up and he loved it and so do I. It is FULL of all kinds of tools, lots of projects were created using those tools and I am using some of them now myself.  He did a lot of antique restoration for different people also. He was good. I miss working with him.

Here is the tune that he really enjoyed.  The music is fun and laid back.

Harry Belafonte - Matilda

Enjoy each day. Be yourself.

FlowerLady

***

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are. 

e.e. cummings

November flowers

Hello Folks ~ Here it is nearing the end of November. We’ve had some chilly nights mild days, so our weather has been beautiful. I have enjoyed working outside without feeling miserable and can get so much more done now.

I went out the other morning and took a bunch of photos of what is in bloom or might catch my eye. Hope you enjoy.

I forget what this is called, an air plant of some type clinging to the iron gate that goes into my main garden.

Gaillardia or blanket flower

Panama Rose Rondeletia leucophylla or Bush Penta

Pentas

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis ‘Rose Flake’

Spiderwort

A lowly but pretty weed.

That’s it for now. It’s time to start supper.

FlowerLady Lorraine

***

The greatest gift of the garden is the restoration of the five senses.

Hanna Rion

My first Etsy sale, new plants, Tast

Hello Folks,

Here it is Tuesday afternoon for us.  We woke up to a gentle rain this morning and it must have rained for quite awhile from the evidence of puddles. We needed it and I hope we get some more.

I’ll be working at my job the rest of the week so am trying to get caught up with blogging for the week.

Yesterday my first Etsy sale happened and I was thrilled to say the least. It was the ecru colored needle case.  Thank you Jane.

Today I worked a bit on my spreadsheet for inventory. Yikes, that is a learning curve for me.  I’m glad DH is into that sort of thing and can help me out.  He makes up formulas too and that’s great.

We went to H.D. this morning because DH had to return something and he wanted to check on some electrical stuff.  I went into the garden dept. and ended up buying two pentas, one a reddish and the other a lavender, and a flax lily.  I repotted them, and was able to split off a flax lily tuber and potted it up.  Later I’ll divide up the plant some more.

Here are the tiny flowers of the flax lily.  Really sweet.

Yesterday I planted some native Blue Flag iris seeds into a flower box and look forward to seeing them sprout.  Susan thank you for the seeds.

I was late on last week’s tast stitch and today the new one came out, the Cretan stitch.  Last week’s was the Feather stitch. and I did it yesterday.  I used a variegated green thread and the little plants I was making reminded me of the asparagus ferns we have growing in the main garden, so I added the red berries that they get.

Here’s how I am storing them.  In a photo album I got for free when DH found boxes of craft items last year. There are three sleeves to each side of a page, and I’ve plenty to use for the 52 weeks of TAST.

I’m moving along on the embroidered heart.  Still have a bit more to do.

DH has cleaned up the tiny fridge from the caravan, painted the outer sides of it even though it won’t be seen, to retard the rust that had started.  He used some oak looking formica that we had in our stash to make a new cover for the front.

He’ll be cleaning away rust from the little two burner stove that was original too and painting it with a grill/stove paint which only comes in black. He used steel wool to get some of the rust off to see how bad it was, that’s when we decided to paint it.  DH had a quart of the paint in his workshop so we won’t have to buy any.

We are going to use some granite looking formica that we had in our stash for the counter top .

I think that about does it for now.

Hope you all have a great week.

Chat with you later ~ FlowerLady

******

We can easily manage if we will only take,

each day,

the burden appointed to it. 

But the load will be too heavy for us

if we carry yesterday's burden over again today,

and then add the burden of the morrow

before we are required to bear it. 

John Newton