Mid July

Good afternoon Folks,

It is hard to believe it is the middle of July already.  That’s fine with us though, we look forward to fall, as I’m sure many of you are also.  I worked outside yesterday morning and this morning for about 3 hours each, and was sopping wet both mornings and stopped when I’d had enough.  You can only do what you can do, especially at this age and in the heat and humidity. We’ve been having lots of rain and I don’t want to say that too much because so many of you are in drought conditions, as we were for the last 5 years.  Rain will come again to all of you, hang in there. Anyway, we’ve had so much that I cannot keep up with all the overgrowth of vines, weeds, etc. Why on earth would I want a larger piece of property, this is enough right here, our little 1/4 acre.

This morning when I was working out front, I noticed 3 flower buds on our night blooming cereus.  I am THRILLED. A customer where I work gave me a piece of theirs quite a few years ago and it climbed and grew up the pine tree at the back of the property. I’ve not been able to get good photos or smell their scent as the blooms are too high to appreciate. I will be taking pictures of these as they grow and bloom.  The open blooms only last a night.

I stuck a section of this cactus next to our front gate on the inside and it has grown up and clung to the gate arbor.

Blanket flower with the lovely foliage of a hibiscus.

Vanda orchids that I just plopped into the lattice surrounding the rain barrel.

What a surprise to see this azalea in bloom today.

Blackberry lily.

Caladiums.

Tork .

Tork

Longview looking north.

Shed garden.

Borderer.

Penelope

Below:

St. George’s church taken from Venice 1973.

You can read more about this lovely church here.

This is an old slide of ours, that DH took a picture of with my camera just to see how it would come out. We have LOTS of slides from our three years in Europe and would like to get them on CD. We’re buying an adapter for my camera to see if it will work with some of his camera gear from back then, if it doesn’t we will buy the piece that will work.  We had a Minolta SLR back then, developed our own slides and made some prints too, all in our tiny bathroom in Rota, Spain where DH was stationed for 3 years in the US Navy. The colors have faded, but hopefully that won’t matter too much.

Venice was one of our very favorite places.  We stayed there 6 days.

We look forward to going through our slides and hopefully most of them will be good enough to put on CD.  They sure will bring back some fantastic memories from our early 20’s.

That’s it for now.

FlowerLady Lorraine

T-storms, blooms, needlework

Hi Folks ~

Here it is Wednesday afternoon for us, it’s been a gray, dreary day today, t-storms around midnight last night with one of the biggest claps of thunder I’ve ever heard.  Sheesh.  Lots of rain too, then we had another thunder storm this morning but not as bad, and LOTS more rain so that the driveway was flooded and the main garden was covered in water again too.  I guess you could say our 5 year drought is over. I’m glad to read that a lot of you have started getting some much needed rain too and that temps have cooled down somewhat.

I got a load of laundry hung out to dry and brought in yesterday, and also mowed, just in the nick of time. I did nothing outside today, except for a quick walk around.

Here are some photos of blooms taken the other day.

This little lovely is Fringe Flower.  I bought it along with 6 other plants around my bday in March. I just love these blooms.

Look what shows up once the petals fall off.  Amazing. A petal is in each one of these bits of loveliness. They look like miniature flowers themselves.

Hibiscus.

Spicy jatropha.

Mixed caladiums, including Miss Muffet, from Meems. Thanks again Meems.

Also volunteer vincas.

Resurrection ferns growing up the Norfolk pine tree. When it hasn’t rained, these ferns are dried up and dead looking.  As soon as it rains, they look like this, hence the name resurrection fern.

Shells

Cocktail roses, past their prime.

Fading Phyllis Bide roses.

Kathleen

Louis Philippe

My latest needlework creation, which you can read about in my other blog here.

That’s it for now.

Time for a glass of pre-dinner wine while I figure out what to fix for supper.

FlowerLady Lorraine

Some crocheted sea creatures, etc.

Good morning Friends ~

Here it is Monday morning, for us, and the start of a new week.

It is hot and humid down here, but a lot of you are having hotter temperatures. I do hope you all are keeping as cool as possible, and do not work too long out in the heat.  Drink plenty of water.

DH is working on the neighbor’s roof, this is the third day now, but at least he’s been under the shade of a huge oak tree. It’s not as bad in the shade as it is in the sun. He drinks water all day long and that’s good.

Here are some crocheted sea creatures. I found the instructions through Mira’s blog here.

Susan the creator of these patterns can be found here, with instructions that she has freely given. She just wants people to not claim the directions as their own, giving her credit and you can sell the items you create.  She has really created some neat patterns.

I love working with fine thread, so that’s what I chose. These are made with size 30, except for the peachy colored conch and that is size 50.

These are tiny. 

The peach conch is 1 3/4” long x 1 1/8” wide by 3/4” high.

The small conchs are 1” x 1” x 3/4” high.

Star fish, roughly 1 3/4” point to point.

Sand dollar 3/4” in diameter.

Angel fish 1 3/4” long by 1” wide.

Even though they are tiny, they take time, from around 25 minutes to almost an hour. I wear my stronger glasses working with this size thread.

I love how they turned out.

I do hope all of you that need rain will get some soon.  We’ve not had any since a week ago Sunday when we got that 4”-5”.  Everything is green and growing like crazy.  It will be time for me to get back outside in the mornings to get more done out in the gardens.

Here are some photos taken a week or so ago.

This was taken yesterday morning.

That’s it for now.

Hugs ~ FlowerLady Lorraine