Love is in the air

Greetings Folks ~ Here we are into the week where we celebrate Valentine's Day, a day of celebrating Love. I am oh so thankful for the love dear husband and I shared in our 43 years together. My heart/mind are full of memories. I love him more today than ever and I look forward to the day we will be together again. It won't be like we lived this life, but, we will be together and love, peace and joy will be all around. We will be with Jesus our Great God, Who IS Love, gives love and is the reason we can love others.

 I am loved, I am blessed.

In this photo below, I did not even see the pale, ghostly flower until I viewed the picture in phone. I don't have a clue as to what it is.

 

 

This is 'Hugs-n-Kisses' hibiscus. Bought a couple of months after God called my dear husband home. No two flowers are alike as you will be able to tell in these two different colored blooms, on the same plant. I love this hibiscus and am thrilled with each new bloom.

 

 

 

Now for some snippets of love inside Plum Cottage.

 

 

 

 

Love is a gift, relish it and share it.

 

Now it's time for me to head outside again to do some more clean up of  brush piles. I was able to work outside for about 1 1/4 hours yesterday morning, making forward progress. The day before I'd only done about 15-30 minutes. I'll share pics later.

 

Love, hugs and prayers,

FlowerLady
 

Trees trimmed

Hello Folks ~ Here it is the second day of February. Yesterday we had LOTS of wind all day, through the night and it is still windy this morning, although, not as bad as it was yesterday. The sun is shining at the moment. Right now at 10:23 EST it is 52 degrees but real feel is 48. 

On my way back to house after feeding my barn girls, I noticed greenery laying across the back of the driveway. I looked closer and realized that the dead pine tree that the wonderful night blooming Cereus cactus was growing on, was standing no more. Sean mentioned cutting it down when he was here on Friday, well, the wind blowing it down saved him some work, except for cutting it up now. Below is the tree being encroached on by the neighbor's trees. The cactus was at the top.

What a bummer to not have these beautiful cactus blooms anymore, unless, I break off bits to put somewhere else. But, do I really want to deal with that heavy cactus again. Maybe not. Where would I put it? It was for a season.
 

Amazing how three different tree projects happened in a stretch of 4 days. Sean came over on Friday and worked from around 9:30-4:30, we had a light lunch and I took several breaks. :-)

Here's the driveway in November

I kept trimming what I could to keep the limbs off vehicles that come here.

Driveway now after Sean's hard work.

 

 

 Piles for me to cart out front to be picked up. Pick up is one day a week.

 

 

Here is the downed pine tree. You can see it to the left in the photo above.

Sean was here Friday, then the tree trimmer to cut down the 'rattle' tree came Sat. morning. In one hour he and his partner had it cut down, cut up into small sections and stacked. I will be carting it all out front to be picked up. (A little at a time.)

Excuse the junk, old fencing etc., it will be all cleared away. There's more iron, etc. that will go also and I will be oh so glad. My neighbor who paid to have this tree cut down said, it all didn't get here in one day, it took years, and it won't get taken care of in one day, but it will be gone. That was kind of him to say and encouraging. A week or so back, he did give me $ to pay for the rest of fence sections (5) to finish off fencing project between us. Sean and Stan will be back to work on that when they have a free Sat. They both have jobs.

Look at all of those dang seed pods. I know that Ervin is so glad that tree was cut down before the three days of wind happened or else he'd be cleaning up the pods all over his property. They are here for me to deal with. ;-)

 So, now the clean up and cart out starts, a little at a time. I just do what I can til my body says stop.

Below is a picture of the caravan which looks kind of neat with the path going to it through the wandering Jew - Tradescantia zebrina - ground cover.

Below are some of the blooms happening here at Plum Cottage.

And, a couple of hearts that showed up for me to enjoy and put a smile on my face.

I started this post yesterday, finishing it up this morning. Low this morning 45, real feel 41, inside around 60. The sun is shining, there's little or no wind, I've not been outside yet. I hope to vacuum today and bake a loaf of banana bread.

Whatever you do today, seek good and beauty. Call on 'The Shepherd' to be your help, guide, comfort, strength, provider, and healer.

Love, hugs and prayers, 

FlowerLady

Last day of January

Hello Folks ~ I just spent two hours watching and singing along in a time of worship and praise to Jesus our Great God. My heart has been blessed, I feel invigorated and oh so thankful to Jesus for all that He has done and is doing and will do in my life.

I grew up on the old hymns which influenced my life greatly, and I still love them, but in the 60's rock n roll spoke to me and still does even though I'm approaching my 72nd birthday in March. Today, a lot of praise and worship music is rock n roll in style and at this time, this video was just what I needed to bring some joy and light back into Plum Cottage once again.

We are told to make a joyful noise to the Lord and there are many ways and styles of music to do this. I believe they are all pleasing to Him, slow or fast, if from our hearts, they bring Him joy. I wanted to share this you-tube video. My dear husband played lead guitar here at home with different musicians via albums, tapes, cds, the web and I could hear him in some of this music tonight. He is in heaven praising Jesus and oh how wonderful it must be to be with our Savior, Friend, Provider, Healer, Restorer, Comforter, Giver of all good things, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

With that, I will close this post. Next post will have pics of tree trimming done here at Plum Cottage, but I had to share this time of worship tonight.

Have a great week. If you haven't sought out Jesus yet, I pray that you will. You won't be disappointed.

Love, hugs and prayers,

FlowerLady

 

 

Thankful for so much

Hello Friends ~ It is a cool, sunshiny morning here in s.e. FL, USA. I've just filled the drainboard with more clean dishes, rinsed and drying now. A few more to do, and I'll be caught up until I dirty some more.  I am thankful though that I have food to eat, to dirty the dishes. Thankful for soap and hot water to wash the dishes. Thankful for the healing warmth of dishwater on my healing wrist/hand. I am planning to soak wrist/hand it some hot epsom salt water later.

I am thankful for the sweet gift of a hyacinth bulb in water from my dear friend Sandy. She stopped by one day after work bringing me this gift. She wanted to give me something to smile about and to let me know I am loved. I do not remember in my almost 72 years the joy of smelling the scent or enjoying the beauty of a hyacinth so this has been a real treat.

 

 

The scent is so lovely and the flowers are so pretty. They did make me smile and feel loved as I enjoyed them while washing dishes this morning. Thank you Sandy. 

I am thankful for Sean and Stan who came over this past Saturday morning and worked for a little over three hours replacing more privacy fencing.  I helped a little, very little. 

Picture below was at the end of the day's work. To the left is facing south, between my property and the neighbor's who just sold their property. She had helped with $ for fencing and I am so thankful for that. The fencing in the middle of the photo is on the west side. I met the lady who lives there with her husband, for the first time. Really nice and so was her husband who I met later. She told me that her husband wanted to talk with me and gave me his cell phone #. 

Sean and Stan continued with fencing, and after they had left and I had some lunch I called the husband. I was nervous, but Sean said before he left that maybe it would be something good. 

Sean in background, Stan foreground. They dug holes for fence posts, mixed and poured concrete for 5 sections of fencing.

I took this photo below the next morning. The tree with brown seed pods is what the west neighbor wanted to talk to me about.

This is the first 3 sections of fencing done. More will be bought when finances are available. It looks so nice and I KNOW they greatly appreciate the new look.

The neighbor husband was home when I called and told me he wanted to talk to me about that tree. I went over to their place, the tree is close to the fence line and drops the majority of seed pods into their property. With my permission, he would like to have the tree cut down and he would pay for it. Oh my, this brought tears and of course I said yes. I apologized and told him that my husband had passed away 8 years ago and I was taking care of this place on a small ss check, doing the best I could. He and his wife were both sorry for my loss and he said we are to help each other. He also told me he is a handyman. Amazing. (My dear husband was a handyman, antique restorer, artist, wood worker.)

I said more fencing would be done, when I could afford it. He asked me how much the fencing was per section and I told him and also told him about the other neighbor giving me $ to help with fencing and he said maybe they could help with that also. Tree removal and new fencing is good for both of us. Fencing was good for other neighbor also.

We will see what happens. For now, this is the latest and I am so thankful. 

Now for some climbing Don Juan roses. I wish you could smell these. They are wonderful. I have other roses also scenting the air. Such a joy!

Below is Bermuda's Kathleen. A sweet rose.
 

On a kind of bummer note, my Roku has presented me with a 'green screen' and I've not been able to fix it yet. So no enjoyment of watching you-tube on my big screen TV, just from my computer, not nice at all. But, maybe this is a good thing. I am to be 'thankful' in all things. A God-send perhaps to get me up off my derrière. This past month of not being able to do hardly anything because of hurting my wrist has made me sit in front of you-tube much more than normal. I need a dose of good fiction to read. I have quite a few spiritually uplifting books that I'm reading and they are very good. Fiction is also good and I have nothing new to read.

I've done a little gardening, very little compared to what needs doing. Tuesday I drove to get groceries for the first time since I fell, 19 Dec. It felt good to be out, but also felt great to get back home. Wrist was tired and hurting a bit. I do wear my wrist brace most of the time, except for washing dishes, and showering. I've washed and hung out 3 loads of laundry. Most of Christmas is down and packed back up. Needs to be taken out to the workshop. All in good time.

I will end this post with a very inspiring video that came into my recommendations this morning from you-tube. It made me very thankful for God and His great love for us all.

Thank you for visiting, for your kind comments and words of encouragement. It's all priceless.

I am thankful for you.

Love, hugs and prayers,

FlowerLady