Autumn snow

Hello friends!  It's been awhile since I've posted!  Early October was busy with our Thanksgiving preparations (it seems so long ago now!) which kept me away.  And then I came down with some sort of respiratory thing that they're still trying to figure out.  Apparently, I only have about 74% of my lung function and an xray yesterday revealed some fluid in my right lung and some "fullness" that they want a CT scan of.  I see my oncologist in just a few weeks so he'll take care of that.  In the meantime, I'm feeling a little better so I'm optimistic that this was maybe just a virus and is on it's way out!

We've had snow!  Quite a lot of it for this time of year - I don't remember ever having this much snow this early.  It did make for some pretty photos though and maybe I did get a little carried away.  :)

 

I can't believe that next week is American Thanksgiving and the beginning of Advent after that!  I confess that I've put away my Autumn decor (it looked a little out of place with all the snow outside!) and have brought out a few wintery things, pine cones and such.  I like to wait until Advent to begin decorating for Christmas and will add things gradually over the coming weeks.

How about you?  Have you started putting up your Christmas decor?

Late Summer garden

Oh my goodness!  Where has August gone?  We're getting my father settled back into his home this week so I should be back to blogging regularly again starting next week.  I've always felt September was the month of fresh beginnings and as much as I love Summer, a part of me is anxious to start decorating for Fall.

I thought I'd show you a few photos of my late Summer garden.  Of course, it would probably have been better to photograph it when everything was blooming but I didn't.  Maybe next year.

This is the front of our home.  I love my little birdbath and it is used constantly.  I have to fill it daily (sometimes twice a day!).  The grape hyacinths are beginning to come up here and there around the base of the birdbath.

The Autumn Joy sedum are just beginning to turn pink.  These add really lovely colour to the garden in late Summer and Fall and are one of those plants that thrive no matter what. 

The purple coneflowers are new this year and are planted on the street side of the fence.  We're still working on this part of the garden and I'm hoping that by next year, it will look much more finished (and all those stones will be gone!).

We added the flagstone path last year leading from our porch to our front gate.  I love our path.  I'm still working on the porch trying to make it a little more inviting and have a few ideas that I'll be trying out in the next couple of weeks.  Of course, the big green plastic watering can doesn't do much!  Note to self - remove ugly plastic things before taking photos.

Outside of our kitchen is our courtyard.  It's tiny and quaint but it's my favourite spot for sitting and enjoying a cup of coffee or a cold drink.

Looking back towards the kitchen window - a hydrangea, fern, clematis and lace cap hydrangea.

Caught in the act!  This little rabbit is responsible for all the damage in my garden!  I caught it nibbling on my sweet peas - again.

So that's a little peek into my garden!  We've made a lot of changes over the past two years and it's finally starting to come together the way I envisioned.  Of course, a garden is never finished but I feel we're at least making progress.

I hope you enjoy this last bit of Summer ... see you next week!

Lavender blues ... and a health update!

Summer keeps blessing us with beauty on a daily basis!  Every time I go out to my garden, there's something new blooming or preparing to bloom.  The Winter was very hard on my hydrangeas.  Four of them bounced back not too badly but my pink one is struggling and I'm not sure it's going to make it.  It's funny how the soil affects the colour of the hydrangeas.  On one bush I can have blue, pink or lavender!  I'm rather partial to the lavender blue colour you see in the photo above.

And of course the lavender is blooming too!  I removed my oldest and largest lavender plant this spring because it had become so overgrown and woody and replaced it with a new one.  It will be another year before the new one flowers.  This plant has been in the garden for a couple of years and bloomed quite well this year.  As I have a lot of dried lavender in the house, I decided to leave the flowers for the bees.  Speaking of bees, I seem to have quite a few of them burrowing in the garden around this lavender plant!  I never knew ground bees even existed but they do.  They don't bother me so I'm leaving them to do what bees do best. 

I saw my oncologist last Friday to see how I'm tolerating the tamoxifen.  My ca125 hit an all time high of 6707 at the end of April, then dropped to 6083 on June 11 and was 1645 on Friday!  So it looks like the tamoxifen is working.  Unless something changes, I don't need to go back until the beginning of September so I'm pretty happy about the results.

The not so good news is that my 84 year old father fell down the stairs last Thursday night.  The ambulance took him to ER where, praise God, nothing was broken.  Then he fell again Saturday morning.  Other than scrapes and bruises, thankfully he's okay.  He's been staying with us since Saturday and we're in the process of making his home more liveable for him.  That will involve things like having stair lifts installed, arranging for more care at home and having an occupational therapist assess his home to make it more accessible.  Lots to do before he can go back home.

Notes from the garden - pretty in pink

David Austin - Mary Rose

More garden photos!  My house has been turned upside down from the garage sale last weekend.  We were really happy with the results and sold the big pieces that we were hoping to.  I sold my wicker set (yay!) - not for as much as I'd hoped, but I got a decent price.  Some of the smaller stuff didn't sell so we packed it up and dropped it off at the Salvation Army.  I broke my rule that whatever didn't sell wasn't coming back into the house.  A set of blue and white transfer ware that I put out didn't sell and I decided to keep it.  Oh well ... everything else went!

New Dawn

The day of the garage sale was hot and humid.  We started setting up at 6:30 in the morning and people started to arrive before 7:00 even though we advertised the start time as 8:00.  I'm glad we started setting up early otherwise we might have missed a sale or two.  It was definitely worth advertising in our local paper.  I think we got a lot more traffic especially since our street is a little off the beaten path.

I decided to have a Canada Day BBQ on Tuesday so it's been a busy week!  I'm still recovering and my energy level is a little lower than usual.  I think the heat and humidity drained me more than I realized.  It's much cooler today and I'm actually enjoying it! 

Back to the garden ... while the rabbits completely destroyed my Heavenly Blue morning glories, these red ones have managed to survive.  My brother-in-law brought me the seeds last year from their garden in Germany and they've thrived in spite of the rabbits.  I'm not normally partial to red morning glories but these are really pretty and at this stage, any morning glory is better than none.

I had wanted to share a couple more photos of my roses but when I went to photograph them, there were spiders on them!  Big ones.  {shudder}  I know spiders are supposed to be good for the garden but I don't like them.  At all.  So just two roses got photographed this time. 

Now that it's July (what happened to June?) I'm planning to cut back and just enjoy the Summer.  It flies by so quickly.  A stack of books and the porch is calling!  Have a lovely weekend and Happy 4th to my American friends!  

See you soon ...

 

Notes from the garden

I've been taking a lot of photos of the garden this year.  It's something I haven't done much of for awhile.  I thought I'd share some of these photos on my blog from time to time as a record of my garden's progress.

I have two Jacob's Ladders - one purple, one white.  They have such pretty, delicate flowers and are prolific bloomers.  Once they've finished flowering, I'll cut the stocks off and usually get rewarded with a second blooming later in the summer.

Golden mock orange has beautiful light green foliage and small white flowers that smell absolutely wonderful! 

 

Chive blossoms ... a garden staple!  The bees like them too.

My white peonies ... they bloom almost a week later than the pink ones which extends the peony season in the garden for me.  The bottom peony is another that I transplanted from my Mom's garden - a gift to her from my brother.  I have a few more peony photos to share next week. 

Happy Summer!

Pink Peonies

I was blessed with an abundance of peonies this year.  It's not often that I can cut enough flowers to enjoy several bouquets so I've really been enjoying them.  And they're still blooming!

Peonies are delicate and just one heavy rain away from total destruction so I don't feel the least bit guilty cutting them to bring inside.

This peony was divided from one in my Mom's garden that she had for years.  The original plant is gone now but mine is thriving and I'm so grateful to have it.

This is my favourite ironstone pitcher and I use it for almost all my flowers.  It's the perfect height and shape.  Vintage white ironstone isn't something I find too often although it has been awhile since I've hit the flea/antique markets!  (I think I need to get out there again!)

I'm hoping to cut the last few this morning before the rain comes later today.  It's devastating to see all the petals on the ground afterwards!

Notes from the garden - lily of the valley

Another favourite Spring flower - lily of the valley!  Everything bloomed 3-4 weeks late this year because of the cool weather and seemed to stick around just a little bit longer than usual.  A few years ago, I moved my lily of the valley from one side of the house to the other so that they'd have more room to spread.  And spread they are!  I'm imagining a carpet of them in a few more years.  I can't wait!

Lilac time

I say this every year, but I love lilac time!  I have six lilac trees; three in the front and three in the back.  The lilacs at the front were gorgeous.  The ones at the back had just a few blooms each.  The ones at the back of the house are more protected so it can't be because of the weather that there weren't many blooms.

This is one of my favourite shots.  I love how the lilacs look against the picket fence.

The marmalade jar is a recent find.  I was thrilled to find it at a craft/vintage show last month and I know it will show up again in photos around my home.  I tucked some cutlery into it for now but it will get filled with flowers (and probably other things) too.

Lilacs don't last long - either inside or out!  The blooms are pretty much faded now but I enjoyed cutting them to bring inside while I could.

I told you they were covered!

I love the detail on the handle of this vintage ironstone pitcher. 

I'll never get my fill of lilacs! I don't think there's any such thing as having too many.  Sadly, it will be another year until I can enjoy them again.

Just a quick health update ... I had another CT scan yesterday.  While I was being scanned I kept praying for it to be good.  I see my oncologist Wednesday for the results.  

Have a lovely weekend!