Marching On…

Even though we have webbed feet Seattleites are getting weary of the rain and lack of sunshine in these parts. On Wednesday we had a window of dryness with some sunshine so Dear and I took our standard walk about the neighborhood. The photo above is of one of our 5 Rhododendron plants budding. This is our state flower.

Along our walk there is a pond that our webbed feet friends enjoy. We are getting some nice signs that Spring will come like clockwork.

Friday morning it was warmer than usual so I went outside to do some planter clean up. I raked and trimmed some bushes with my nifty new hedge trimmer. I stopped to take some more photos of one of my favorites, the Lenten Rose (Hellebore).

Then on Friday late in the morning the sun broke through in all it’s glory and we were ready to leap like these youngsters but we chose to walk instead along the waterways in Kirkland Washington after enjoying lunch here. This sculpture is a bronze created by Glena Goodacre called “Puddle Jumpers”. Purchased for the city of Kirkland by city residents and businesses in 2001.

We have a bag partially packed and the gas tank full for when we get the call that our daughter-in-law is admitted to the hospital. Fun times. Thank you dear friends for your kind words and suggestions to us as we enter the world of grandparent land.

Meanwhile…

…back at ~~the ranch~~ this old house. For Friday’s Fave Five and Five on Friday I’m sharing the following collages and photos of what’s been happening around home.

Steve and Lana, Bob and Jan, Andrew and Katie, Matteo and Sandy. Friends and family gathered for our Fourth of July celebration. I took photos of the couples but missed getting Paul and Monica together but I do have one of Paul and Dear.

Dear smoked a couple of Pork Butts and we enjoyed pulled pork sandwiches, coleslaw, beans, corn on the cob, and salad. We had hot artichoke dip and onion dip for appetizers.

Our neighbor Sandy brought cupcakes and my sister Lana brought trifle for dessert.

Even though all of the couples did not know each other everyone enjoyed conversation and getting to know someone new. It was good to find out more about our neighbors.

Lots of purple blooming about the yard. One of our hydrangeas is an intense purple and the other is a cross between purple and blue.

Not everything is purple. Our Fuschia continues to charm us.

Our apples and pears are going to be ready sooner this year than last.

Our latest yard project is digging out the grass area in front that is encroaching on the drive and making the yard area more defined. We are adding a crushed base so the drive doesn’t get muddy from the rains. When we win the lotto we’ll have a cement driveway poured.

I’m thankful for family, friends, freedom, flowers, fruit trees and still being able to do some hard work. Don’t know if we’ll be able to move without moaning tomorrow but we are happy with our work progress.

Thank you Amy and Susanne for hosting these weekly Friday memes.

UPDATE: Our hearts and minds are with the families of the police officers killed in Dallas last night. Here are a few thoughts from a pastor in Dallas…

A Few Thoughts Regarding The July 7th, 2016 Dallas Shootings

A Garden Party!

Looks like there are several link ups for this party. Hope I didn’t miss anyone!

Have a Daily Cup of Mrs. Olson

At Home With Jemma

Poofing the Pillows

Decor to Adore

White Spray Paint

This has been a banner Spring in the Seattle area with many things blooming early because of the weather this year. Here are a series of lovelies from our yard. Calling it a garden is a bit of a stretch.

Pink Dogwood is one of my very favorites. We planted this tree just a few years ago.

Our lilac bush was planted the same time as the Dogwood. This is the first year it is full of blooms. Last year we only had 3 blooms!

I love these sweet Violas.

Our Camellia was at it’s fullest a week ago. It is waning now but the azalea bush you see next to it is now in it’s glory in the photo below.

Next to this vibrant azalea is our Rosebud Azalea that will bloom next.

This next photo shows what the sweet little rosebud azaleas look like when they open up. As of this morning this is the first one to open.

We have a few established rhododendrons in our yard. This yellow rhoddy is the youngest and we had some beautiful blooms this year.

These last photos are of our very old and established Rhododendrons that were here when we purchased this old house. The Rhododendron is the Washington State Flower. These next photos were taken this morning in the rain.

One lighter pink and the other one deeper. The third bush always blooms later than these two.

Our patio covers are not up yet so on the next couple of photos you can see the frames without the covers. We usually put the covers up on Mother’s Day weekend.

Here you see a little view of our deck patio and the Dogwood, little yellow rhoddy, and the side of our barbecue.

This is a view of the french doors from our family room that are the most used doors at this old house. You step out on the deck from them and this path takes you to our detached garage/shop. I’ll leave you with some shots that show our deck with the covers up. This one shows the deck looking out from our family room.

Another view with our new privacy fence. Whew…you made it through. Wish I could have strolled through with you and a cup of coffee!

We just got home from a trip across the mountains to visit our son and his new bride of 10 months. It’s a 5-1/2 hour drive to get to their home. Now we are rushing about getting things ready for a trip to San Antonio, Texas for Dear to work at a conference there. I will be on my own and will explore this city that I’ve never been to and also drive to Austin to meet up with my brother and his family who will drive down from Dallas. Woohoo. Better get the laundry going. Hope you all have a good week!

I Hold You in my Heart…

Philippians 1:3-11 (ESV)

Thanksgiving and Prayer

³I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, ⁴always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, ⁵because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. ⁶And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. ⁷It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. ⁸For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. ⁹And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, ¹⁰so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, ¹¹filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

HT: Bible Gateway

I love this prayer of Paul’s and wanted to pair it with the collage of my bleeding hearts.

We are enjoying a fine stretch of dry sunshiny days here in the Seattle area. I’m getting ready to head outdoors to work alongside Dear who is cleaning out the rain gutters. I’ll be doing some weeding and maybe even wash my car! Hope you have a nice first weekend of April!

Cheerful!

Daffodils can help spread sunshine on a cloudy day. So if it’s dark and gloomy in your neck of the woods I hope these add a little light to your world and make you smile. Daffodils pop up and are such a nice surprise every year as they remind us that Spring is coming.

Hope you have a cheerful week.

Rosebud Azaleas

I wanted to show you my sweet Rosebud Azaleas and give you an update about what’s going on around this old house. If you are here for the giveaway you will need to scroll down a few posts.

This variety of Azalea is my very favorite.

I finally cleaned out this area of the front planter that rounds the corner of the house and planted a hydrangea in the space. Time will tell if the blooms will stay purple.

My cement block plantings are mostly doing real well. The wild rabbits that roam around here have eaten all the pansy blooms, though.

Things are going well with my extraction recovery. I never really experienced any pain to speak of which is nice. I’ll be getting the stitches out on Wednesday if they haven’t dissolved on their own. I’m still on a relatively soft diet so I don’t hurt the area that is healing. Although I still have a few days of antibiotics left I am off the Ibuprofen. Thank you for your kind thoughts. My de-fluffing progress was hindered by being on medication and being off my regular meal regiment but I’m happy to report things are still going well.

Happy Victoria Day weekend to our friends in Canada!

Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree

“Don’t Sit Under The Apple Tree”

Don’t sit under the apple tree
With anyone else but me
Anyone else but me
Anyone else but me
No no no

Don’t sit under the apple tree
With anyone else but me
’til I come marching home
Don’t go walking down lovers lane
With anyone else but me
Anyone else but me
Anyone else but me
No no no

Its lyrics are the words of two young lovers who pledge their fidelity while one of them is away serving in the war. Made popular by Glen Miller and the Andrew’s Sisters during World War II. Just yesterday as I walked under our apple tree and commented on the beauty of the blossoms, Dear called out “Don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me”.

Seems somewhat appropriate that I post this song and my apple blossom photos as our daughter Katie and I think about packing the car to head to Camp Lejeune for her to be reunited with her beloved who has been serving with the Marines in Afghanistan since September.

No, don’t go walking down lovers’ lane
No, walking down lovers’ lane till you see
When you see me marching home
Then we’ll go arm in arm and
Sit down under the apple tree
Baby, just you and me
When I come marching home

Happy Friday to you all. Today Katie and I have hair appointments and Dear and I have eye appointments. Am I packed? No. I do have some piles going. Katie has made some good progress. We both have 1 P.M. events tomorrow and then tomorrow evening we’ll pack up the car.

What’s going on in your part of the world?

Five Amazing Things…

I have time this Friday to join in with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story for Friday’s Fave Five! It’s been awhile and it will probably be a couple weeks before I can join in again.

This is a post about amazing things. The most amazing thing is that Jesus Christ laid down his perfect life to save all who are lost in their own sin. I was lost in myself and now I see how big my God is and how he saved me with His perfection…Jesus Christ.

Our son Dan sent me this photo from his yard over the internet. Amazing things…beautiful lilac, a lovely butterfly and the internet where I can enjoy this photo minutes after our son took it from 6 hours driving distance away!

Amazing how time flies! Weren’t we just celebrating Christmas!? Here we are on the brink of June!

It’s amazing to me that we are planning a trip to Great Britain in September with our son and his dear wife. Their first time, Dear and my 6th time together. Very excited to see England on our son and daughter in law’s terms. Each of our children are different and England holds so much to see to cover each of their particular interests. With Katie it was mostly literary, Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Jane Austen. With Josh it has to include Soccer! Laura and I will push for the quaint and lovely and probably a play or musical to enjoy…

Last amazing thing is related to our daughter’s literary interests. We found this Christmas card/offer from Dear to our Katie to read a book out loud to her when she was 3. She turned 4 just after Christmas that year and asked Dear to read her The Hobbit. He read it out loud to her and she recalls the fact that he used several different voices for the different characters in the book. Dear bought this copy of The Hobbit on one of his trips to England in the early 70’s. Our Katie to this day is the most interested in reading and enjoys several literary styles. The card had an expiration date on it added by her dad and Katie crossed it out and added the “Not expirable”. Katie is quite amazing as she was reading and understanding a wide vocabulary at a very early age.

I’m so looking forward to catching up with all the FFF participants and seeing what’s new in your worlds…

Nesting at 60 Something…

Is there such a thing as menopausal nesting? This Memorial weekend seemed like a non stop nesting event for both myself and Dear. We organized, trashed and reorganized a lot of our junk. We made trips to the metal recycling sight and now have more piles of stuff to get rid of. Good times. We had some sunshine, some mist, some rain, cold mornings, warm afternoons. We enjoyed good company and our time with each other. Some of our motivation to clean out is the fact that we are getting ready to finally replace our well worn floors in this old house.

All of these spaces will be hardwood by the end of July. Once the hardwood is added we will choose and plan the timing to have carpeting replaced in our bedrooms and living room. Makes me tired just thinking about it. I took some time to walk about the yard with my camera for some relaxing distraction.

The Camellias are at the end of their glory.

I’m excited to see my 5 Peonies that will soon burst forth into their full bloom. Last year I only had one.

My Rhoddies are dropping their blooms.

As some blooms are fading we have the promise of more blooms to come.

I ended my walk about the yard by looking up. It’s good to remember to keep looking up!

Psalm 121: 1-8 (ESV)

I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot be moved;
he who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, he who keeps Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord is your keeper;
the Lord is your shade on your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day,
nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all evil;
he will keep your life.
The Lord will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time forth and forevermore.

Hope you had time to look up, too. Blessings.

Mind the Gap…

There was a gap today between cloudy spitting weather and more cloudy spitting skies. When the beautiful gap of sunshine appeared I was still in my robe and slippers but decided to head out to get some new photos of our May yard. If my neighbors had blogs they would have some fun posts catching me outside in my indoor garb!

I really like this variety of pink azalea. I couldn’t tell you what the variety is but it’s buds and blooms are sweet.

After our Bible Study last night I turned on the T.V. before going to bed to some news that made the title of this post just a wee bit prophetic. A bridge that is part of our Interstate 5 between me and Canada had a section collapse. As Judy in her comment says I’ll have to mind that Gap as I travel to Canada early in June. 70,000 travelers a day will have to mind that gap.

This is a photo from google images. This is the road I’ve driven on time and time again to go to the northern part of our state or to head to the Canadian border. This is going to slow down lots of travelers who will be re-routed to other roads to get north or south. We are all so thankful the people in the cars that plunged into the very cold Skagit River were rescued in a timely manner and were not seriously hurt.

And to the more mundane…Friday I have 2 appointments in the morning and then Dear and I will start enjoying our 3 day weekend with him hopefully getting off early from work. We are going to stick close to home this weekend. How about you? Are you traveling or staying home?

The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b.

To honor and encourage

Category Archives: Flowering Plants