Lavender

This weekend the annual lavender festival begins in Sequim Washington. It was so wonderful to go to the festival in years past. In honor of the festival and other lavender festivals around the area here are the lavender plants on our acreage at our country bungalow.

Today is my second cataract surgery on my left eye. We left home at O-dark-thirty again to get to Spokane in time for the surgery. We will be in Spokane all day as my follow-up appointment is on Friday afternoon. Back to drops and more drops 4 times a day for a while.

We are under severe fire warnings right now and there are several wildfires that are making our skies cloudy with smoke not pretty fluffy clouds. The air quality is not good so we stay inside as much as possible. Hoping for the containment of all the fires in the Northwest! Hope the skies are clear where you are.

Bon Appétit Hodgepodge

Merci to Joyce From This Side of the Pond for coming up with the questions for us to answer.

1. Tell us about one small blessing you have counted in the past week?

Not so small but we got to hug our second born after not seeing him for 7 weeks!

2. Bastille Day is celebrated on July 14th…have you ever been to France?

No, I’ve never been to France.

Any desire to visit there, and if so what would site or city would you most want to see? (pretend for a minute international travel isn’t an issue)

France is not on my top ten places to visit list. If I traveled there I’d be interested in Mont Saint Michel and Normandy.

3. A food associated with France that you love?

A croissant and cassoulet

4. Something you recently purchased where a coupon was involved? Do you regularly shop with coupons?

I’ve only used online coupons these days. I do not regularly shop with coupons anymore.

5. You have to give something away this week…what will it be?

I’ll give away some of my garlic.

6. Insert your own random thought here.

Speaking of France, our lavender is in it’s glory right now. It is always a treat to weed around the lavender and enjoy that fragrance.

Early July

Documenting the state of the yard in early July. Starting in the back acreage.

Isaiah 55: 10-11

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,

and return not thither but water the earth

making it bring forth and sprout, giving it seed to the sower and bread to the eater,

so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth;

it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,

and prosper in the thing for which I sent it.

The last of the Clematis vines to bloom. This one is the most delicate of the three. A light purple.

This is the largest of the Clematis’ with the deepest color.

These two photos are the front planters.

I’ll have to take some closeups on some new blooms popping up and hope some bloggers might be able to identify them for me.

Hope things are blooming nicely in your corner of the world.

Our little grandson is blooming nicely, too.

JJ turned 3 months yesterday and he has discovered his thumb. Sometimes it takes a lot of effort to get it into his mouth and he gets very frustrated. He survives the noises his older sister creates and can sleep through those.

The greenhouse is on it’s way to our son and daughter-in-law’s. Now we have a hole in the yard to deal with. I’ll show the before and after photos in a later post.

Lavender and Pewter…

I’m joining the Tiered Tray Extravaganza hosted by Thoughts of Home. I used a metal tiered tray that I’ve had for a few years purchased at a thrift store. The tray and pewter make me think of fall so I decided to use some of my pewter pieces on the tiers. My lavender is still blooming so I cut sprigs of it and added them on the tray.

The sugar and creamer on the top level of the tray are part of set with a coffee server, too. The photo below shows the coffee server.

The next level has an older pewter creamer that I purchased at a thrift store and a pewter wine bottle coaster that I have some old nails and clock winder in.

On this next level I have my pewter napkin rings and Salt and Pepper Shakers. The shell rings are from the U.S. and the more ornate pair of rings are not pewter but silver plate bought in Canterbury England.

I’m sharing two other tiered pieces I have at my home that aren’t trays.

My attempt at a little fall decorating outside our front door.

This is my Russian Heritage 3 tiered piece with some of my Matryoshka Dolls and wooden spoons. I have samovars, laquer boxes and other Russian treasures in other parts of this old house.

Thanks to the ladies that host Thoughts of Home on Thursdays for this extravaganza. Click on the logo above to see more!

September 13th is the day we have always celebrated my parents wedding anniversary. My pop is still alive but my mom died 3 years ago on her and my pop’s 70th wedding anniversary. I’m happy for all the years they had together.

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

Late Lavender…

Here we are in the last days of September and my lavender bush is still blooming.

“here’s your sweet lavender
sixteen sprigs a penny
that you’ll find my ladies
will smell as sweet as any”

Lavender Sellers’s Cry, London England CA 1900

If I were an expert photographer I could have shown you photos from the lunar eclipse last night. It was fun to walk around the neighborhood trying to find the best view and then when the moon got high enough we could watch it from our deck. Did you watch?

The weekend was a nice quiet one with mild weather. We are in another dry pattern right now with cold mornings and evenings.

Linking up to ABC Wednesday for the letter L with thanks to Mrs. Nesbitt the originator of the meme and to Roger and the team for their administration.

A Busy Start…

…to September.

Spiders really have been busy. We are always amazed at what they accomplish overnight when we walk from the house to the garage brushing the new webs off our faces!

It seemed like the leaves changed their colors overnight, too. This is our Dogwood.

This is our Chinese Flame Tree.

These are the 3rd and 4th Jalapenos we’ve gotten off our little bush. It’s a new plant for us this summer.

Our lavender bushes still have a few blooms. I love working around them and enjoying their great scent.

Early September brings Dear’s birthday, too, which is a good reason to set a table for a celebration.

Decided on some nice bold colors for our dinner table. We had a great time at the table getting caught up with each other.

Dear and our SIL Andrew are very busy working on Josh and Laura’s remodel. Living without a kitchen is always an interesting challenge. Katie is busy interviewing for a job. I’m the support vehicle during these busy times for everyone else. Running errands, making dinner, and running that ever full dishwasher. I’m thinking about getting busy adding more daily exercise to my routine. Hopefully this week the thinking part will become reality in action!

Today Katie and I are going shopping to refresh her work wardrobe.

Have you been busy with changes in September?

Cheers From England ~ #2

We had a much needed good rest on Friday night. We woke up to birds singing and a light drizzle. Our second day in England and the Cotswolds specifically brought us to the town of Chipping Camden. We really enjoyed this town last year with Josh and Laura and it was nice to go back and explore it further. We also had the fun task of buying a few groceries to have at the cottage. We plan to cook an “English Breakfast” at the cottage on Sunday morning. We bought fresh eggs and a variety of sausages at the Butcher. We bought some tomatoes and mushrooms from the grocer. We bought a fresh baked loaf of bread from the Boulangerie. We bought some Damson Preserves and butter from another small shop on High Street. We also bought some local Cotswolds Cheese from the Cheesemonger. After we had all our supplies we enjoyed a great meal at the Eight Bells and had some fun talking World Cup Soccer with the locals. We braved some very narrow lanes to get to Snowshill to see some lavender fields in bloom, too.

Now we are back at the cottage and I hope to catch the Netherlands v. Costa Rica game on the telly soon.

Hope your Saturday is going well.

Happy 4th of July!

Before I take you on a walk about the yard I wanted to wish everyone in the good ole U.S.A. a very Happy Independence Day.

We landed in the country we gained independence from on the 4th of July!

Because of my early Thursday morning walk about I found myself another job to do and another request to make of our house guests before we left the country.

Many of the blueberries are ready for picking. This will be a nice fresh treat for the guests!

I love the hydrangeas at this stage of coloring.

We also have white ones and a small potted pink one this year.

The lavender has made it’s debut, too.

I’ll leave a note for our guests to feel free to snip the fresh thyme for their meals.

The apples won’t be ready until we return home.

So how’s your garden/yard growing?

August…

named after Augustus.

Here’s what’s happening or can be seen around this old house in the beginning of August…

This rug used to be in our living room hiding as much of the old worn carpeting we had in that room. Now that we are replacing the carpeting in the living room this area rug will not work in there. We were happy to see that it would work nicely in the eating area of our kitchen. The dining table will sit on top of it with room for the chairs, too. Until the carpeting is installed we will have to stack all our mattresses here, not the table that is living out in the garage right now. Fun times. Just to show you the reality of it all this last photo is the living room with the mattresses. This weekend we’ll move those mattresses to the kitchen…

I actually am cooking this afternoon trying a new recipe for chicken thighs. I hope to share it in the near future. My apple tree is shedding it’s apples so maybe I should cook up some apple recipes in my kitchen. That won’t be happening until after the mattresses can move back to their own rooms…

The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b.

To honor and encourage

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