Flowers * From * My * Garden

Hi there everybody. Hope you are having a good day. Been a little warm here of late. 90's plus. It is finally going to be in the low 80's, I guess 10 degrees makes a big difference. I have the fans going constantly, all day and all night just to get some relief. I really need to get a new window air conditioner, especially when the different people come here to help with the care of JP.

I do have a window unit out in the garage...does not work well though. Runs for about 10-15 minutes then starts spitting, so I have to turn it off.......it's old, got it in 2005....yeah, guess I need a new one. A portable air conditioners would be good, then I could move it around the house...(I am thinking I can, don't know if that is possible though.)

So in this blog, I am showing my flowers from my garden. The first photo is my first rose of the season. I just realized, I probably planted that rose bush when we first moved into this house. So it must be at least 30 years old!!! Yeah, we will be in this house 30 years July 27th.....wow, how time does fly!!!

My peony bush is thriving, always blooms abundantly. I get many vases of peonies....but then they shed their beautiful petal all over the place....I decided to use the petals as mulch......why not, won't hurt. Above is my Iris....only got a few blooms but they sure were gorgeous this year.

Alliums. I like these guys very much, but they don't keep their purple very long. So I was driving down Richmond Street last week and noticed at Dairy Queen that someone had spray painted their Alliums in the garden.....what a good idea. Got to try that.  So below in the next two pictures you can see my spray painted Alliums.

Here's another view of the painted Alliums. Cool huh??

The rose bush below....just not sure what is doing. 2002 it was blooming beautifully. Then we had a new porch put on the house along with siding. The workmen stepped all over this rose bush, so bad that I thought it had died. A couple of years later it started to grow back, but very wildly and there were never flowers on it. We would always cut it down to size, cause that is all it did was grow, but no roses. Then low and behold the last couple of years it has been blooming. In this picture you are seeing more roses then it has ever produced.....now sure how long this will last, but it looks nice to have a little extra color in the front yard.

I have so much more to do outside, but it is hard leaving JP alone in the house, never know what he is doing and need to check on him. Probably by the time I get everything done....it will be fall and time to prepare for winter. 

Below are my Columbine's they grow along the side of the house....I wish they looked like this all summer long, but no, their blooms are gone now and they look like weeds, but I let them dry and the seeds spread and then I get more Columbines growing the next year.

So I think I shall close here for now. Before I do, a bit of an update on JP, he is not getting any better and is getting harder for me to take care of, I am wearing out. My 11 hours a week just is not enough to get things done while someone watches him. I do appreciate their help though, the girls tend to JP, give him a shower, do dishes, wash the floor, vacuum, fold towels....what ever I ask. So that helps, they will feed him too if I show them what to make.

I guess Community Care is still trying to find a place for him....assisted living may be the answer for him and then there would be people care 24/7. I am told, then I can be like a wife and come visit him then go home...sounds wonderful at this point, but I wonder how lonely I will become????? JP and I have been together 50 years, 48 of that we have been married......so I am not sure how this will all pan out.

So I shall close here for now, take care and talk later. Keep looking up, I am pretty sure things will get better....as God is working behind the scenes, we just can't see Him working for our good.

Cheers ~ Louise
 

A Big Hole in the Front Yard

Hi there everyone, hope you are having a good Spring so far. As you can see, so far our Spring is a MESS right now. Actually this was happening a couple of weeks ago. The hole is filled in and covered up with black top.

The city had work done on sanitary sewers and water main is being replaced due to its age, condition, and under sizing....they should be done by June 10th. Every front yard was dug up....but it seems our hole was the largest.....as they could not find the water main or what ever it was they were hunting for.  

It was interesting, watching these guys work, they sure knew what they were doing. The backhoe driver was amazing how he could move that bucket around and move the dirt. I was pooped just watching them.

They had to tear up 7 slabs of sidewalk. They stepped all over my peonies.....they are growing now, some of them got dug up.....oh well that's life.

Here they are....still looking for the drain, I was getting kind of worried, all I could see was $$$$ signs. One of the workers said, don't worry, you won't have to pay extra. Whew!!!!

It looked like the hole was about 15 feet deep. Then down in the corner of this bottom picture you can see this big metal box they put in the hole so the dirt did not cave in while the worker was working on connecting the green pipes.

They must have worked on our drain most of the afternoon. I was kind of nervous most of the afternoon, pacing the floor and watching. I felt like something was going to happen.....sure enough, they could not find the drain to this house and had to come in the basement a couple of times to find where the pipes were. 

The hole is covered up now....will be glad when this is over, it has raised a lot of dust which has caused my eyes to itch constantly along with the pollen in the air. Using lots of eye drops and rinsing with hot water, which was very soothing.

I will take pictures of our front yard after everything is all cleaned up. I did a little bit of planting, radishes, lettuce, beans, zucchini, cucumber and chives. Hopefully the weather will be nice over the Memorial weekend and I can plant some flowers and seeds.

Time to close, Salvage Dawgs is on....love watching them and see what they make with all the recycled stuff they get from old houses and old businesses. You have a great weekend and keep looking up, better days are a coming. Cheers ~ Louise

Beautiful Bella & Pretty Peonies

Hi there everyone. Hope you had a "bellissimo" weekend. Ours was kind of exciting. Thursday it started out with this site. BELLA sitting on her roof!!! What a site, I tell ya. For whatever reason, she crawls through the window screens and just sits there, waiting for her humans to come home. Well on this fine day, it happened that the man from Rebuilding Together came by to pick up their sign and he saw Bella sitting on the roof. He called Community Service. While he was calling Bella decided to go back into the house. Yes, crawling back through the window screen and back to safety.

As soon as he knew Bella was safe, he left. About a half hour later the Community Service police came. They looked around the house and on the roof. One of them saw me standing on the porch and came over. I told them Bella sits on the roof waiting....she does not jump, but I guess she could and it would be a long hard jump for her. She has done this a few other times. When I see the owners I will tell them and get their phone number. Next time this happens, I will call them and let them know. they said, "great...because there was really NOTHING they could do."

Saturday....Bella was on the roof again. I tell ya....I get such a kick out of seeing Bella sitting calmly on the roof looking off into the distance. She is so funny!!! BUT, not so funny on this day. I went over to Bella's home and told her master "John" about her antics. Bella thought it was great that I was visiting and to get John's attention, she decided to eat a DEAD chipmunk!!! Oh yuk.....I could not look cause every time I looked, I almost lost it and gagged!!! John never did get that dead chipmunk out of Bella's mouth. Bella thought it was great sport and pranced around, thinking she had done a wonderful thing.

After she ate the chipmunk she came up to the porch and wanted to greet me with a mouth shake....looking closely at her, Bella has to different colored eyes...one blue and one grey/white....funny dog!!!

Here you see my peonies...these are in a bouquet in the front of the house. Hold on, I shall go take another picture of the peonies.....the sun is out now I think I will use this picture as the header for this blog.

Here we are a picture of the peonies in a bouquet in front of the house. See my cucumbers to the right?? 3 in a pot and 4 or 5 in the ground....one way or the other....I shall get some cucumbers this summer. Maybe I will be able to share some too. Or make lots of pickles this summer.

My little evergreen tree planted by "Rebuilding Together" is not doing too well....we have to get some cow manure for it this week. I shall make some tea and give it a shot for all the plants....they can hardly wait.

Well, time to close here....think I will go downstairs and make a few cards...have not been down there for awhile....guess outside work is taking up my time.

I have found a wonderful book to read....it's called "The Mystery Of Lucy and the Dark Woods" by Diana Kosmoski, it's her first authored book and I have found it very interesting and good reading. I have taken time, after JP leaves for work, I sit on the front porch for about an hour with an ice tea and Kylie watching the action on the street from the porch. It is very relaxing. As for most books I get interested in, I don't want the end to come...but it will. I may have to ask Diana to write a sequel.

You have a great week and keep looking up. Cheers ~ Louise

WHAT?????

Hahahahahaha......hope you had a wonderful Sunday. It was beautiful today, sunny and crisp, a good day to be alive!!!!

I put a pork tenderloin in the crock pot along with some of my homemade sauerkraut at 8:30am this morning, by the time we got home at 12:30, the meat temp was 160 degrees. So I waited for about an hour,  putzed around the house, sat on the front porch and turned my water fountain on. Got dinner ready, toast, salad and applesauce. It was a lovely meal to savior on a beautiful day like this.

Checked out what was on the computer, took a short nap and then took Kylie for a little walk. About 5:00 we raked some leaves, cut my peonies, lavender and irises down. Tomorrow is leaf collection. So we need to get as much out there for the city to collect as possible.

So here I am typing away on this blog....nothing much important going on this week that I know of....maybe just finish winterizing the front and back yard. I still have one tomato bush producing, it sits on the front porch...the frost has not gotten to it yet....so little tomatoes for salads are on the agenda for them.

Well time to close....the Packers are about to kick the ball and play tonight...time to go watch them play and win......hopefully. Have a great couple of days and enjoy the beautiful weather till the snow begins to fly!!! Cheers ~ Louise

Some Flowers From My Garden

Hi everyone....well today I blogged about "some flowers from my garden." You can find my new post at this link: cards4ubylouise.wordpress.com 


Thanks for stopping by and do please leave a comment, it is always nice to hear from you.


Cheers ~ Louise


NOTE: Due to unresolved issues with BlogSpot. I cannot download pictures. So I have taken my blogging to Wordpress where picture downloading is more assessable. Please continue visiting me here and @ wordpress.

A Doggie Doodle Day

A Doggie Doodle Day?????? What's that??? I don't know, just the first thing that popped into my mind for a title....probably not a very catchy theme but works pretty good with this picture though. Cute puppy huh?

Well, it is going to be in the 80-90's the next few days, uge, kind'a warm for me, my ankles swell up in this heat and are very uncomfortable. That's why I like it in the 60's and 70's there is not so much humidity. Guess I could not live in the southern states.......tooooooo warm!!

JP had a filling fall out this week. We have no Dental Insurance so JP was able to go to Tri-County Community Dental and got two fillings filled, x-rays taken and a sharp tooth filled down all for $20 co-pay. Now that was a blessing in disguise!!!

This is going to be a short blog today.........JP wants to go guitar shopping, so I have to get ready to go. Did alot of work outside yesterday, so now I am recuperating from all that work. Moved my front porch furniture around and dusted and sweep the floor. Cut my peonies and roses down and fertilized. Planted my zucchini plants........not sure I will have zucchinis this year, but I will try. We need lots of bees to pollinate and the bees have been sparse the last couple of years cause I have had NO large harvest of zucchinis.

Well I need to go get ready for our little excursion today, so you all take care and keep looking up for your redemption draweth nigh.
Cheers to all - Louise