I decided I needed an end of summer breather from all the "heavy" stuff in many of my other postings. You probably do, too. So grab a glass of iced tea or just cold water steeped with fresh mint leaves, take a break, put your feet up, and enjoy some of my favorite images of mid-August.
Worth the price ($3.50/pound) and worth the drive.
Yes, it was a "blue-tiful" morning. Both friends want to go next year, too. I love having events to look forward to. It's a date!
Next, a few scenes from our community garden. It is "mess" this year with so much going on with our new house, but we still love it and are harvesting. Sometimes we do what I call "speed-gardening". Stop by, weed, weed, weed "the worst" and harvest, harvest, harvest "the best". A far cry from how I like to garden, but it is the best we can do this year. Next year we'll finally be gardening right out of back door - My husband and I can't wait!
A few photos from our current home. I am looking at everything in our yard knowing this will be our last August where we have lived for 22 years. There is quite a bit of nostalgia doing this, especially knowing we have put 22 years of work into our home and yard.
Our one small cardinal flower next to our butterfly bush. This area of our backyard is butterfly and hummingbird haven, with just these two plants!
August would not be August without having the summer breezes blow the intoxicating smell through my front screen door of the flowering bushes called "summer sweet". I will definitely need to plant these by the front door of our new home. I'm sorry that this is only a photo and not a smell!
Our one phlox is finally blooming. It is not in a spot that has full sun so it blooms later than others I see in my neighborhood. Black-eyed susans to the left of the phlox and wood poppies (they bloom in the spring through June) to the right.
Our front yard hummingbird and butterfly gardens. Goldenrod and asters are just starting to come into bloom for the end of year blossoms. This year I have weeded but done no "trimming" to keep the plants a bit more tidy. We are trying to hold them back off the sidewalk with string and bean poles, only somewhat successfully.
One lone mum plant starting to bloom, somewhat "pooping out". I expect that it is tired since it came with us from Illinois 22 years ago. Still it gives us good memories of our first home.
We have seen up to six frogs at a time this summer in our very small back-yard pond. I love to count the "plops" that I hear when I walk out the back door. I waited a while and then snuck up on this little guy to catch a photo of him after he hopped back up onto the stone edging from his hiding place.
Honeybee on our mint flowers right off our deck in a "confined spot" so it does not take over all the other gardens. This is the very first year we have seen honeybees in our yard. We are wondering where the hive is!
Lastly, a few views of our new home. SO MUCH to do. Only someone with a critical eye and good memory would be able to see the progress we have made. I think most people only see how much there is still to do. :-) The contrast between the 22 years of work we have put into our current home and the 22 years of neglect that this home and land had is striking and a bit sad. However, we have arrived to bring back the beauty and love that surely were here at one time (at the very least, must have been hoped for).
Speaking of hope, our son found two asparagus spears (in August!) in an area that clearly had been a former garden, but was now so wild and overgrown that we finally just had it mowed. Hey, hey - a sign of hope! No one plants asparagus without long-term hopes, as it takes 3 years after planting the roots to actually harvest the spring-time spears. Thus, it is very clear to us that the former family of this foreclosed home did love their land and had high hopes before their life took an unfortunate turn.
We decided to name the batch of beer we bottled at home this past weekend "Shade Dog". Although we are still figuring out just how water is leaking into the basement of the house, one thing we'll be doing is adding water access in the basement so my husband can continue with his delicious hobby of home beer-brewing.
Not pictured is the invasive purple loose-strife and phragmytes on our property or the adjacent land. We are slowly "attacking" that, too. My younger son and I are going to work on the purple loose-strife this afternoon, one more time, before he flies back home to Seattle tonight to get ready to start his third year teaching 8th grade science (with the addition of a new 6th grade class, too). The time together has been precious, 2 weeks, it just flew by. I don't know if we'll be so fortunate to have him (or our older son) alone for so long again. What a grateful mom I am to have had to opportunity to keep far enough ahead of cancer to enjoy this special time. :-)
We don't have many "lazy days" of summer, but we certainly have many enjoyable ones. I hope you do, too!
Diana Dyer, MS, RD
We don't have many "lazy days" of summer, but we certainly have many enjoyable ones. I hope you do, too!
Diana Dyer, MS, RD
2 comments:
Beautiful pictures, Diana. Even if it's not a lazy August, it seems like a lovely one. Ours has been very busy but very good, too.
Lovely photos. I loved reading about your new property. It is so exciting to liberate plants, isn't it?
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