Every day in June ...

Here we go. I'm taking a stab at writing and riding every day in June. Sometimes writing about riding, but not always. Just making a stab at doing both for a solid month. We'll see. Tonight, some mental pictures from this evening's lovely 20 miler ...

 white faced Herefords, shoulder high in early summer grass,

 a whiff of honeysuckle,

ripe winter wheat, unmoving in the evening stillness, tawny, the color of a lion's mane,

occasionally a malodorous scent - probably a dead possum in a ditch that the vultures haven't completely eaten clean

pushing hard up the last hill on Morrison, catching my breath in gasps at the top

coasting down the driveway and loving seeing a tomato on the vine, deep green chard, daylilies and the biggest hydrangea blossoms ever, in my garden this year

It was a good day. Happy June.

Catching up #4: Before and After

A trampoline used to fill this space. For years, the boys and friends enjoyed it. As they grew into adulthood though, the trampoline sat empty. With some missing side springs, rips in the surrounding net, and decrepit padding, it was starting to be a hazard ... and an unsightly one at that. Several years ago, we said good-bye to it, leaving an empty space that filled with weeds and grew unattractive and unusable for anyone but the bravest Frizcup players.

This spring was the time to make this section of the garden into a grandkid and visiting-little-ones-friendly area again.

Before ...

  

After ...

Before ...

After ... 

 

Before: Overgrown redtips, brush and weeds, no place to sit or play, unusable, unattractive

After: Redtips cut waaaaaay back, area cleared of weeds and mulched, paths lined with stones, sandbox, firepit, Mud Pie Cafe, baby swing, hammock, chairs, Frizcup "court"


We love our made-over backyard. I love that we have maintained the natural feel of the woods. We've already had several fires in the fire pit this summer. The sandbox has been used by grandchildren and friends. The Mud Pie Cafe has served lots of customers delicacies like mulch mud casserole and sand tea. Babies have been swung. Frizcup has been played. It's a usable, fun and relatively low maintenance space now.  A backyard for grandkids. Win,win, win!

Catching up #3: The garden

 

I can manage one garden area at a time it seems. The one that I attend to blooms and shines and the others seem to languish, weedy and sad looking, needing attention and loving care.

This year, I've focused on the back terrace/retaining wall garden, which is my favorite simply because I see it the most. I come in and out the door above the terrace so look down on it every time I come and go. I walk on the brick walk at its edge when I go down to the pool or take out the compost. I see it from the kitchen window, my reading chair, the porch, the deck. We put a whole lot of work into this area several years ago. It was the summer of 2007 when we dug into the collapsing hillside and built a retaining wall. A few years before that, we had terraced the hillside using busted up concrete slabs. My boys put a lot of muscle and sweat into this garden, so it's no surprise it's my favorite. I'm glad that it is finally really coming into its own.

I've planted several day lily cultivars in the past couple of years. This year they were so lovely.

The lemon thyme, rosemary, sage, lavender, and comfrey are well established. Parsley and basils of various types fill in the gaps. A couple of tomato plants find sun in the top terrace and volunteer butternut squashes are winding their way through the lower beds.

The knock-out, Julia Child, and other roses and the purple salvia were at their peak a few weeks back.

The white phlox and shasta daisies are starting to bloom. The pixie hydrangea has filled out nicely and the hostas are multiplying. I'd like a few more annual flowers for cutting. I did start seeds this spring, but they were old and the germination rate was poor. So, few or no bachelor buttons, cosmos, or zinnias.

Up next, some garden before and after pics ...

The end of summer

"The crickets sang in the grasses.  They sang the song of summer's ending, a sad, monotonous song. 'Summer is over and gone,' they sang, 'Over and gone, over and gone. Summer is dying, dying.'

The crickets felt it was their duty to warn everybody that summertime cannot last forever. Even on the most beautiful days in the whole year - the days when summer is changing into fall - the crickets spread the rumor of sadness and change...

Everybody heard the song of the crickets.  Avery and Fern Arable heard it as they walked the dusty road ... Mrs. Zuckerman, at work in the kitchen, heard the crickets, and a sadness came over her, too. 'Another summer gone,' she sighed.

'Summer is over and gone,' repeated the crickets. 'How many nights til frost?' sang the crickets. 'Good-bye, summer, good-bye, good-bye, good-bye!'

The sheep heard the crickets, and they felt so uneasy they broke a hole in the pasture fence and wandered up into the field across the road ... a little maple tree in the swamp heard the cricket song and turned bright red with anxiety.'"

I read this chapter, "Crickets, " from Charlotte's Web to Clara the other day and thought that perhaps E. B. White felt the way I do about the ending of summer.  I never want it to end.  I want the long hot days to go on and on and on; for watermelons and corn and tomatoes and yellow squash and okra to keep ripening; for the farmers to continue bringing their produce on Monday afternoons to the little market by the railroad tracks.  I want to be hot enough that the cool, well water in the pool feels refreshing; to sweat when I walk; to hear the electric throbbing hum of the cicadas.

Down south, first frost is still a ways off.  We will have plenty of hot days in September, I'm sure.  I even thought about challenging myself to swim outside every day in September.  We'll see about that.

E. B. White, who wrote Charlotte's Web, lived in Maine, so Labor Day weekend really did signal the end of summer for him.  Fall was just around the corner, the brilliant colors of the maples and oaks, the harvest of apples, the chill of frost soon coming very soon.  We still have a bit of time.  September is not yet full-fledged fall here.  In October and on into November, we will have mild, shirt-sleeve days.

It's coming, though.  Leaves are already drying and drifting down.  The tulip poplars are the first ones that yellow and fall.  We scoop them out of the pool along with the last of the pink crepe myrtle blossoms.  I spotted a bit of red on the drooping leaves of an August-dry dogwood.  Mums are appearing in the garden centers.  Pumpkins will be here soon.

I don't want summer to end.  I'm not ready for sweaters.  And yet ...

I feel the dry, brittle grass in the front yard, see the summer weary beauty berry with hints of purple in the clusters of berries. The hosta blooms are spent, their stalks, dry pokers now.  The bronze fennel has gone to seed, .  So, let the season change.  Let the cool weather come.  E.B. White said these were the most beautiful days - the days when summer was changing into fall.  I understand but don't agree.  I still prefer March and April, with the promise of growth and warmth ahead, but I'll settle into the beauty of fall when it comes. I'll put a mum on the porch and change out the summer wreath on the front door and even enjoy wrapping up in a quilt on the porch in the chill of the mornings to come.

Tired

I'd been hoping to "make-over" that lower terrace this summer.  I reworked one bed a couple of months ago, digging and amending the soil and transplanting daylilies, hostas, and parsley. The rest of the lower terrace garden has languished, a sad assortment of shasta daisies, a knock-out rose, and lots of weeds. Back in May, I added an astilbe and a hydrangea in the shady corner, but the path was an uneven and the whole thing was weedy mess crying out for attention and restoration.

Today was the day.  I dug, moved rocks, hauled topsoil, chopped and added leaves to the beds, smoothed the path, laid down landscape fabric on the path and spread cypress mulch on it.  I lined the beds with the afore mentioned rocks (which are really chunks of concrete that we scavenged years ago), and planted and transplanted ... another hydrangea, several hostas, some impatiens, ferns, ajuga, and a lone coral bell that had gotten squeezed out by a vigorously growing hosta in bed in front of the house.

Today's work is done now and the sprinklers are running, watering in the new plants.  I am bone weary, arm hanging limp tired.  I may not be able to move in the morning.  But I like this kind of job-done-weary ... and it is a beautiful night.  The cicadas are humming and I expect I'll hear an owl or two in a little while.  Lightning bugs are twinkling here and there and the full moon will be up in a little while.

I am grateful.  So very grateful ... for arms to lift and haul, rake and dig; for legs that carry me back and forth, uphill and down; for good tools; for a well that has never run dry; for the white hydrangea and phlox blossoms that shimmer in a moonlit garden.

Garden work

It's a joy to be out in the garden these days.  Spring was slow in coming, even down south, and April was a wet month.  However, our azaleas are more full this year than they've been in a while and I'm wondering if the cooler, wetter, later spring had something to do with that.  A four year old who visited us on Sunday remarked to his mom as he walked down our front walkway, "These flowers are gorgeous!"  And he's right, they really have been so full and lovely this year.  The different azalea colors and cultivars bloom at slightly different times, so the pink ones by the drive were in full flush just in time for Easter pictures. (sorry I'm a little late posting them here).

Thomas and Kay's baby boy, showing himself a little more these days.

Isn't my d-i-l lovely and spunky and fun!

Those pink azaleas (in the background) are fading a bit now, but the rhododendrons (just behind Coty's shoulder) are following close on.  The Pinckney cultivar (yes, that it's real name.  I bought it at a Rhododendron society auction shortly after we moved here) is lovely ...

and the other purple rhododendrons that were here when we came, are starting to open.

I'm thinking of adding some more of these beauties, or perhaps mountain laurels (which are NC natives), to the back garden, which continues to be a work in progress.

The mock orange is just coming into flower now...

and the peonies ...

and where there are peonies, there will be ants!  They love 'em.

The front garden

I spent most of my day with these beauties ...

Ajuga, planted last spring, has spread nicely.  I will dig and plant clumps in a few other spots.

Yellow dead nettle, dug from a neighbor's garden several years ago.

Azalaeas ...

Dogwoods ...

Carolina jessamine (yes, it's jessamine, not jasmine)

And more azaleas.  This shocking pink azalea is always the first one to be fully in bloom.

Epimedium, with delicate flowers that seem to float on slender stalks before the leaves come out.  The heart shaped leaves have just begun to appear and will fill out nicely in the coming weeks.  It's a wonderful ground cover for dry shade.

Lots of vinca and baby autumn ferns

The English boxwood with her chartreuse flush of tender new leaves.  Some people don't like the smell of English boxwoods.  I once heard it described as smelling like dog pee.  I was shocked because I love their smell.  It is not fragrant, but distinctive.  It takes me back to my great uncle's farm in Sandy Springs, to an ornery pony named Candy that we tried somewhat unsuccessfully to ride. Massive boxwoods flanked the front of the house and Uncle Mark raised them in a field behind the little playhouse that I remember so well.  The two boxwoods by my front steps came from the farm.  I cherish them and breathe their odor with delight.

This beauty ... a flowering shrub called Florida anise that does have very fragrant leaves.

And this, my friends, is our lovely weed patch lawn.  Just keepin' it real.  It's not all order and beauty in this garden ... not by a long shot.  

Tomorrow, I'll be out back with the herbs and irises and bleeding hearts and a whole lot of oak leaves.

Til then ...

Garden or Studio ...

Good morning, friends.  It is a perfect Southern spring morning.  The back door is wide open and the sun is streaming across the screen porch.  The English boxwoods that flank our front steps have sprouted a new layer of delicate chartreuse leaves; the redbuds (my favorites) are pink brushstrokes in the woods behind the house; the dogwoods are starting to open.  I've heard that Memorial Garden is at its peak.  Must make a trip up there in the next day or so.

I'm getting on my gardening gloves and heading outside this morning.  The irises and bleeding hearts are lovely in the lower terrace, but goodness, there are a lot of weeds and garden clean-up to do.  And as it always seems to be around here, there are garden areas to rethink and rework.  The lower retaining wall garden that I had hoped would be my sunny vegetable garden has grown increasingly shady as hollies and oaks have grown.  Cutting the trees is not an option, so I am looking at pictures of shade gardens, imagining ferns and more bleeding hearts, perhaps more irises. And there are daylilies to plant. Some day I'll get it right (hah!) and then just walking the garden paths and pulling a stray weed here and there.  I can dream.

The problem I face these days is that I am quite torn between the studio and the garden.  I want to be working in both places.  There's a prom dress to sew, quilt projects always, ideas to try out for Make Welcome.  It's a good problem to have.

I haven't been in this spot very much lately. I've been posting more over at Make Welcome.  Here and here and here.  We are enjoying our new sewing space, excited that now THREE women have been able to purchase their own sewing machines, looking forward to having a larger stock of items to sell in the weeks ahead.

We are still working out the details of the business side of our work, but if you are interested in purchasing any of the items we already have available, I am able to arrange a direct purchase for you from one of our refugee sew-ers.  There are rice bag totes and pillows ... and more to come.

We have launched a fundraiser to underwrite the cost of sewing machines for our students.  More about that in the next post.

For now, time to get those garden gloves on and get outside.

Happy Saturday!

In the interim ...

since I last wrote, spring has come and gone.  And come again.  And gone again.  The daffodils have bloomed in full force, faces to the sun, waving in warm breezes, and then bowed low under the weight of heavy, cold rain.

At least it's not snowing.  I expect those of you who have just received another several inches of snow are more than ready to see it melt away for good.  I know I would be.

Thankfully, Saturday was a gorgeous day, as warm and slightly windy as a mid-March day should be.  It was perfect for the ARTwalk in our town and the first sales booth experience for our women's sewing group, Make Welcome. We gathered our embellished towels, rice bag totes, fabric flower hair clips, and headbands; dug out and ironed bright orange sari fabric to cover our table; hastily printed pictures and made a sign for our table; and got it all organized in time for Saturday morning.

Julia and I took turns at the table and enjoyed a day of meeting people and telling them about Make Welcome.  We did pretty well selling, too.  It's exciting to see this venture begin to bear the fruit of some income returning to the women.  In addition, the day at the ARTwalk gave us some exposure and contacts with people who are interested both in volunteering and further purchases!

Today it's chilly and wet.  My in-laws, who have been here for Coty's birthday, are heading down the road. I have a messy sewing room and plenty of projects in the queue.  As soon as we say our good-byes, I'm making tea and settling myself in for a day at the machine.

To my northern readers ...

... my sympathy and apologies. I am about to tell you things you may not want to hear.  If you would rather not know of daffodils already well on their way to blooming, stop reading now.  You have snow on the ground and probably more to come.  Then it will be mud season.  I remember.  I lived in New England for 13 years.  I loved the snow and cold of December and January, but past Valentine's Day, as February drew to a dreary close, I began to long for spring.  But I knew it would still be a long time coming.  So, if you are tired of the snow, dreading the mud, and longing for an earthy whiff of warming leaf mold or the fragrance of lilacs, you have my sympathy.  And my apologies for what I am about to tell you.

Yesterday afternoon, it was 75 degrees. Sometimes this week, when the sun hasn't been shining, a gentle rain has fallen.  This morning, we're having a booming thunderstorm.  But it's warm enough to sit out on the porch take it all in.  Who doesn't love a good thunderstorm?

One afternoon earlier in the week, I sat on the porch, in short sleeves, reading. The cat, who loves the warmth just as much as I do and had spent most of the day exploring outside, jumped up on the chair beside me.  The very damp earth, soggy with snow melt and rain, warmed, and the stream out back flowed. The chorus frogs were singing. The breeze caressed.  I took a deep breath and spring filled my nostrils and lungs.

This time last week, we'd just had a "historic" snow storm.  Weather-caster hyperbole.  8 inches of snow and three days school vacation hardly seem worthy of that designation.  Perhaps our years in the Berkshires, when 8 inches was an inconvenience and the plows might take just a little longer to get the roads cleared, makes me skeptical of all the hype, and gives me a certain nonchalance about what my local weatherman declares to be historic. But, historic or not, it's all behind us now.  The tiny patches of snow lingering in shady spots have all melted away and I am hunting, hunting, hunting for more signs of spring.

 the very last little patch of last week's snow and one brave daffodil

Oh, the cold will be back.  The temperatures will drop and it may even snow again, and we will worry about our early flowers.  But spring is announcing her arrival ... and I am ready.

Snow day, sew day

The snow started again this morning, coming down in great big fluffy flakes.  So pretty.  I put black oil sunflower seeds in the feeder and on the windowsill, in hopes of luring the chickadees close and beginning the process of getting them to eventually feed out of my hand.  Mary inspired me.

The chickadees came right away, and also tufted titmice, dark-eyed juncos, cardinals, and the little chipping sparrow.  I put seeds on the windowsill (just behind my little space heater) and in the days to come, I'll put my hand out the window with seeds in it.  We'll see how long it takes!

It was the perfect morning to sit by the window, reading and watching the birds.

Then I shifted to the studio and my trusty old Singer ...

I have a couple of major projects, but I've been away from them - and from my machine - for awhile, so I needed something to sew as a bit of a warm up.

This is a piece of muslin which one of the women in our Make Welcome class sewed.  The very first class, I gave them each a piece of this cloth and showed them how to use the straight stitch and vary the stitch length.  Then we moved on to the zig zag and other stitch options on the machine.  Each of the women made a little sampler like this one and I've had them on my studio shelf, just waiting for an idea.

I made the first one into a zipper pouch with lining from a sari I have stashed.  How would you like to open a little pouch and find this bright bird inside?!

 And here's what that sampler above became - a shoulder bag, with sari sides, back, strap, and lining.  It has an antique button with elastic closure and one pocket on the inside.

These "First Stitches" bags will be for sale (somewhere, sometime - we're still working on those details) but if you're interested in either one, you could leave me a comment.  All proceeds will go toward the work of Make Welcome.

By the afternoon, our snow storm was over.  Coty dug out the driveway and I poked around the yard a bit, anticipating this year's garden chores.  There are many.

Then we went for a walk in the neighborhood.  So many snow people on lawns (today was great snow building, snow ball snow), so many people out walking or shoveling snow.  Everyone was cheerful.  Who wouldn't be?  It was 45 degrees, the snow was beautiful, and the skies were Carolina blue again.