Winterpast in June

Here are some flowers around my garden.  The daylilies are blooming beautifully after 18+ straight days  of rain.  The amount of rainfall has set and broken records.  I don't ever remember the kind of downpours we have had day after day.  Around our area some of the crops have been damaged from all the wet weather.  BUT...we are now dry and in the recovery mode.  It seems like summer is returning in some sort of normalcy for now.  We have repaired the washed out paths in the raised bed garden..TWICE..  so, all is well..let the gardening resume.  Just hoping and praying for tomatoes this year.  LOL

One of my favorite pictures of my little frog friend. She loves the daylilies and is often seen inside in the early morning..  Isn't she cute?

Oh the wildness of my gardens this year..

These cleomes come up year after year and I am always happy to see them.  The last time I saw my Mama 15 years ago we had just bought this house.  She handed me a little pot with two cleome plants in it and said these are for your new home.  She had gotten the seeds from cleome around Lake Junaluska the year before and wanted me to have some of the flowers.  They make me smile and this year there are hundreds of these volunteer cleomes...

Hopefully it will be dry enough to mow by tomorrow evening.  Most of this lawn has been like a bog..

I hope your summer is beginning with happiness and peace..  Don't forget to stop and smell the roses..or gardenias.

Love,

Mona

April Flowers

There is definitely not a lack of color and beauty in our yard this week..and pollen...lots and lots of pollen..

I hope you enjoy this stroll around our yard.....

Can you see Bonnie under the lorapetalum keeping an eye on things?

Now to the deck where there are LOTS of plants and flowers awaiting repotting.....

new herbs

tomato seedlings.. over 10 varieties..

blue and black salvia

angelonia

sedum...I am such a fan of sedums..just cannot get enough...
Do you like them?  I remember hen and chicks from my growing up years but that is about all I remember about them...

One more thing about today.....  This bench belonged to her...my Mama...it sits empty in my garden today and oh how I wish I could have sat in it with her at least once in my yard..... Today is her birthday..she would have been 84..Happy Birthday Mama..  Her gardening and artsy influences are always with me and I surely do miss her...  11 years seems like an eternity when you miss someone...

Thank you for coming to visit...I am so glad you did...Please leave a comment so I can come visit you too..It's the only way I know you stopped by....

Love, Mona

I am joining Alma at Seasonal Sundays

Naining and Naining

When my daughter was 2, my parents took her to Six Flags on a camping trip.  It started raining and they were stuck inside looking out at the monsoon.  With not much to entertain a 2 year old, my Mama used the tape recorder to record her granddaughters little voice..she described the weather to Mama in her baby words.the phrase she used over and over was this. It's just naining and naining.. it became one of our family's phrases...

So, today...that is a perfect description of our weather.....

It just has to get warmer soon, doesn't it?

I hope you are having a good weekend and staying warm and dry..

Happy Birthday Mama

 This is an updated post from last year.  My Mama was tragically killed in a car accident 10 years ago this May..today is her birthday so I want to celebrate her life once again.........

As hard as I have tried to outrun the feelings of loss that I have...I cannot.....I miss my Mama..plain and simple...she was the one that kept the family together..without her, it has fallen apart.......

and that is pretty much all I have to say.........

I miss her...

I still think about her every day...

and I love her.......

still...

Mama's have a powerful role in their children's lives..good or bad...it doesn't matter..

so for the love of home

 and flowers

 and 'looking pretty'...

I am thankful to her...she gave me this....she sent me to charm school in order to seal the deal in my life.....yes sirree..I am a born and bred Southern Lady....just like my Mama......


                                                                   Happy Birthday Mama..........

                                         thank you for stopping by today....please come again soon.....

                                                                               Mona

Arugula sprouts and chickens

 tiny little arugula babies pushing through the earth...all of this rain made quick work of seeds sprouting....I planted these on Sunday afternoon and on Thursday afternoon, there is a little row of arugula.....oh, happy day...

Have you ever thought about training your eye to see 'art' everywhere around you?  try it....this circle in the sasanqua is right next to this old chipped wrought iron post in our carport.....they have very similar feels....it is in the simple things that we find beauty...take a moment..look around you..be thankful for what you have...I am sure you can find some art in what you see......

and this magnificent terracotta chicken stands guard over our back door..she came from my Mama's yard and is absolutely one of my favorite treasures from her....after Mama died, I asked Daddy if I could have this wonderful chicken..he told me he wasn't ready to part with her yet....it reminded him too much of Mama so he kept it until he closed his house and moved to assisted living..it was one of the main things I decided to drive 8 hrs for when he got rid of everything...so I could have this memento of Mama..she always planted it with flowers and placed it at a  prominent point in her beautiful flower garden....she is a little bit fragile and her beak is broken but she still sits proudly by my back door...

It is the simple things that bring me joy.....a crazy chicken, a familiar fragrance, a once loved song..the older I get, the more I can see beauty in the everyday occurrences......keep your eyes open.stay aware of your surroundings.....you never know what you might see....

The maples of Winterpast

As I get ready for Thanksgiving, every window has a view of beautiful red leaves in our backyard....the maples seem to be smiling at me..it surely makes my work a lot more pleasant...yesterday as the sun came out, the red leaves seemed to glow....so....instead of getting in the car to go grocery shopping, I took a few minutes to take some pictures...I hope you enjoy them....

It is such a pretty time of year..

This morning I find myself wondering if Athens was this pretty with fall color as my parents left  to get married Nov 20, 1948....they eloped while they were college students here....just wondering and wishing I could talk to my Mama about it.....

Thank you for stopping by today...

Please come again soon..

Mona