It’s been a very busy month.  By busy I mean planting, cleaning, building, sewing, walking, and visiting among other things.  Summer is building up to be very busy also.    Every Summer we look at the three long months ahead and think of all the time we’ll have and then things start to be planned and before we know it, Summer is over. Right now we have a graduation party, a wedding, a trip to Chicago, visiting relatives and a Sunday school party planned.   I would like to have a candlelight dinner on our new porch, but haven’t got the plans all together for that yet.  I’d love to have a ladies’ day camp at my house where all my friends could come to spend the day, without children, and swim, sun, hot tub and eat yummy food all day.  Doesn’t that sound like fun?  I’d love to have all you girls come enjoy the day with me.

I am going to talk about our new porch for a minute.  I know you are thinking, “blah, blah, blah, that’s all she talks about.  Her new porch. Boring.”  I know, but I just love my new porch so much.  David and I go out every day and look around and tell each other how much we love it.  The stone mason got the stone laid last week despite that it rained every single day.

We had cloudbursts after cloudbursts.  The garden loved it, but it made it hard to lay stone as the cement couldn’t set in the rain.

The stone masons made themselves a little tent to work under.  I felt so bad for them as I stood inside my nice, dry house and watched them work.  They are truly artists at their work.  The pillars came out even more beautiful than I ever could have imagined.   I am so glad we decided to do them as we were a little afraid of the cost.  Since we plan to live in this house the rest of our lives, I think we made the right decision.

David had had his eye on these rocking chairs we saw at Sam’s Club and he finally decided to go buy them.  They were the last two they had so I think we were meant to have them.  They are so comfortable and made of teak so they will fade to a grey.  We have originally become old, I said. Two old folks sitting and rocking on their front porch.  I would love to put a bed out there also.  To sleep under a metal roof while a soft rain is falling upon it sounds like bliss to me.  I fell asleep on our swing in our back yard yesterday and when I opened my eyes, there was a carpenter bee right in front of my eyes.  So close that when I swatted at it, I hit it.   I wondered just how long it had been flying around my head and looking at my nostrils as a place to call home!  Yikes!

I love the way the shadows fall upon the porch.  It’s just a magical place, I have to tell you.  I know it’s just a porch, but it just makes you feel good to sit out there.

I have been having a wonderful time landscaping around the porch.  I had purchased a lot of perennials that I was just itching to get into the ground.  I spent a couple of days planting.

This little patch of flowers are on the left side of the steps.

We dug up some more yard for another bed.  The less grass I have to mow the better I like it.  I have planted these plants and sowed zinnia and cleome around them  I also planted some hollyhock bulbs, but I am not sure they will grow.  I have decided buying prepackaged bulbs from certain stores are not the healthiest of bulbs.  I bought garlic bulbs from one particular store a couple of years ago and not one grew.

Now you know I have to have something about chickens in my garden.  I found this cute garden stake at Rural King, one of my favorite stores.  It has a little bell that really rings.

I’ve planted and planted. Did I really need to buy eight packets of sunflower seeds?  Really??  I managed to find places to plant them, but my garden is getting packed full.  This is an old lawn spreader that I painted pink and planted with annuals.  A movable flower pot!

I never tire of seeing the perennials bloom every year.  The irises, poppies and peonies are beautiful right now.  Peonies are probably my very favorite flower.  The poppies were started from David’s grandmother’s garden.  She always had a beautiful garden in her backyard.  I can still see it in my mind’s eye.

Peonies make such a beautiful bouquet.  If I were getting married again, I would want to get married when the peonies are in bloom so that I could have them in my wedding bouquet.

Two of my favorite colors together.

Even the white ones are gorgeous.

Meanwhile, David has been working hard to get things ready for summer.

Want to come swim in our pool?  What’s that?  You say it’s green?  This is what it looks like every year when we(meaning David) takes the cover off.  Then the real work begins.

David spends many hours cleaning, flushing and checking the chemicals.  It’s hard to believe that soon this green pool will be a beautiful, clear blue ready for swimming.  Our grandkids are coming over this weekend, so hope the pool will be ready.

We needed a new walkway to our porch and David spent a day working on it.  It was his plan and I must say it turned out really well.  I will show you the ta-da moment on another post as I forgot to take pictures of the finished project.

 

Doesn’t he have a nicely tanned head?  Working outside in the sunshine will do that.

Over a year ago, when our new porch was just a figment of our imaginations, we bought this stained glass picture to hang in our front window.  We didn’t want to put it up until it would be in the shade as my stained glass pictures in my shop windows faded after years in the sun.  I love this with all the different birds on it.

Less you think I have forgotten all about the chooks, I haven’t.

They are so happy to have ground where they can take their dust baths again.  Here they are in front of one of the dog houses.  There’s Freedom getting ready to run.  She always runs when she sees me despite the fact I spent weeks nursing her back to health last year.  Ungrateful chicken.

Here she is thinking she has escaped me, but I cut her off at the pass.

Dorcas, or is it Beatrice, is friendlier to me and will come right up to me and let me pick her up.  She’s such a pretty girl.

Even though Freedom is afraid of me, she keeps her eye on me.  She will follow me all around the coop, but as soon as I go to pet her she’s off to the races again.

Of course laying season is picking up.  Sometimes I will find as many as four eggs in one nest.  Chickens like communal laying, I guess.  We give a lot of eggs away.  They are good, organic, free range chicken eggs and taste like butter.  I have eaten more eggs this year than I think I have all my life.  Egg salad is a mainstay at the Craig house.

Well, hope you are enjoying the weather and getting outdoors and giving God the praise for His glorious creation. Bye.