Wonderful, Marvelous May

I love the Spring months, March, April and May and they all seem to go so fast every year. This year has been no exception. This May has been so cool and downright cold at times. I waited and waited to plant my flower seeds. We are making our back yard into a sanctuary of sorts by letting the grasses grow wild and planting other grasses and wildflowers. It takes a few years to establish a meadow, but we are well on our way. It just takes patience. I keep telling David, every time he wants to mow the back yard to just wait. He will be so glad he did. It’s wonderful seeing the grasses actually reseeding themselves and I love watching the dogs play in what looks like a field instead of the bare ground that was once where they played and lay down. To many people, this would not be their cup of tea. Our children haven’t seen it yet and will probably think Mom and Dad are getting senile in their old age and forgetting to mow, but that is not the case!

See how the grasses are reseeding themselves. Use to be they would be mowed down long before they reached this stage. I think they look so pretty. And the flowers among them really stand out.

The peonies have been so beautiful and they really show up in the grasses. David and I were talking one day and I was wondering just how many peonies I had and I thought there were probably about twenty in the back yard, but David disagreed and went out and counted them all and I have thirty peonies. I have them in all colors. White, pink, dark pink, reddish, pink and white and they are all lovely. My favorite flower, really. David picked me a big bouquet of them.

Reminds me of the paint by number painting I did a year ago.

I just think they make the perfect cut flower. If I were getting married again, and I’m not, I would have the church filled with peonies and my colors would be pink and white.

The Irises have been beautiful, too. You really cannot kill irises. We mow them down every Autumn and they keep coming back, bigger and more beautiful every year.

The old fashion Roses that we brought from David’s mother’s house when she sold it have had more blooms on them this year than ever. They smell like roses should. We have two of them in the side garden and they are just this year beginning to grow up the fence. We will fertilize them and dust them to keep off the bugs and that is all they really need besides water.

The front of my workshop has needed a good cleaning and set back to order for years and this week I finally got it done. I took everything off the table on the porch and cleaned the table and everything that was on it. David powerwashed everything else and took some of his junk back to his shed. I rearranged the table and it all looks so much better. I don’t know why it took me so long! Guess I had other things that seemed more important.

Ignore the boots I have drying on the watering can, but this is the table that has been organized. I still have one more thing to put on it that I will have to show you another time. You see, I went to this amazing garage sale of an antique business that is going out of business and I got these beautiful ladies that hold flowers, plus a couple more things. I just love that everything is clean, at least for a short time. It’s so dusty outside things don’t stay clean.

I bought some artificial flowers to brighten up the place.

The sunflower sign I got at the nursery we go to that is going out of business this year. She always has such cute things to put in the garden and such beautiful flowers. I sure am going to miss them next year. And yes, beware of dog. Ha. Well, I’m not so sure about Molly. She can either be fierce or act like she is in love with you if you are a stranger. We never know so we always warn people.

I painted this mailbox a few years ago. No, I am not an artist, but I still like to try.

This is my flower garden in front of my work shop. I’ve planted zinnias, cosmos, geraniums, cyprus, coreopsis and other flowers I can’t name at the moment. See that pink flamingo? Many years ago we drove up the west side of Florida clear to the panhandle and we found this wonderful antique store. They had two flamingos, but I could only afford one of them and brought him home and have taken care of him all these years, but I always wished we had gotten the other one. Years later, we passed that very same antique store, but it was closed so no more flamingos..

We have Coreopsis growing wild all over our driveway and I have been pulling it up and replanting it into pots to put in our meadow at some time. I haven’t planted Coreopsis in years and yet this year it is all over. I’m not complaining. I love it.

Once again I planted geraniums in an old grill I painted green. They haven’t filled in, yet, but they will and this will be so pretty.

Another view of my container garden. You may ask why don’t I plant more flowers in my back yard. Their names are Lucy and Sugar and I believe it’s mostly Sugar who loves to dig and she doesn’t always care where she digs. We were gone for a couple of days and just before we went away, I had bought some more flowers to fill in a little garden I have right beside our back porch. David put fencing and wire around all the flowers to protect them. Ha. When we got home I discovered one of the flowers had been completely dug up and some of the others didn’t looks so good. I scolded Sugar, but she didn’t have a clue why I was angry with her so today we made up and I loved on her a lot so we’re friends again. Until she digs us something else! I’m hoping the flowers will recover.

We took a road trip this past weekend. On backroads, of course. We hardly ever use interstate unless we need to get somewhere fast, but his was not that kind of journey. Originally, we planned to get up to Lake Erie. It’s really not that far from us. A day trip. So off we went.

The curvier and more secluded roads, the better. You would be surprised how many roads are like this all over the country. And you see things that nobody sees on the freeway or heavily traveled roads.

Things like this windmill and little millhouse some farmer had made.

Or beautiful little streams meandering through a woods. We didn’t think there were any houses around, but after I took this picture, we noticed a couple sitting in front of their house watching us. We waved and went on leaving them to wonder why anyone would want a picture of this stream. It was the only house on this road, by the way!

You go through towns where patriotic citizens have the flag on every post and in some of the towns they had pictures of their vets who have lost their lives on the posts, also.

You go through towns where painted, cement roosters are on every corner. In one town, they had painted pigs. To each, his own.

We drove through Geneva, where the author, Gene Stratton Porter has built this absolutely wonderful house. We toured it a few years ago. Miss Porter wrote books about the Limberlost which was the swamps of northern Indiana a long time ago. Girl of the Limberlost was one of my mother’s favorite books. She always talked about it, but for some reason I never read it. I must put that on my list.

Miss Porter had this one room built so that she and her guests could sit and watch animals and birds come and go in it without them getting into the house, but it was in the house. I think that sounds wonderful.

We drove past where the very best catsup is made and shipped. Right here in Indiana. Red Gold, never Heinz. Red Gold had a field of tomatoes planted just outside our city one year and I would ride my bicycle by it and look at all the tomatoes growing. Red Gold is really the best catsup in the world. It’s all I will use.

On back roads you drive through lots of towns with buildings this old and still in use. So much has been lost by tearing down these old buildings.

I love old barns. I took this picture just because it was nice to see one that is cared for. We passed so many old barns in disrepair, many already caving in and becoming a thing of the past. That is what happened to my family farm barn. It was not cared for and it is falling down. At one time it was a tomato factory in our little town, but all I remember is playing in the haymow and taking care of kittens and calves and playing with the baby pigs. Baby pigs are so darn cute. And they don’t smell. Do you know that pigs really are the cleanest of animals? The only reason they get in the mud is to cool themselves off.

We stopped to eat here in this park. We were the only people there until a man and woman met each other from two separate trucks and sat in one of them. David and I were wondering if it was a clandestine meeting! Ha. He told me not to stare! Anyway, it was windy and cold sitting here to eat so this is where I sat….

Here on this swing set where the sun was shining and I was warm. But it was still nice to eat outside. Our first real picnic of the season. We plan to have more.

This looks like a picture of David’s ducks on the dash. Ducks that people leave on our Jeep and say we’ve been ducked. I really love the army one given to David by our daughter-in-law. But that is not what I was taking a picture of. I was taking a picture of the Amish lady and her little girl. They won’t pose for a picture and I would never take their faces, but I did get them walking across the street. I have so many questions I would love to aske Amish ladies, but I will probably never get them answered. They live a very different life than most women do. We passed many Amish farms and the laundry was hung out at almost every one of them. Clothes in black, and blue and beige. No bright colors. We say Amish children outside playing. Do they ask questions about us? We passed so many Amish farms in northern Indiana.

You won’t see this on the interstate.

I would have loved to have learned more about Camp Woodsmoke, but isn’t that a great name for a camp?

I believe we Hoosiers are some of the most imaginative and talented people in the country. Lot’s of famous people have come from Indiana. David Letterman and Red Skelton to name just two. We have a sense of humor you don’t find in a lot of places. But this was just in someone’s front yard. I’m thinking a tree came down and someone didn’t have anything else to do that day so they carved them an Indian. How neat is that!!!

We stopped to have ice cream. Here’s my cone. It was very good and David had a large cherry sundae that was almost more than he could eat. I think he’s pretending he is licking my ice cream cone, but he knows better!!

We were heading for Lake Erie and we did end up beside water, but it was Grand Lake in Celina, Ohio. It took us all day to get here. A ride that would take normal people three hours at the most, but we take the long way because we like it like that. So we stopped here for the night. Found a very nice Best Western and then took a drive clear around the lake. It’s a big lake. We saw pelicans and seagulls, two birds I did not know lived in Indiana, but I’m glad to know it. The pelicans were different from the ones we see in Florida. There were four of them flying above us. They had black tipped wings.

We saw several of these birds. Some type of heron I believe.

We stopped to sit beside the lake, but it was very cold and all I had was a sweater.

This is a picture of my “sexy man.” Yes, that is what I call him. My kids would be so embarrassed knowing I am admitting this, but I have been calling him this for years. He is MY sexy man. Nobody elses’. Hey, if you get to our age and still like each other a lot, you should thank God and your lucky stars because that doesn’t happen for everyone. I just got blessed to meet my one true love when I was young and we have got to grow old together and it’s really a blessing. I pray for all marriages to be as happy.

I’m going to have to finish this another day. I’ve been writing and putting up pictures for almost an hour and a half. Hope you enjoy them. We had a lot of fun and we are planning on doing another trip sometime this Summer. It seems two days is all we both can handle right now with all the pets we have to leave and also because we cannot sit in a car for hours like we use to and go thousands of miles away, but we can still have fun. I’ll be back with more of our trip later. Bye.

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