David and I celebrated our forty-eight wedding anniversary this past week. We decided to take a whole week from weekend to weekend to celebrate. It’s been a long week. We wanted to go antiquing, but most of the antique stores we went to were either closed or more like junk sales than antiques. We wanted to go to a Daylily farm and it rained cats and dogs on us. In fact, it rained almost the entire week. We did manage to get to Olive Garden for dinner which was very good. But it was still all good. When you have been married to the same man for almost your entire life, you don’t expect fireworks all the time, but we did do fireworks one night in our driveway with some old firecrackers and bottle rockets. There were people shooting off fireworks all around us. Some people don’t like this time of year because of all the fireworks, but I love it. We have had a lot of fireworks in our marriage. Some good. Some bad. As we looked back on our life together, we both feel it’s been a pretty good life. When I said, “I do,” I meant it and still do.
We did get to Streamcliff Farm again and had lunch with our older son and his friend. I managed not to buy any flowers this time, but I was tempted. I don’t know what they feed their plants, but all the flowers are huge.
We couldn’t get over how big these begonias were.
After lunch, we went back to the daylily farm, it wasn’t raining, and yes, I bought some daylilies.
It’s called New Creation Day Lilies and do they ever have a lot of daylilies. You picked the ones you wanted and they dug them for you right then.
The first day we went there, it was raining, as I said. This lady was out in a garden picking off the dead blooms. She had a bucket full.
This handsome fellow strutted around crowing and keeping his hens in a row.
There were several roosters and they were all crowing up a storm. I love hearing roosters crow. When we went to the Virgin Islands, chickens roamed all over and you could hear the roosters crowing. It was such a pleasant sound to me. It sounds like country.
The day lilies were gorgeous.
I brought one of these home with me. Along with four others.
We drove through storms during our drives.
We laugh because we have driven through so many storms in our lives and made it out alive to tell about it.
What’s life without a few storms along the way?
It wasn’t all play however. Our rhubarb just keeps on growing and we keep on picking it. I have made two batches of strawberry rhubarb jam.
The first batch was eaten up almost instantly. We had company and there was a teen-age boy who really, really liked this. We went through a couple of jars at that meal.
We have been trying to trap a groundhog that has made its home under our front porch. This is what we have caught thus far.
Several bunnies that we let loose back into the yard.
And this.
He/she was not a happy camper. Don’t know whether it’s a male or female and I’m not going to check.
His/her day was not going as planned. David took it over to the woods across the street from us. Hope it doesn’t find its way back.
Still haven’t caught a groundhog though.
But we do have a lot of these and this one is becoming a sort of pet. Coming to eat under our bird feeders every evening.
Peter Rabbit and Farmer MacGregor is no where to be seen. You’re safe with us, Peter.
Remember when I went to see Susan Branch at a book signing in Cincinnati? Her husband was handing out seeds from their wisteria vine that grows at their house. I planted the seeds and now I have two of these.
I am hoping they will grow and produce flowers one day.
Okay, I can’t get away without writing about socks. My fingers have been flying and socks have been coming off the needles in record speeds!
All different sizes. That little sock. That’s my daughter’s size. She has very tiny feet. In fact, her next pair I have to make a little bit smaller. She wears children’s socks. She certainly doesn’t take after me in that respect.
I peruse yarn webpages like I use to fabric pages. My quilting has been laid by the wayside for a time. I cannot stop knitting socks.
I keep buying yarn.
I really, really like these yarns I got the other day. All variegated and different shades of color.
I have knit one sock from this and I absolutely love it.
I’ve got me a lot of sock loving happening in my future. Yippee! I never thought I would ever get the hang of knitting socks, but now that I have, it’s really very simple. Of course, anything is once you know how to do it!
Speaking of gardens. My garden is not doing too shabby. These are some daylilies I have had for years and divided and planted all over the yard. I got the first ones at a grocery store.
I love my Summer garden. Every year it surprises me. When Winter gets here, I will think I will never see this again and then, it happens like a miracle every single year.
I wish my mother could see my garden. She loved her garden too. Perhaps she can see it, but then, she’s in the most beautiful garden imaginable as I type.
I will leave you with a picture of what I call the “Screaming Tree.” When the doctor’s house next door to us was torn down, they also took out deadwood out of an old tree and just left its carcass.
Every time we pass it I think it looks like it’s screaming. As if it cannot believe they tore down that beautiful, old house.
What do you think? Bye.