A Day Outside

57°f/about 14°C, beautiful day, and yesterday's predicted storms missed us! Thankful, as the ground is still saturated.

A whole day outside, y'all! For the first time since June, it was comfortable enough to be outside to do some things that have been on hold---like painting the patio furniture.  First, though, i enjoyed the cool morning by having my tea on the porch and watching my silly dogs play. What characters. They were never still enough to get a photo, but I did catch Pip for a second. He looks like he's been up to something,  doesn't he?

It took me 4 hours to get the furniture painted, and not a perfect job, but done. 

Then I spent a while pulling weeds and cutting a few things back, and helping Larry load that #$%* mower one more time. He use it about 15 minutes yesterday before it quit working. So we loaded it yesterday and he took it back. The guy tweaked something, Larry came back, we unloaded it, and guess what? Still didn't run. So this afternoon back it went. I'm here to tell you, that thing is heavy, and I am tired of pushing it! My back is not a bit happy this evening. I tried to get him to call a neighbor to help, but nope. If I didn't help, he was going to try to do it alone. Man has no common sense.

After that,  I took a long hot shower, then went back out to take a few photos of the flowers. 

Not much blooming in this big tub, but still green so there's hope.

The roses have had very small blooms this year. Perhaps because of all the rain? I will give them some fertilizer tomorrow.

The begonias, however, are huge.

And the vinca soldier on.

The blue lace hydrangea turns various shades of purple as they mature. Have I said how much I love this bush?

By the porch, the hostas are done but the new vinca, a peachy color,  are still blooming. 

The big flowerbed:

Look at that sky! The veggies garden is pretty much done, and I know the deer will finish it off while we are away next month.

Only 2 cannas survived the winter. Makes me so sad, because I had planted 10 or 12 last year, yellow, coral, orange and red.

Lantana, however, loves our environment.  Must plant more even if it is an annual.

The zinnias that survived are doing well.

More lantana. I love this stuff.

A roee I brought inside. So pretty!

And finally, firepit time, burning up branches that came down in last week's storms. (The flowers aee silk, just brought them home from a booth and stuck them here.)

That's about it. Still a few blooms, but I know deer will have a field day while we're in Colorado. That's okay, really. The season will pretty much be over by then, and I will get some mums in to tide us over til frost.

Saturday, Not Much

66°f, clear but storms expected this afternoon.

These have been surprisingly quiet days. Partly this is because the garden is nearly done, and partly because my arm has been slowing me down. I have decided that the defining characteristic of aging is Pain, with a capital p. It's the thing no one mentions in all the talk about how we age. Hair loss, wrinkles of course, graying hair, age spots, narrowing lips, thinning skin, the need for fiber, etc, etc---we hear all those but pain? Rarely mentioned, perhaps because it is assumed, a given. So here we are, all aching and hurting and taking pills and doing therapy and trying to eat the anti-inflammatory diet and drink more water and get the right pillow/mattress/bed, and none of it is really a cure. So onward we go, and as the day goes sometimes on the pain eases up, we can go about our day fairly normally, and then come evening, here it comes again. As the old trope says, if you're going to get old, you better be tough.

And that's enough grumping! We did get to our booths and brought in some new things--an oval oak library table at one place along with 2 more really nice lamps, and the green cabinet i just painted at the other place, along with a couple totes at each place. We also went out to dinner at a place we really like. This fairly new restaurant used to serve really special meals. The chef had an herb garden, and they used meats from their own farm. The patio was a lovely outdoor space. Well, the patio is still nice, but the menu has downgraded to things like burgers and fries and the like. Pretty sad! But the main clientele is the plant workers from the nearby aluminum plant and construction workers from the solar farm and lithium plant being built, and these guys want burgers, I guess. Still, it's a nice place, and their salads and pizza are still the best in the county.

So that was Thursday. Yesterday I priced more stuff while Larry did more weedeating, and in the afternoon we went to the farmers market for eggs, the grocery store for odds and ends, and the hardware store for a few things I needed for two projects I am working on. We stopped to check on Larry's mower, found it was ready (an expensive repair!), so when we got home Larry went right back with the truck to pick it up. I stayed here, put away groceries, and then read my book.

I have to say, this book has been such a pleasure, and I am going to be very sad when it is done. It won't appeal to everyone; the story unfolds slowly, and there is a lot of description of both landscape and people.  It would not be for those who enjoy pithy, action-filled stories, but if you enjoy deep character development, a unique setting, gentle  humor, and very human predicaments, I think you will enjoy This Is Happiness by Niall Williams. I will be looking for more by this author.  

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Mostly Wordless Wednesday

66°f/19°C, very foggy, pretty morning. 

In Cong, Ireland, where the movie "The Quiet Man" was filmed.

Also in Cong, leaving to a woodland meditation retreat structure.

In the back yard. Mushrooms are popping up all over the place.  So many fairy rings in people's yards!

An insulator I sold this week on ebay. This one is quite rare, and brought $120.

Taken by a friend in Parkersburg. 

These recently popped up in my Facebook memories.

First one is on my road.

Took this along my son's road.

This was my favorite that I took when i was a presenter at a Celtic festival in Ohio, about 8 years ago.

England, 2013. My grandfather's grave in Caldecote, Cambridgeshire.

Up on the Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, England, 2016.

With poet friends at the WV State Folk Festival, 2019.

Open mic last night was another full house. We had everything from music to poetry, comedy, songwriters, origami, and best of all, our featured presenter, Colleen Anderson. What a night.

Reading excerpts from her children's book,

with help from a friend.

And her "Chocolate Song". I love this one. 

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.