Autumn Cottage

Autumn has arrived, and for the past few days we've already noticed a change in the weather.

Cool mist-filled mornings, and even cooler, crisp-laden nights.

The trees are beginning their changing of color, yellows, oranges and reds.

Pumpkins are now decorating porches and gardens.

The songbirds now busily returning to their winter homes.

 

 

 

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

To Autumn : John Keats 1795-1821

 

Tying The Knot

This past weekend The First Sergeant and myself attended our granddaughter's wedding..
The day started with rain, not the weather we had hoped for, since the ceremony was an outside venue.
As the afternoon approached, the rain cleared, and the most perfect of days emerged, low humidity and sunshine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is there anything sweeter than a simple, country style wedding, surrounded by all things good in life, friendship, food and fellowship.....

My sweet niece Mollie from England, presents the bride-to-be with a lucky horseshoe.

 

 

 

 

Mr. & Mrs.

 

"Come, let's be a comfortable couple and take care of each other! How glad we shall be, that we have somebody we are fond of always, to talk to and sit with. "
~Charles Dickens

 

Thank you for sharing in this precious day and for all of the sweet well-wishes they are truly appreciated.

Gone...

Our dear family members are flying across the Atlantic ocean as I type.
Returning home to England, after spending a week filled with laughter, a wedding, and much tea-drinking.
The house is now eerily quiet, yet oddly enough I still hear their voices echoing amongst it's walls.
" More tea anyone ?"
*Sigh*

Sailing The Ocean Blue

We are excited...
Company is coming, from far-off shores.
A wedding is on the horizon, and much merriment at hand.
The bunting is finished..... yay !

Credit; Wind in the Willows: Kenneth Grahame: Mole decorating.

Summer Rain

We had a late afternoon rain, an unexpected thunder storm that popped up out of nowhere.
It didn't last long, a mere thirty minutes, but ooh was it a welcomed sight.
If you listened carefully you could hear the trees and flowers, heaving a big sigh of relief, their roots and foliage drinking in every last drop of moisture.
The temperatures fell, and for the first time in several weeks we enjoyed a tolerable 81degrees.
How lovely is that !

How beautiful is the rain!

After the dust and heat,

In the broad and fiery street,

In the narrow lane,

How beautiful is the rain!

How it clatters along the roofs,

Like the tramp of hoofs

How it gushes and struggles out

From the throat of the overflowing spout!

Across the window-pane

It pours and pours;

And swift and wide,

With a muddy tide,

Like a river down the gutter roars

The rain, the welcome rain!

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Plodding Along

I'm making headway with the wedding bunting.
One hundred flags down.....only six hundred more to go.
                                 *grin*

 

 

Hitchin' Days

I have been burning the midnight oil, these early days of September, consumed with a project.

My lovely little granddaughter is not so little any more, and will be marrying her best friend Daniel, in just two weeks.
She has plans for an outdoor wedding, rustic decorations, good Southern food, and maybe a little shindiggin' under the September night sky.

So back to the project part....
I wanted to make her some wedding bunting, to help make a festive mood.  Oftentimes it is hung inside the food tent, or used to decorate the tables, we're not sure yet where it will be used, maybe just hanging from tree to tree, as this example shows.

 

 

I chose vintage-patterned fabrics

 

 

 

 

 

This being my last one to cut with the pinking shears.

A beautiful print named "Coming up Roses" from the Olivia Audi collection.

 

Next step, to sew all the triangle flags and  ribbon inside the bias tape.

Seven hundred of them ......

I may be absent for awhile .

Late Summer Meadows

The wildflowers continue to share their beauty, even as Summer's end is drawing near.

Cool nights and mist-filled mornings have finally prevailed.

And so as we transition into the gentler days of Autumn I share with you the last few flowers of our summer meadows.........

 

 

 

 

Joe Pye Weed, Eupatorium purpureum, is an amazing plant that is an herb, a wildflower, a butterfly plant and an ornamental for the flower bed.

It obtained its name after a Native American herbalist, named Joe-Pye, cured fevers using the Eupatorium plant.
Though we tend to think of it as a wildflower in the U.S., it's long been an ornamental plant in England where our cottage gardens are so popular.

I enjoy gathering the flowers, stems and all, to hang from the rafters of my potting shed. Surprisingly enough they stay vividly colored until late Winter.

 

 

 

 

The Wild Yarrow, Achillea Millefolium, also known as Milfoil, Soldiers woundwort, Nose Bleed Weed, Sanguinary, and Devil’s Nettle is a very useful medicinal herb.

Yarrow has also been used as a food, and was very popular as a vegetable in the seventeenth century.
The younger leaves are said to be a pleasant leaf vegetable when cooked as spinach, or in a soup.

Yarrow is sweet with a slight bitter taste. The leaves can also be dried and used as a herb in cooking.

 

  

 

 

Solidago, commonly called goldenrods, are herbaceous perennial species found in the meadows and pastures, along roads, ditches and waste areas in North America.

Parts of some goldenrods can be edible when cooked, they can also be used for decoration and making tea.

Goldenrods are, in some places, held as a sign of good luck or good fortune.

They are considered weeds by many in North America but they are prized as garden plants in Europe.