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.

Floating Along

 

"Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass on a summer day listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is hardly a waste of time."

~ Sir John Lubbock 1834-1913

The Bird's Nest

Sadly the squirrels are at it again.

They seek out the birds' nests and destroy the eggs.

This little nest had been pillaged from it's place amongst the porch ferns, the mother had abandoned it, never to return.

 

 

 

 Brown, dry, dead, silent, empty house,

 Tree-house, house in a tree,

Not any house,

The house of a bird,

A bird’s house,

A house made of sticks,

Of twigs,

And of leaves,

Small but stable,

Dirty but tidy,

A cradle,

A place of safety,

A safe-house,

Little chicks inside,

Untouchable,

Protected from the outside world,

A fortress,

The bird’s fortress,

A fortress of the sky,

In the trees,

In the forest,

Unreachable from the dangers below,

Safe,

A bird’s nest,

The bird’s nest,

Home.

 ~Fredrik Azzopardi
 

And The Rains Came

Ten inches of rainfall fell in the past two days, filling the creeks and streams to capacity.
The humidity slowly rises each day, even the birds have taken to their cool nesting spots beneath the tree canopies.
Such are the days of August....

Simple Days

" Peace is when time doesn't matter as it passes by."

  Maria Schell (1926 -2005)   Austrian actress

 

Porch-Sitting

Summer is the time when one sheds one's tensions with one's clothes, and the right kind of day is jeweled balm for the battered spirit.

A few of those days and you can become drunk with the belief that all's right with the world.

~Ada Louise Huxtable