Hotter Than A Pepper Sprout

We seemed to have transitioned from pleasantly warm days, to HOT.

Days in the high nineties with high humidity makes outdoor activities a challenge, calling for lots of drinking water, and the wearing of light clothing.

We are under a heat advisory for the next few days, 99 degrees tomorrow, if you can avoid staying outside especially for long periods of time, then it is best to do so.
Even the birds are trying to stay cool....

 

"Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it."

~ Russell Baker

 

May Days

A glorious mid-spring morning starts our day. Blues skies and sunshine aplenty.

I have Mother's day plants to get in the ground, so trying to hurry before the rain comes our way later in the week.
The distant sound of lawnmowers whirling is the only disruption to an otherwise peaceful respite.

Lest We Forget

 

"Your silent tents of green We deck with fragrant flowers;

Yours has the suffering been, The memory shall be ours."

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Memorial Day: Arlington National Cemetery

 

 

 

They went with songs to the battle, they were young.

Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow.

They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,

They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old;

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

We will remember them.

 

~ Laurence Binyon: For the Fallen 1914

God Bless  all the service men and women, without whose unselfish commitment, our lives would be forever changed.

Home Thoughts From Abroad

Oh to be in England

Now that April's there,

And whoever wakes in England

Sees, some morning, unaware,

That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf

Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,

While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough

In England - now!

And after April, when May follows,

And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!

Hark! where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge

Leans to the field and scatters on the clover

Blossoms and dewdrops - at the bent spray's edge -

That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,

Lest you should think he never could recapture

The first fine careless rapture!

And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,

All will be gay when noontide wakes anew

The buttercups, the little children's dower-

Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower.

Home thoughts from abroad  ~ Robert Browning 1812-1889

The Growing Season

The new spring grass is growing at a phenomenal rate, I suspect it has something to do with all of the rain that fell throughout the months of February and early March.

 "April showers, Bring May flowers"

Except a little early....

 

 

 

Winter Moon

Our cold Winter days are finally becoming warmer, offering  some much needed  clean-up time in the garden.
Spring daffodills are waving their sleepy heads in the noon-day sun, and dusk is not appearing until the clock strikes 5:30.

In two short weeks we return to Daylight Savings Time, with Spring  just around the corner.
Later this evening a bright  Full Moon fills the night sky.

Magical.

 

 

Brightly the moon like a jewel is beaming,

White in the east, o'er a lone landscape gleaming,

Over the meadows and over the snow,

Glimmering, shimmering, silvery glow.

Low in the east, when the gloaming is ending,

Slowly this white winter moon is ascending,

Looming so large and appearing so nigh,

Satellite framed by a star-spangled sky.

High in the sky, with soft radiance teeming,

Nigh to the time when men, women, are dreaming,

Weird is her splendor on valley and hill,

Cold is her gleam upon river and rill.

Brightly the moon like a jewel is shining,

White in the west she is slowly declining,

Beautiful Moon ! Which beams gorgeous and grand

Over the homes of our own Native Land.

~Charles Nevers Holmes. 1926.

Rainfall

Two days of continuous rainfall, water standing ankle-deep, I'm beginning to think a pair of webbed-feet would be fitting.

Temperatures are unseasonably warm, and will remain so throughout the week.

There are shoots popping out of the ground everywhere, which is a little discerning, since we are still in the depths of winter, and snow is still a possibility.

I think Mother Nature has a wicked sense of humor.

Row, row, row your boat......

 

 

 

February Days

 

 

 

Our days have been filled with glorious sunshine.

The daffodils are shooting up from the ground, offering the promise of spring.

I tidied around the porches and fiddled in the potting shed yesterday, it's hard to stay cooped up when the sun is shining.

Wishing you peace, in whatever little corner of the world, you call home.....

 

News From Gobbler's Knob

Rabbits have been making a show in the garden.

Nibbling on the new shoots of grass.

The songbirds are once again appearing , a good sign that life is beginning to awaken.

Punxsutawney Phil  has predicted an early spring, maybe in these southern states, the poor folks in other parts of the country, digging out of the snow, will be harder to convince......
We're having a balmy 67 degrees of sunshine today, how's that for a lovely treat !
 

Comfort Food

Today is a typical dark and dreary winter day,  there's not a ray of sunshine in the sky.
I'm making a Shepherd's Pie for supper to cheer ourselves up.

A concoction of ground beef, onions, carrots, and peas cooked in a beef gravy and tomato sauce, with herbs and spices; then topped off with mashed potatoes and browned in the oven until the potatoes are nice and crispy.

I buy the Colman Shepherd's Pie mix, available through Publix grocery stores, on the English import isle.
If it's not on hand, then the gravy part is made with Oxo's or beef bouillon cubes and tomato paste, rosemary, thyme, garlic, and parsley.

 

 

Shepherd's Pie was the first meal I cooked  as a newly wed , it remains one of my husband's  favorites to this day.
It will be accompanied by boiled cabbage, mashed 

 with lots of butter, and fresh pepper, that's how my mum used to serve it.

Serve with a slice of pickled beetroot or a few pickled onions on the side, and a nice crusty loaf of bread.

Yum.