Harvest?

It has been a rough 10 days.  My mom was hospitalized on the 16th with heart failure - first time - at age 93.  She's okay, but there were only three of the 6 of us available to stay with her, and my schedule was the most flexible up until discharge day when I had to prepare for my outpatient surgery that had been on the calendar for months.  That happened last Thursday.  Now comes recovery - slower than I ever anticipated and hard not to get out to the garden to do stuff which I've learned I can't without paying for it.  Today I've had a morning and an afternoon nap; that's shows what stamina I have and I haven't done much of anything.

Vegetable gardening is out though tonight Sarah is to plant the eggplants I picked up last Wednesday as an impulse purchase at Southern States. I'll supervise the planting.

 I've walked through the vegetable beds a couple of times and did manage to pull some carrots which we enjoyed steamed with store bought broccoli.


Sarah picked blueberries sporadically but only handfuls and from one bush only.  The other 5 are different and not ripening as fast.

She also picked this lovely jalapeno pepper and is deciding what to make with it.

 Before surgery I pulled out all the garlic (no photo) and its curing in the garage.

See other harvest at Daphne's Dandelions.

 There are some new faces in the flower gardens among the daylilies.  At least I can enjoy looking at them and the other flowers though I can't do the tasks that need doing to keep the gardens looking their best.  I'll get back to that before I know it.

Wordless Wednesday - Flowers Keep Blooming Despite What Life Throws at You!

Road Trip!

The Second Annual Road Trip happened this week.  Destination: Charlottesville, Virginia.  Four of us who have been teachers together at Fulton Elementary School instituted this tradition with a trip to Winterthur and Longwood Gardens last year.  This year we headed south and it was a celebration of sorts since two of the group are new retirees as of the end of the school year on June 8th.  That leaves one still teaching.

Our first stop in town was the Downtown Mall and lunch al fresco.  We then wandered the shops and made a few purchases before heading to the hotel and a relaxing time at the pool.

Dinner was in Crozet, Va, a small town west of Charlottesville and home to my sister, Suzie and her husband, Jerry and also their bead shop, Blue Ridge Beads & Glass.  We had booked a bead class there for 7 pm and with Suzie's patient instructions we all were rewarded with necklaces that we had made ourselves.

Janice, Fran, Marcy and me.

Thursday morning found us at Monticello in plenty of time for our 10:30 tour of the house so we wandered the vegetable gardens
and walked to the grave site before lining up for our tour inside.

It was a gorgeous day.  We learned so much about Jefferson.  But 2 o'clock came too soon so we retraced our route north hoping to miss rush hour around Northern Virginia (we didn't).  We've made plans for next year's road trip to Williamsburg and Jamestown and vowed we would have to extend the length to fit more in.

A fun time was had by all.

World Bird Wednesday - Photos from BC

I am not a regular poster for World Bird Wednesday hosted by Pine River Review but I knew I had to do it when I came home with these photos from our trip to British Columbia in May.  We saw so much wildlife, but the bald eagle takes the cake for posing at dinner time no less on top of the building across from the restaurant where we were enjoying our meal in Prince Rupert, BC.

 

We were told of a place where you can see lots of bald eagles by the waitress after the male above flew away.  So we drove to the spot and spied this one sitting on the flag pole where he belongs.   I guess its really a light pole.

 

This heron was watching him too.

 

The loons below were caught on camera a Lake Beauvert in Jasper National Park.

 Okay so the rest of these aren't birds but they were fun to photograph.

Seal in the harbor at Prince Rupert, BC.

Moose on the roadside in BC.

Elk shedding in Jasper National Park.  It was calving season.

Big horn sheep in Jasper.

Elk in Jasper.

Black bear on the road from Maligne Lake in Jasper.

Grizzly on the roadside in BC.

Big horn sheep on the road from Miette Hotsprings, Jasper.