Visiting my favorite place in England

Everyone has a favorite place that they enjoy visiting, mine hands down has to be Jane Hathaway's house in Stratford upon Avon. The flower gardens there are impeccable! I based my English flower garden in South Dakota off of hers! It was full of flowers in bloom and the Sweet Peas were delightful! Many different colors of them all on display for our enjoyment :-) The tour of the house was the same as it was 4 years ago- charming and delightful! For me, it's the gardens that captured my heart! From the willow hut (which I want to recreate in our own backyard) to the lovely flower beds full of color! I want to be able to bring a bit of Shakespeare's Britain home with me. The weather was perfect! It was in the lower 80's with a slight breeze, which is just fine for me!




Here's my Hannah being a goof as I was attempting to take a picture of the house.
A picture of me with my children...of the 10 attempts at a decent photo, this one turned out the best. The rest was a series of us laughing or looking in other directions.

LOVE this Willow Hut! Talk about simply too cool! We'll make one of these in our backyard when we retire. It's going to take a while (years perhaps) for the plants to cover. This is something that our future grandchildren will enjoy.

The First Rose

The first rose in my newly planted rose garden. This was a true labor of love. After having to get housing here with a jack hammer to clear out the huge blob of concrete that weighed several hundred pounds from the flower bed so we could actually plant flowers...well here's the end result.





Soon, my little rose garden will be filled with roses as there are rose buds on every one of those small bushes. I made sure to get heavily scented ones...I so miss my flower gardens from our past homes. Every new place gives us the opportunity to start anew- be it in planting flower gardens, making friends or decorating a new to us house. Take every opportunity to explore your new surroundings and it's never to late to take in a new friend!

A rainy day in England

I'll say it, I'm an American who gets to live in England through the USAF/MOD and am LOVING IT! There are so many historic places to see/visit out here but one of my most favorite towns (besides Stoke on Trent- purely for shopping reasons) is Stratford-upon-Avon- home to William Shakespeare. The tour of homes and gardens connected with Mr.Shakespeare are amazing. I myself had made my own English flower garden after our trip to England in 2006- I did this in my backyard of the house we own in South Dakota (I wonder how it looks now). I know that we will recreate another garden like that with our next home as well. Currently we're planting flowers in the flower beds here in my true English garden, I'm so happy to have areas in which I can plant flowers.

The sad thing about being out here as with living anywhere is that so many of the locals haven't been to the places that I have. How can you not want/desire to go see these historic homes that are in books and period piece movies? The same thing applies to those that can eat off of dishes that are made in China. Why aren't you using that wonderful made in England, Ireland or Scotland pottery? Savor your history, support your pottery companies that still produce their wares in your country before they go off and start having it made in china (ugh).

It might be raining today but it IS gorgeous outside! Everything is bright green from the grassy lawn to the new leaves growing on the trees and shrubs. Living here is like a little slice of heaven to me!

Globe-trotting lawn gnome returns home

I subscribe to a variety of news sources and one of my favorites is Bizarre News. I LOVE this story and I hope that you will too!

--------- Globe-trotting lawn gnome arrives home ----------

GLOUCESTER, England - An English couple said a 10-inch
gnome statue that disappeared from their home has returned
with photos of its travels in 12 countries. Eve and Derrick
Stuart-Kelso of Gloucester said they assumed the 8-pound
leprechaun with a green hat had been stolen 11 months ago
by college students and would never be seen again. To their
surprise, the missing lawn ornament reappeared on their
doorstep Thursday with pictures showing it in front of the
Sydney Opera House in Australia, swimming in the Great
Barrier Reef, atop a glacier in New Zealand, touring the
ruins of Cambodia's Angkor Wat temple and visiting other
exotic locations, the Daily Mail reported. The photo album
was accompanied by a note that claimed to be from the gnome
explaining its world tour was a result of "itchy feet."
"I came to the conclusion that the world is a big place
and there is more to life than watching the daily commuter
traffic, and allowing passing cats to urinate on you," the
note said. "So I decided to free myself from the doldrums
of the shire and seek adventure. My travels have taken me
across three continents, 12 countries and more time zones
than I can possibly remember."

Wildlife

We live in an area of urban development, and every day we're reminded that this used to be grassland with animals of all types. From the rattlesnake on our neighbors front porch, to the deer in our front yard to this picture or a mother deer and her fawn in my neighbors backyard right -behind our fenced in backyard. I first saw them up by the neighbors jacuzzi and ran to get my camera. So there I am on our back deck in my pink nightgown taking pictures of this doe and her fawn. She got tired of nibbling on the sod and went over and starting eating the leaves off of the little trees- eek! The fawn was running circles around her and I mean that in the literal sense. The little thing was springing and jumping all over the places and running circles around it's mother, it was really neat to see that kind of interaction with wild animals in real life rather than on TV. And to think that I got to watch it in my jammies on my deck with a cup of coffee in my hands- not a bad way to start ones day that's for sure! Oh and here you see the baby eating the tender new blades of grass newly spouted from seed, somehow I don't think that my neighbors will see the cuteness of this scene when they see the damage the deer have done- oops! They're already had birds nesting inside of their grill, and they didn't seem to happy about that.

Garden Work

This morning I've been working in the garden and I can say that I've enjoyed it! I've got flowers in the backyard flower garden tied to bamboo stakes so they won't fall over, 2 more flower bed areas dug with flowers put in them in the front yard, dead flowers pruned and cleared off. I'm going to take some pictures of my flower gardens so I can get some scrapbook layouts done. This isn't our forever house, so I want to document all of the things I've done to it to make it my home- the addition of flowers and landscaping are just some of those things.

I love flowers!

The people at Jolly Lane Nursery love me. Why do they love me? Because I have been making them rich! I'm done, or at least I hope that I'm done buying plants for my garden areas. I was able to get a lot done today, weeding all of the flower beds in the front yard (that 6 flower bed areas), re-potted some plants for the front porch, bought more plants PLUS bought the cute little ground cover plants that we admired so much- that will go in tomorrow morning while it's still cool outside.

So I've got about a gazillion flowers planted in the front and back flowers bed areas, some are blooming right now and others have buds that are about to open. I've got all kinds of different flowers and for the most part they all smell good, well with the exception of the Geraniums- those never smell good, they look good but smell rather funky.

Have you ever priced a sun dial? Holy Catfish those babies are not cheap! I looked into it today and was floored at how expensive they are. Now for me to rethink what else I'd like to have go into my garden.

I'm starting to feel better about having another round of my girlfriends moving away and leaving me here.:-( Last year was bad and this year is the same. I'm keeping myself very busy with quilting, scrapbooking, card making and gardening projects and am looking forward to reaping the fruits of my labors. I refuse to let myself feel lost so I keep busy all of the time. I do have to say that I miss my girlfriend Kim the most, I hope that she's not getting too stressed out with the big move to Hawaii. I've not heard from her yet so I'm hoping that no news is good news. Kim if you're reading this please know that you are loved and thought of every day. I even made one of your favorite goodies the other day- fudge filled cheesecake!

Volunteer Opportunities in your local community

Have you given any thought to the rising cost of gasoline in your local area and how it may be effecting other less fortunate that yourself?

I have been reading some stories on line how food banks across the country are seeing an increase as much as 20 to 30% with new families needing help coming in daily. Then I came across another article about gardening and if you are planting a vegetable garden to plant an extra row and donate the items harvested to your local food bank-which made me think about my father-in-law David. My father-in-law loves gardening it's his full time hobby and he plants a HUGE garden every year and donates a large portion of it to his town's food bank. He sees the need in his community growing, especially with the elderly. Prices on everything from gasoline to groceries to medication are going and with many of the elderly being on a fixed income things are as stretched as they can be.

I think about our young military families struggling to make ends meet. With deployments being anywhere from 6 to 18 months being separated and trying to make ends meet while living on one paycheck can be hard. I know that some will say "can't they live in "free housing"? Well yes most do live in military housing but it isn't "free", they do forfeit a portion of their pay to be able to live in a military community. A majority of our military families live in our off base housing community which is almost 15 miles away from the base. Soaring fuel prices are going to effect us all, especially those that do a daily commute to work. Every military base has it's own food bank program that is run entirely on volunteers. When I was the Ellsworth OSC Programs Chairperson I would host monthly drives for canned food, toiletries, household goods, diapers and baby food, pet food and pet care products in connection with our monthly OSC functions.

Which brings me to the South Dakota Food Banks and how they could use your help in these ways- donate food, donate money donate your time. If you're looking to do something this summer, why don't you consider volunteering at your local food bank.

My little patch of Heaven, my flower garden

After having such foul weather for what seems to be for forever, we finally got a long enough break from it to be able to work in the garden. I finally got to get almost off of the flowering plants I bought out of my family. Having it rain for so long and at such a furious pace has washed away some of the soil from my flower bed area. We needed to make some adjustments to the flower bed, we put a mixture of rocks and dirt around the base of the fence to help keep in the fertile soil, then we started putting the plants in the ground. I thought that I had bought plenty of plants to cover that area....yeah right! I bought enough to have about one quarter to one third of the area done. And those 10 bags of Cedar Bark Mulch, well they just barely covered the area that we planted, I need to buy at least 25 more bags of mulch to complete the job.

Now of course we're nearly half done getting the plants into the ground and those big dark gray almost black storm clouds come rolling in and then it starts- to HAIL! It was dime size, large enough to shred our newly planted foliage. I was happy that it didn't last long but it sure give us a good scare! I'll have to purchase some more plants up later on in the week. There's no use to get any before Thursday as neither of us will be able have any time to work in the garden until the weekend. The Forecast - It's busy week for both Lucien and myself!

Summer Time Visitors

Although it's not officially Summer Time yet, we're still managing to get some of it's critter visitors. Here's something we've not seen out here in Box Elder or the base until yesterday- a turtle. We've seen all kinds of other critters but not turtles. Hannah spotted it out in the driveway and we put him back in the grass where he belongs. Being on the drive way or the road is just plain dangerous for a little turtle! We went to check on it an hour later and you could see the trail it blazed through the grass- Vrrooom it was off in a flash! Turtles sure can move pretty darn fast when they want to :-)

Flowering plants in winter

I have no clue as to what kind of plant this is (something I brought back from Hawaii in 2005). Then all of a sudden a couple of weeks ago it started blooming. Today I noticed a couple more little blossoms on it. Anyone out there have any idea what the name of this plant is?

It's nice to have flowering plants when it's so bitterly cold outside. I like to deem it as a peek into Spring. Even my Geraniums and Azaleas are blooming!

Stop and smell the Roses

I love roses, they have to be my all time favorite flower. I plan on making a rose garden in the flower bed in the front yard nearest the street. We'll be going to a nursery today to get some plants for my various flower beds. Oh how I adore flowers!

I'm also going to be hanging "my" photos of Roses and other flowers today throughout the house. Granted, I'm no Georgia O'Keeffe (she's famous for her paintings of flowers -close up) nor am I any where near in my photographic skills as being compared to the likes of Ansel Adams (he's famous for his stunning black & white scenic photography) but I do like what I take pictures of and will have many more of my own Photographic efforts displayed in our home. I did win a 1st place ribbon at the State Fair last year for one of my flower pictures :-) I'm going to hang it in the Family Room today. My daughter Hannah won a Best in Show (plus first place) for her picture of a pink waterlily- I have it proudly hanging in my scrapbook nook :-). I need to print up some more flower pictures and get them matted & framed then hung on the walls of our home. Here on the lower part of the page you see my 3rd place picture of Cabbage Roses...this one is going to be hung in my bedroom.

more on Landscaping

We've had a couple more companies come out and so far none of them has shown the amount of enthusiasm and ideas for our future yard as the 2nd guy. The picture you see was done using digital enhancement. My husband took the 2nd contractors idea and made it come to life for me (it's no wonder why I love my husband as much as I do). I'm pretty sure that we're going to go with the 2nd contractor, his ideas have been terrific and he really knows his stuff!

Landscaping

We're in this new home a month, now it's time to start thinking about the landscaping issues that lay ahead of us. We have quite the large lot, not as large as our friends down the street who also have a corner lot (theirs is an acre) but big enough to cause concern about giving the proper house curb appeal. The neighbors across the street from us have a gorgeous green lawn that looks like emerald green carpet BUT there's no landscaping- no pretty plants or trees, just green weed free grass everywhere. It looks nice but but to be perfectly honest there is something missing and you notice that while admiring the beautiful lawn.

We've had 2 landscaping companies come by and give us their thoughts on our yard. I'm waiting on the 2nd company to give us their bid proposal. I think that we're having either 3 or 4 companies come out. I'm not looking to go with the least expensive company, I'm looking for the the one who can meet our needs and has the best ideas for our yard. The man who came by yesterday had oodles of great ideas ad even drew them out in the dirt with a spray can (it was so nice to see this mans ideas and I mean "see"). I looked out at the yard this morning and I can see where he used the spray paint and drew out the ideas for where the fence would go, where the river rock border would go, the concrete curbing and so forth. I really liked this guys ideas, and he's got some good ones. The first company was nice enough but no true enthusiasm for the job. The first company was basically rocks would go here, fence would go there, concrete curbing would go over there. There wasn't any creativity in the way they went about measuring out anything. So we shall see what the other companies bring to the table as far as ideas are concerned.

So this 2nd company has plans for my flower garden in the backyard and my pergola :-) I want to have a Wisteria again and have it climb and wind around a pergola and I will have a concrete bench in my flower garden with a bird bath and a statuary of the Virgin Mary would be nice too. Ü I can see myself surrounded by flowers in my garden that smell like heaven on earth. Have you see the movie "Just like Heaven"? Picture something like the garden that Reese Witherspoon is sitting in at the beginning of the movie. Maybe not quite elaborate but similar in many ways.

Container Gardens

One of my passions...besides scrapbooking and gourmet cooking is container gardening. One of my fondest memories of my Mom (yes, she's still alive) is of how she had these container gardens on the patio in the backyard and the front porch. They were fantastic! All sorts of exotic plants and some a little more domestic. The plants grew and grew and were so beautiful. I felt that it was like our own little peace of heaven on earth.

So through the years I have created various kinds of gardens at the various home we have lived in our the years. My favorite has been the floral gardens that I created in the front yard of the house we owned in Virginia. The scent of those flowers just hung in the air...to me it was heaven on earth. Peonies, Hydrangea, Gardenias, Azaleas, Lilacs, Wisteria, Fuschias in hanging baskets, and the Roses....dozens and dozens of them! I had a Rose Garden, lots of huge fragrant rose bushes and miniature rose bushes everywhere! They were in every color and some had a heavy fragrance and others a lighter scent but all of them together in the hot summer evenings in Virginia made our entire cul-de-sac smell heavenly! The scent is what I think that got the rest of my neighbors to add flower gardens to their front yards :-)

So where am I going with this today right? LOL! Well...my front porch needed something, it needed curb appeal! So my daughter and I looked at it and we planned something out (okay I did the majority of the planning and I let her pick out the flowers). The flowers hung in the garage for a couple of days and I said enough is enough and I got it started yesterday without her. I'm pulling out terracotta pots and arranging them on the front porch. Then I heaved out the heavy bags of soil for containers (be aware that there are many different kinds of soil in a bag and make sure to get the kind that is right for the job...it might not always be the cheapest one either- oh how I know that one). So any way...I get started on my container garden and a couple of hours later-WOW! Just some terracotta post and a few containers of flowers from your local nursery or home improvement store can add tremendously to the curb appeal of your home. For those of you that are getting ready to sell your home keep this in mind...it's not that expensive to add some charm to the front or backyard of your home with some strategically placed pots with great looking plants. Add a nice looking door mat and there you have it, a warm and inviting front entry to your home.

I'm also staring my container herb garden. I love using fresh herbs and have wanted an herb garden for years (it's just that I never started one). Now that we're going to be here a while longer...I decided that I am going to have my herb garden, I'm going to be putting the herbs into some larger pots (one I find the box that they are in out in the garage). I'm going to have them on our deck, it needs something green :-) I'm going to take pictures of my plants on the porch once they start opening and blooming. I would love to have a small bench to put on my porch where I could sit and admire our little garden. I know that it will be a while until we get to the landscaping of our yard. So this for me is the next best thing.

Do something fun today, make a little container garden be it herbs or flowers. Put them in an area where not only you can enjoy them, but others can enjoy them as well. I have a girlfriend who loves to create topiaries out of small evergreen bushes and trees. She has these pom-pom like trees (reminds me greatly of Dr. Seuss) flanking both sides of her garage and front door. It adds a classy look and when you put them in fancy pots it's a real eye catcher! I've found myself toying with the idea of flanking my garage with those topiary trees.

The neighbors across the street from us must have thought that I was nuts, seeing all of those flats and pots of flowers and then watching me heave these 4 big bags of potting soil. Then I happily sat in the sun digging in the dirt planting flowers. Anyone who knows me knows that I am all about flowers...I love to see them everywhere, outside and inside of my home. The scent of flowers is throughout my home, I either have floral scented candles burning or I have those Glade plug-ins going on.

Imagine my surprise when I went to Target yesterday and I came across their dollar section and there were garden tools for $1! There were many colors to choose from...green, yellow, purple and pink! I even bought some tools for Mother's Day gifts for a couple of friends and a set of tools for each one of my Girl Scouts. From kneeling pads, to watering cans, garden stakes (to mark what kind of plants you have) and more...go to your local Target Store and check them out, but you better get there quick before they sell out!