Oopsie Daisy

Well, there I was deadheading my daisies and so pleased that I was actually keeping up with them for a change. (my lawn and many garden beds - including my veg. beds - are littered with daisy plants because I don't usually get around to deadheading before they go to seed)I was chattering with the boys and heard a sort of loud *snip*, the kind that seemed louder than a thin daisy stem would make, when I noticed that I had inadvertently cut right through that single lovely day lily I had just posted about. Oopsie daisy is right. Oh well, there must be some sort of garden lesson in even that...something along the lines of enjoy the beauty each day offers...because some silly woman might come along and snip it off just when it is at the peak of its bloom??? Or something like that.Be afraid my pretties...be very afraid. ;-)

Day lily and tiger lily

Most of my day lilies are this colour. I keep dividing them each year and spreading out the clumps so that I have them in several different spots. This year they seem to have come and mostly gone so quickly.I have just one of this colour, it's a little different and a bit larger bloom than the other kind.

Yesterday I noticed that the tiger lily was blooming. I just love the way it looks, what a cool plant.
And this one was in bloom a few weeks ago right beside our back patio - so pretty.

I love being surrounded by such loveliness and colour all through the Spring, Summer and Fall in the garden. My garden has many lessons to teach me about living in the moment and enjoying what is. Those are some important life lessons.

Lots of flowers and a mystery flower

Just a few years ago I added Rudbeckia to my gardens with some seeds from my mom. I now have loads (and I mean loads, do these ever spread) of them in a few different colours. They are so cheery that I can't bear to cut the ones down that are growing right across the entrance to our home.

Cosmos and calendula growing by the bush beans.There are lots of Hollyhocks coming up in a few different colours. But what I really want to know is - what is this? It is quite pretty but no one I ask seems to know what it is. This picture is the flower...and the leaf looks like this. I'd love to know what it is.

Behind the leaves...

yummy surprises are hiding. My strawberry patch has been a little neglected for the past week. I've been concentrating on painting walls, clearing weeds out of the garden and other mundane household chores. The strawberries are taking over the garden bed and I figured they were taking a bit of a summer break from producing berries when I saw a few little glimmers of red. Pushing aside the leaves I found this:

What a beauty! This is the biggest strawberry I have found in our patch this year. I brought it in to show my son and he admired it briefly before eating it. Oh well. I grabbed a bucket and headed back to see what else I could find.

Well, hello there... Seems the strawberries have been hiding on me. After snacking to my fill on blueberries and strawberries, I still had a few treats to bring into the house to share.

It's hard to get an idea of how many blueberries there are from the photo, but I would guess there is over 1 cup and still lots more to come on the bushes. Not bad for their first year! I think I could get used to this.

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In my meager bits of free time, I've been absorbing the most wonderful book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. This book was just the kick in the pants I needed to bring my focus back to a diet of local eating, especially at this time of year when there is so much local goodness available. I'm disappointed I missed out on asparagus season but I look forward to trying out other recipes from her book (which are also available in the above link - I can't recommend her zucchini orzo enough). I'm seeing a bigger veggie garden... I'm seeing more grass removed... I'm seeing my husband leaving town again...

Sunflowers

I love sunflowers. Loads of them sprout each year all around the yard and I have such a hard time pulling any out. This year I gave lots away so that we wouldn't be overrun with them as they tend to shade other things in the garden. Somehow though I still ended up with lots.

I can forgive them for shading other things(although not my tomatoes) when I see things like this though.

Poor puppy

Just in case you were thinking of asking us to dog-sit....

you might want to reconsider.

All thanks to Mr. Henley

Bread is a staple breakfast food in our house. We ran out yesterday morning and I must have thought bread would magically appear because I did not make or buy any. Sadly, this did not happen. This morning there was a slight panic in the search for an acceptable first breakfast but after we were fed, I realized I had two options: make some bread, or drive to the store to buy bread. And since I'm in gas saving mode, my only real option was to bake some bread. And here it is:

Nothing beats the smell of fresh baked bread. I'm so sorry that I can't post the smell.

But where does Mr. Henley fit into this?

Well, I find music can make almost any chore that you are not really into at the moment much more fun. It usually makes the process a little longer (although I'm not going to share exactly why this is) but more fun. And this morning, I chose Don Henley.

Is is really summer without listening to a little Don Henley? (While watching that video, I realized that Don Henley was kinda cute. He's no longer just the old guy who sang some good songs. Of course, this opinion was generated when I was 13 and I like to think I have matured a little since then.) Looking back, I can't help thinking how tame my summers have become in the last 10 years. I no longer have the 'brown skin shining in the sun', my convertible has long since been sold, and my 'boys of summer' are limited to two. (That would be my husband and my son of course :-) But his songs still bring back memories of those carefree summer days, when the sunny days and warm nights seemed to last forever.

And this got me curious... is there any songs or bands or singers that transport you back to summers of the past? Let me know in the comments :-)