Welcome to summer!
My happy healthy asparagus fern
Our front flower bed early in the spring
More thrifting!
Cool geometric pot:
A painting of a waterfall with LOONS at the bottom!
I was hoping it would fit on my future gallery wall right over the electrical panel, but it's a bit too small.
A German pottery bowl (used for fruit!)
Wood coasters - they work great!
An original charcoal drawing of a sweet sleepy baby!
A poster of the Enterprise, hopefully for Greg's office when he gets that set up!
A pretty wooden mirror for the guest bathroom, in case our guests need to see the back of their heads!
With a lovely branch on the back:
This little pot sits on a table in our living room and holds the clips that we use to hold up the blinds cords when the blinds are up (so they don't get caught or gnawed on).
A studio pottery pitcher (for holding flowers and for looking pretty!)
That complements this bigger pot perfectly!
A weird plate with a slit in it . . . what is it?
It's for holding snacks AND your wine glass at the same time!
But I'm using it as a business card holder!
Maple leaf patterned bowls:
From Marketplace lately (I guess I'm stocking up on ducks!):
Before it got too buggy and humid, Greg and I walked along the marshy area near us and saw this lovely green heron! They are pretty shy, so we haven't gotten great photos of them before.
We see a goodly number of these, too!
Look at those cute little fuzzy antlers!
Our bleeding hearts (also known as Dutchman's breeches!) bloomed beautifully this year. They were only planted in our bed last summer, so it's exciting to see how well this plant is doing! The smaller one sadly was eaten by a rabbit!
Since our house is SO TALL, especially on the back side (there's a hill so in the front the house is two stories high and in the back it's three stories high), and since we have such great views, Greg has been researching the best ways to clean windows and which tools the professionals use. He has been on a mission and it's resulting in nice clean sparkly windows!
It's astounding how lush things are here, even in a drought.
The crabapple trees are gorgeous in the spring!
I bought my parents plants for Father's Day and Mother's Day. We shopped for them together!
Here we all are!
Why is this goose standing on the roof on one leg? Unknown!
But it's a super neat picture - look at the goose flying!
We also saw other creatures lately!
Garter snake:
Little brown rock, um, frog!
A duck with BABIES!
a SKINK! Extra cute and interesting.
Dogwood blossoms coming!
I got to go to our nieces' end-of-school celebration day.
I saw some of their art.
We danced in the mirror in the fancy bathroom:
Esme:
Esme & Cora:
Esme's project was on Arizona!!! :)
Further growth + plant basket!
Peonies coming!
Iris coming!
My dear friend Paige came over! We cooked a delicious meal and then sat by a bonfire that Greg built for us! It was chilly enough at that point that there were not any bugs - and we heard racoons fighting!
We made chocolate pudding.
Greg was very manly:
Some sparks jumped and one burned a hole right through this blanket before we could stop it!
Then Greg and I went out to look for Northern lights because they were expected to show . . . no luck.
Here's an outfit I loved lately!
knit jacket: Tommy Hilfiger (secondhand, thredup)
blouse: Marshall's
I went for a long walk with my friend Mary.
She introduced me to a park with walking trails around lakes.
There were lots of tall trees:
This photo doesn't show it, but this is a mama loon with a baby on her back!
It was HOT, almost 90.
I was proud of myself because we did this walk on a Sunday AFTER I did my stuff at church, which usually wipes me out.
We've been having a lot of effects from the wildfires in Canada. The air quality has been bad (on and off, depending on wind and pressure) but the sunrises and sunsets have been pretty!
This is me, walking, exploring White Bear Lake!
The signs are very cute there; they have white bears on them!
I went to a jeweler to have some jewelry repaired and it turns out that the lake and marina were right across the street! I walked out on the pier and enjoyed the fresh smells.
Here's the stuff I had repaired. They did a great job and they're a local independent company, which I like!
It's funny to me that there's a water sherriff!
More bleeding hearts!
A vulture I saw on an early-morning run:
Our iris bloomed!
We went to the cabin in May to open it up for the summer. I spent a lot of time with Cora and Esme while the grown-ups worked hard. We did some kayaking:
Cora decorated Uncle Greg:
Cora made a beautiful sign to sell parts of the old dock:
The men worked on a faucet issue in the bathroom:
Cora and Esme gave me hairdos!
This is three braids braided together!
We made smoothies and then froze one of them into popsicles!
YUM!
We even swam in the lake even though it was chilly:
We read books:
I even took ingredients to make gluten-free plant-based s'mores!
We grown-ups enjoyed a bonfire until the mosquitos got too fierce.
There's my s'more!
We also snuggled!
Can 3 people fit in this small rocking chair? YES! Kind of.
We also did some art.
Some of it was done outside to prevent any messes inside.
Even though we had a great time, we were happy to come home again!
Summertime on the pond:
My parents brought the girls over one afternoon after school ended and we had fun doing art and playing with toys.
Grandpa took a little rest.
Then he and Cora went outside to get some cat tails so we could use them in our art projects!
Esme enjoyed some time with Allistair.
The peonies bloomed!
And Paige came over again!
It just so happened that our neighbor LeAnn (thanks, LeAnn!) brought me over some rhubarb, so Paige and I attempted rhubarb cobbler with my trusty and adaptable cobbler recipe. It turned out delicious!
A youth goose in the pond, trying out her freedom:
Our beautiful home in the summer:
We saw a red-bellied woodpecker for the first time!
The ghost pepper plants I planted in May have itsy bitsy little peppers growing!
My lavender plants are happy and lovely!
My Aunt Cindy has a milestone birthday in a few days (!!!) and the 3 sisters spent some time together. My Mom requested a photo session with all of them, so I had a fun day. It's been years since I was with all three of them together.
Lovely ladies!
My Mom remembered this park, and it was perfect!
And then we had PIZZA!
Allistair enjoys the sun that comes in the living room in the mornings.
It still doesn't feel like quite enough creatures on the bed when we're all there, because we're still missing Stephen. It's still nice to be all together.
Running errands the other day, I saw these sandhill cranes and their babies, which are called colts!
I planted some rhubarb . . . they're not looking great, but my Dad said they will bounce back!
That photo makes me feel icky, because when I mowed back there last week, a wasp or hornet or some kind of bee came out of a hole in the ground and stung me twice! Eeek!
Allistair is lucky enough to have a wonderful Daddy to dnuggle him, too.
We enjoyed having Greg's Dad and step-mom Karen over to celebrate Father's Day.
We made burrito bowls/burritos!
I also made brownies.
And rhubarb cherry cobbler!
And peanut butter crunch balls!
It was a tasty meal!
The next day, we went to my parents' house to celebrate Father's Day with my family.
I picked some lavender and put it in this cute little pot with a MOAT!
It was a delightful spring, and so far summer has been great!
P.S. Awaiting a thunderstorm RIGHT THIS MINUTE!
I enjoyed your beautiful pictures and commentary.
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