Garden Touring with My Art Group

Welcome to our garden tour and progressive afternoon tea.  Here Kimi greets us for a tour of her newly outfitted Garden Shed.

 Ann and Jann admire the details.

 We start the mid-afternoon with the culinary delight of a Bee Bundt.

A chorus of frogs serenade us.

As we sample delights.

 Here we are, Cindy, Margie, Connie, Kimi, Joanne, Ann and Jan,

 And from the other end of the table we see, Joanne, Ann, Jann, Margo, Shirley, Cindy, and Margie.

 Then it was off to Jann's house...

 Here is her Garden House.

I thought her stack of beehive boxes was charming.

Here we are inside her garden house.

So many fun collectibles.

Looking through the screened window, it was fun to see Margie and Ann chatting in the garden outside.

It was fun to visit while we snacked on Jalapeno/blackberry jam and cream cheese on crackers.  Yum.

The culmination of our garden tour was at Joanne's house.  We were welcomed by the sight of this over flowing pool fountain .... oh so delightful.

 Joanne's free standing covered patio is decorated in a charming shabby style ...

 The handkerchief pennants are perfectly happy.  I also loved the fresh flowers woven into the chandelier.

 We started with this refreshing watermelon, cucumber and feta salad, dressed with a honey-lemon sauce.  We also enjoy our own seasoned olive oil in which to dip crusty Ciabatta bread.

The pesto and Parmesan crusted salmon was beyond any salmon I have ever enjoyed.

Here are most of us, ready for our delicious strawberry trifle.

After dinner, we relaxed and chatted, waiting for the darkness to become complete so that we could fully enjoy the magic of the fairyland of twinkling lights.  Here we see Cindy, displaying the delights of the amazing hammock. 

I loved the charmed lights hanging from the old growth apple trees, with just a peak of Joanne's sweet playhouse behind.

Thanks to all of the ladies in our art group.  They are all so talented, and their artistic sensibilities seems to heighten their awareness of beauty.  It was a lovely, lovely day.  One to be long remembered by the friends who enjoyed each other and the beauty of  magnificent gardens and garden structures.

My Memorial Pixie Garden

This is a picture of my son Ben and his beautiful wife Hannah.  These family pictures were taken the end of July, fortunately.  Because in mid-August Ben lost his life in an accident.

Ben has always been a lot of fun.  Sort of the family clown ... can you tell.

 In the upper, age order picture, Ben decided he needed a lift from his siblings.  In the picture below, taken at the cemetery, after almost a week of celebrating his life, his wife takes his spot in the middle.  She wants to remain a member of our family, which is just what we want.  We know how much our son Ben adored her, and she has truly become a member of our family over the last five years.  We are so grateful for her.

Through this time of love, pain, joy and sorrow, we have, as a family, been upheld by each other, and by our many friends and extended family.  We love Ben and expect to see him again, with the same sociality we have enjoyed with him here.  This knowledge has been a great comfort.  

We have received, flowers, cards, goodies, art projects, framed thoughts, catered meals for us all, framed pictures, inspirational art, books, cards, jewelry, meals, thoughtful letters, texts, emails and hundreds of kind thoughts on our Face Book and Intstagram pages.  We have been in the prayers of hundreds, perhaps thousands, and have felt the power of those prayers.  We have in short, been comforted by the Lord through the ministrations of good people.

 This is Shirley, Jann, Joanne, Cindy, Margo, Ann, Margie and Kimi.  They are most of the members of my Art Group (We're just missing Trina)  We got together on Monday for our end of summer garden tour (I'll be sharing that in another post).  When we got to Jann's house I was admiring and snapping shots of this charming Pixie Garden, when Kimi came up behind me, and said, "Its for you, we all got together last week and made it for you, in lieu of flowers."  What dear friends, they had each brought items to contribute.  I was simply overwhelmed by their generosity.  How comforting it is to know how much good is in this world.

 Here is Ben's memorial garden as it sits on one of two catalpa stumps by each side of my front gate.  Its a fitting place, as it was Ben, after learning to cut down trees during a year of wild land fire fighting, that cut down the aged trees.  The catalpas were over a hundred years old and more than half of their branches were dead.  When we asked him to help us cut them down, he came almost immediately.  

I'd been thinking all summer that we needed to put another container garden on the other stump.  There is a fairy garden on the stump to the right.  What a lovely reminder of my wonderful son.  Thank you girls.

Pastel and Pretty, Vintage Wedding Bedroom

Well, here we are back in our small guestroom.  It was originally a conservatory, and has two walls full of windows.  It was the only room in the house which was furnished with a hard wood floor, in case water was spilled in the care of the plants it would not warp as readily as the softer native wood floors that were laid through out the rest of the house, in 1894 when the house was built.  The room is only 8 by 10, but I have redecorated it several times in the 20 years we've had the house.

The last time the room was redone, you can see the blog post  here it was in black and white.  While visiting our daughter in Texas in May, I found the sweet Edwardian dress in an antique store there.  It is on the right above,

 I also found this sweet 1930's embroidered bedspread at the same shop. I thought the colors would look great with the pastels of the stained glass windows.

 I also had these two sweet Edwardian era dresses tucked away and decided to redo the room.

 The desk we're using as a night stand here, belonged to my husbands Grand Father, and the white dress hanging behind it is the blessing dress that all my daughters wore.

 The wedding dress, from the late 1800s, had been for sale at the shop for several years, so I decided to bring her home, and display her next to my bride and groom collection.

The personality of the room is entirely different.  When my 6 year old granddaughter came to visit last month, she loved the 'wedding room'.  I know how she feels, I am loving it, as well.