Fleurs and New Books

 

My neighbor called to remind me that I was welcome to cut and take some of her hydrangeas. I had planned to do so on July 4th, but the grass was too wet. Yesterday afternoon I selected 3 blossoms. I tried to take them from different spots so there wouldn't be a "blank" spot on her bushes. As I entered my sliding door I saw that my backdoor neighbor was cutting some, also. I am sure he had been given the same invitation. Unfortunately he cut blooms right next to each other. Sure enough there is now part of the bush without any blooms.

 The pink flower below is also a hydrangea. This grows next to the west side of my house; it never puts out many blossoms. There must be a variety of hydrangeas. The pink one looks nothing like the big fluff-ball Annabelle ones.

The 4 books pictured with the blue hydrangea vase I bought Saturday morning at a Warsaw Friends of the Library book sale. Their little storage/sales room is overflowing. The hardbound books were fifty cents each. The one about Shackleton crossing Antarctica I bought for my husband though I will probably read it also.  I had read Hickam's October Sky and hope The Coalwood Way is interesting. I have a video of painting in the manner of Dewberry. I cannot get the audio of our video player to work. It may be because we have a sound bar for the TV. Some day when I feel bored and ready for a challenge I will go over the manual and play around with where to plug things in or what to turn on/off. In the meantime, I can use this book instead of the video. The brushes and paint I bought with the how-to video are ancient. This is what would be called aspirational clutter. I am not quite ready to let go of those things. 

I have had a smattering of moss roses this past week; today there are 10 blooms. Yesterday I also staked up the fallen Veronica (Speedwell). They are easy perennials to grow, but they get top-heavy and fall over in the rain and wind. 

A surprise is that one of the Asiatic lilies has two late buds about ready to open. My lilies did not do this in the previous 2 years.

I was also surprised to see two Knockout rose blooms out front. They kind of sneaked up on me; I saw the new growth but wasn't expecting flowers soon.

My neighbor has daisies? blooming next to the spent peonies. I don't know what the bright green stalks are.

It is a little humid today. Low 80's with a breeze. There may be storms around 9 p.m. to midnight. I hope the rain does hold off as I plan to grill brats. We stopped at Sweet Corn Charley's for some sweet corn. Our first batch of corn last week had flavor but also some worms on the ends. 

Summertime and the livin' is easy. No catfish but brats, sweet corn, and potato salad ahead for us.

Fourth of July Bouquet

Thinking Ahead

You are probably tired of hearing about hydrangeas. I put away most of the solid green ones and put the rest in a smaller vase. This is what I will keep displayed until November probably. No more hydrangea photos I promise.

Today was the start of the Swap Shop week at Grace Village. I picked up a metal tray of a winter scene with a cardinal. I bought new winter/Christmas plates for my plate rack, one at a time thru ebay. I had tired of the Debbie Mumm plates. Time for a change. I’ll share the new plates when I put them up for Christmas. There are cardinals on several of them so this tray will help carry that theme thru the house.

Christmas is the bright spot of winter.

Hydrangeas Reworked

 

I was able to find some hydrangeas with some pink, not just all green. I like the resulting arrangement better.

This first arrangement used some duller green hydrangeas in the center which I have thrown away.

This has the bright green, the peegee cream color, and the pink with green blooms.

I started out making a floral frog with tape. I saw this on Facebook. My tape is wide though so didn’t work as well as the demonstration.

The main problem with dried hydrangeas is their fragility. Every time I work with them bits fall off.

At least the pink did add some visual interest.

What have you done with hydrangeas?

Hydrangea Experiment

 

My back-door neighbor has been inviting me all summer to take some of her hydrangea blooms. Friday she moved into an assisted-living apartment; today I went over and cut some fresh blooms since she won’t be looking at them thru her condo window anymore. I like the Annabelle hydrangeas when they first bloom and are fluffy and white. They turn a lime green as they mature.

I did harvest two green blooms a few weeks ago. I wanted to experiment with drying them. I think I may have done OK. There is varying advice about drying, but those who have done quite a bit of it say the real key is picking the blooms at the right time. August through October is prime picking time, but assessing whether the bloom is ready is an art.

The green blooms which I placed in a vase of water now feel papery. I am using the method where one places the blooms with all leaves stripped off in a few inches of water and puts the vase out of sunlight. I probably used too much water so it is taking fairly long to evaporate, but the blooms seem to be doing what I wanted.

Today I picked fluffy white blooms to enjoy, a new crop finally. They won’t be fit to dry since I picked them when they were too moist. However, I picked a green bloom with tinges of pink from the vacant house to the west of me; we can barely see the blooms through our bedroom window and most others cannot see them at all unless they sit on the adjoining patio. It still feels a little springy though, so I am not sure how it will turn out. Right now I have it combined with the fluffy white ones for a few days. I am going to wait about a week and pick the only other bloom on the bush when it it drier. Then I can compare. By next year new neighbors will be in both of these residences so I may have no blooms unless my new neighbor shares. Grace Village planted 3 hydrangea bushes next to my west wall. They each had one puny pinkish bloom this year, but maybe next autumn I will have some hydrangea blooms of my own and know how to dry them. That’s the idea anyway.

I will try arranging the green blooms with the pee gee hydrangeas I bought online last year.

After lots of humidity and heat, we now have beautiful cooler weather for a few days. It was 56 when I got up this morning.

My week has very few items on the calendar. My sister-in-law sold her house yesterday for a cash offer above the listing price. God is so good. After this week, I will offer to help her pack up some things, especially a full curio cabinet of fragile items. We made $193 on our garage sale, part of a community-wide sale Friday and Saturday. I took our few remaining things to Good Will store yesterday afternoon. I am looking forward to a relaxing week.

 

 

 

Sharers

I picked two fluffy white hydrangeas from my neighbor’s bush this morning. Thank you, Ann.

My husband helped his sister today cultivating the garden her husband planted. Her husband is in the hospital with an infection. She sent home with him some green beans, a pepper, and some zucchini.

While my husband was gone, I weeded the moss roses. It is only 75 degrees now, was high 60’s when I worked in the back yard. Looks better.

I had a tough time reaching the middle of the patch. My back already hurt some from moving furniture a few days ago; weeding didn’t help it any, but I needed to take advantage of the perfect weather.

Speaking of gardens, have you ever done the Rows Garden puzzle in the Wall Street Journal? It is a nice change from crossword puzzles. I never know all of the row answers. I had to look up who wrote the poem “I’m Nobody! Who Are You?” (Emily Dickinson) and the name of a U2 song used as a title for a TV teen drama. My husband helped me with a few others.

Good thing it is an easy supper night. I am worn out. Cooking brats on the grill, microwaving the fresh green beans, eating the left-over baked beans with pineapple from 4th of July.

Here’s the recipe for the beans:

Baked Beans with Pineapple

4-5 cans Campbell’s Pork and Beans

Large can pineapple tidbits drained (reserve some juice)

For every pound of beans add:

1 Tbsp. ketchup

1 tsp. mustard

2 Tbsp. brown sugar

1 Tbsp. pineapple juice drained from tidbits

Combine all in crockpot and cook several hours until heated through. (2-3 hours on high; 4-5 hours on low)

Summer Beauties

It is 65 degrees right now at 1:30 p.m., and we aren’t forecast to get much warmer. Yesterday it was 89 degrees. Quite a contrast.

I have some flowers from my neighbor’s yards that are adding beauty to my home. The bumble bees sure do like the little purple blossoms. I had to be very careful as I picked those.

I like how the hydrangeas not only look fluffy but feel fluffy for such a big bloom.

Beautiful Day, Beautiful Blooms

 

One of my backyard neighbors has two large bushes of hydrangeas. She called yesterday and invited me to help myself. Not sure this is the best container for them; I may try something else tomorrow. I’ve never had cut hydrangeas in my home. We’ll see how long they last.

 

This morning when I went to the library to work, the carpet looked wonderful. It had been thoroughly vacuumed. As I shelved some books, Tina, one of the housekeepers, came with some spray cleaner and a cloth to remove the finger prints from the lamp table. As she cleaned, the lampshade slid down. I had taped it to  the frame after somebody had an accident rolling over the cord with a wheelchair and causing the lamp to crash to the floor 2 or 3 months ago. (I try very hard to make sure the cord is under the table, but folks unplug it so they can plug in their laptops and aren’t always as careful.)  The lamp was OK, but the shade was in sad shape. Though the person in charge of the physical plant was informed, after several weeks I taped the shade as I was tired of seeing this broken shade sitting cockamamie half-way down the lamp. So today the library got a thorough cleaning after last week’s escapade of messy boys and a replacement shade which Tina found in the basement. A bonus.

 

After last night’s thunder showers, we have low humidity, a nice breeze, sunshine, and so far not too hot. We have our patio door and front door open for fresh air. God has graced us with a beautiful day.