Monday, June 16, 2014

Catching up with blogging, and more of the old single wide mobile home makeover...

Good morning friends! We are actually leaving this morning to go up to Birdsong Cottage for the third time this season. I have been rather busy lately between taking care of this house and Birdsong, so haven't had the chance to post much or share any photos. I will try to catch up a little bit.

When we were up there a few weeks ago, we made what we consider a nice improvement on our little old single wide mobile home, a/k/a "cottage". One of the things that really bugged us was that a previous owner closed up one of the four windows in the master bedroom and "built in" a window air conditioner. It didn't work when we bought the place, and we decided that since we really didn't need A/C up there, we would rather have a window. So we bought one similar to those that were used when all of the windows had been replaced a couple of years ago.

The dreadful view from the outside.
Who would do this? 
Didn't they even think about the fact
that someday the A/C unit would
poop out?


They apparently built the unit into the wall
because the window wouldn't accommodate
the size of it...


Hubby removing the outside trim...


...and then the rest of the ugly mess. 
We were very happy that it didn't rain!


New window installed...


...and the new view from the inside...


I hope to paint all the trim this week, and we will put up the new shades that we bought when we were up here the last time. 

Baby steps!

Have a great day!

Saturday, June 14, 2014

Friday the Thirteenth and One Good Thing

Are you superstitious? I do not consider myself a superstitious person by any means. When Friday the Thirteenth comes my way I usually go about my business and the day passes without incident. However, yesterday I found myself revisiting all of that and here is why...

I awoke at 1:00 a.m. with the sound of my husband speaking in foreign tongues. This happens once in a while as he is a diabetic, and if his blood sugar drops to a low level, such as the 38 that it was, he starts acting very weird. This doesn't happen all that often, but when it does I pump some sugar into his little mouth, this by way of two bottles of apple juice, a small candy bar, and some chocolate Debbie Cakes. He fell back to sleep. I did not.

So, at 3:00 I finally gave up, made some coffee and got on with my day. Or at least tried to. Until I came into the kitchen and found a thousand garden ants making a breakfast buffet out of the little bit of dry cat food that my Ollie did not finish. So, after spraying down the counters, cabinets, and anywhere else that I saw even one little dreaded beast, I made some coffee and spent time doing nothing for a few hours.

Hubby left at 9:00 to take his car in for servicing. I cleaned the bathrooms with the intent of taking a shower afterwards, and doing some artwork for the rest of the day. The shower went well, but the drying of the hair did not. I plugged in my (almost an antique!) blow dryer and turned it on, when it basically exploded and caught fire for a second. Needless to say it got dumped. After I caught my breath (I hate fire even more than ants), I found my travel dryer and used that.

So I finally got upstairs to the studio and tried to upload photos from my iPhone to my PC. Wouldn't work. I didn't feel like emailing them all to myself, so I decided to get my Canon Rebel (real camera) and take some other photos so that I could do a post to this blog. Couldn't find the camera. Who loses a camera anyway? (I knew I had put it away some place, and found it later, but its location shall remain undisclosed. I know I'm nutty sometimes, but this took the cake.)  So I gave up on blogging.

Later we were going to go out to eat, but frankly I was too afraid at this point to go anywhere. Besides, I am still suffering the effects of my run in with poison ivy and chigger bites, all happily acquired earlier this week in my garden.

OK, so the one good thing? Last week I secured the winning bid of $23.06 on eBay for something I never bid high enough on to win. I'm often too frugal to compete with the heavy hitters. I did finally got my photos uploaded this morning, so I'll share with you the opening of the box...

Here is the large box it came in...


There was 5.14 pounds of stuff in it...


We open the box, 
and this is what we see.
It is a vintage lace lot.
Not much could be better than this.
Much of it is in plastic bags, 
such as this...


...and this...


...and this, exactly as packaged...




Some was in rolls...


...and some on the original cards, 
probably as a long ago seller
displayed them...



I haven't had the time to go through it all, but I guess we could say that I now have enough lace to last me a lifetime. This was indeed a perfect ending to an otherwise not-so-good day!

I hope you have a great Saturday the Fourteenth!




Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Taking a walk around our home...

Good morning! Yesterday I hinted that maybe I would show you something in its entirety, so I decided to take you for a walk around our house. It occurred to me that I show you a lot of photos of individual flowers growing in our gardens, but never really show you the gardens themselves. The main reason for this is because this is actually only the fifth spring that we are working on them, so we are not yet chock full of plants. We spent the first few years concentrating on the "bones" of the plan, such as the beds, lawn, trees and shrubs, so the flowers are not all that much established yet.

In any case, here goes nothing (or something, depending on whether your cup is half empty or half full!).

As you pull into our driveway,
this is what you will see on the right...


...the garden continues up along the right
side of the property.
There are woods that separate us from
our neighbors' homes, 
so we have created our beds forward of
the wooded areas on the sides...


A walk along the side of the garage brings you
to the yard, and here you see the stone path
that takes you to the back deck and screen
porch.
Ahead you see a plum tree surrounded
by daylilies...


To the left of that path at the bottom of the deck is the shady
fountain garden, with mostly hostas, 
ferns, and hellebore...


I particularly love these waxy blue
hostas...


...which I am happy to report have blessed us with several
babies (on right side corner of photo)...


A view of the right corner of yard in rear.
A leaky bird bath was planted with lovely
white annuals, 
and Holly Compacta bushes
flank the stone path leading back there. 
Our gazing ball is barely visible on the left,
though not a lot is blooming in this section yet,
except for the weeds, that is...


This is the center of the back yard and view from the porch.
The herb garden is in middle on right,
and newly expanded daylily and iris garden under
plum tree towards left, 
with garden shed in back behind it. 
Behind the herb garden is another island 
planted with rose bushes, a crab apple tree, 
and a fig tree...


Another shot of garden shed and (weedy!)
stone path and bushes leading to it.
Our memory garden, in honor of those in our families who
have passed on, is to left of shed...


And another view of shed.
The front shows the snowball bush, 
planted with Vinca and Creeping Jenny,
and a host of whatever else will grow there.



Heading left through the yard on our walk,
we pass the left, rear corner of house and get
to the rose-covered arbor...


...and walking through it takes us to the 
other side of the house...


...and looking over our shoulders after we pass under the arbor
this is the view back to the shed...


Looking ahead we see the gazebo,
the gardens around it still being established...


...and then we come up to the front of the house, 
having made almost a full circle...


How about some sweet tea on the porch?


As ever, thanks for putting up with my ramblings!!
Have a wonderful day.


Monday, May 12, 2014

A wheelbarrow full of daylilies and a smattering of fabric collage...

Hello friends! I hope that you had a great Mother's Day Weekend. Mine was very nice.

We live in a restricted subdivision, and Mr. Perch is on the Homeowners' Association Board. Saturday he and his group spent a good portion of the day digging out two established crepe myrtle trees and moving them to another location near our ball field. They had also planned on moving some old daylilies, but after finishing with the trees they decided that the daylilies were not worth the work, and wouldn't be properly cared for anyway, so our HOA President said that my neighbor and I could split them (her hubby is also on The Board). Needless to say, we jumped on this opportunity! Free plants are always a perk for me!

So, here is our wheelbarrow filled with the
daylilies.
How many plants do you think are in here?


Would you believe only three?
They were rather large lovelies!
Large though they are, 
I will not split them this year...


I planted them down by the gazebo,
and after that, I took a walk around the yard
to see what else was blooming. 
I love this time of the year because each
day brings an ever-changing show.

There was a lovely peony
( I think it is a Bowl of Beauty)....


...a Firebreather Bearded Iris.
This is the first year this one bloomed,
and it was from a lowly Walmart root...


These are the little pink roses that grow on
our arbor. 
They are so pungent that you can pick up
their sweet scent wherever you walk in
the yard...


This is a peony that I put in last year when I started developing
the gardens flanking the path to the gazebo. 
Only one bloom this spring, but I was awestruck 
by the faint coloring on this little pretty...


And this one is also sweet. 
It is a White Wings Peony...


And any worthwhile photographer would
be ashamed to show you the photo
 of  the Knockout Rose
pictured below.
The lighting on this one is way off,
but I think it's got its own charm...


And, really, I am STILL trying to complete
my fabric collage projects sometime before 
I'm too feeble to make it to the sewing machine.
Stand by on this one!



Bits and pieces of my gardens.
Bits and pieces of my art. 
My, wouldn't it be lovely to see something from me in its entirety? Maybe next time, my friends.

Have a great evening!!