Silent Sunday

 

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿

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September Glory

I awoke on this September 1st to find my morning glories have finally bloomed…

I love thier big, bright blue blossoms!  😍

 I also awoke this morning to some brisk temperatures here in my little part of the world.  Not that I’m complaining, this is my favorite time of the year!  As many of you may already know, I absolutely adore everything there is about Autumn!  🍁

I’ll admit, it’s a little bit of a sad time in the garden, as everything is winding down.  Many of my plants are looking quite scraggly and my veggie garden gave up the ghost a bit early this year, as I’ve already yanked out my cucumber vines and my zucchini.  But I’ve still got some little jalapeno peppers going and a few tomatoes yet to turn red.

But as the Earth keeps spinning and the seasons come and go, everything in nature is always in some phase of transition and continual transformation, and I do my best to embrace each one.  All of life is a series of bittersweet hellos and goodbyes…

So hello to September, and a happy September 1st to all of you!  May this new month bring new and beautiful things to your life…

✿~Peace & Love~✿

Wordless Wednesday

 

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿

Bleeding Hearts

 

From hearts that bleed

love trickles down

From droplets of beauty

rains joy

 

© Julie Rehnelt 2016

~

 

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿

Come Away

 

Come away with me my love, on this warm spring eve

let us go out into the garden.

And laughing, let us lie down together on the soft grass

intoxicated by the lush scents of a thousand spring flowers in full bloom.

And intoxicated with each other

let us make love beneath the flowery boughs of the apple blossom

illuminated by the soft glow of May’s Full Flower Moon

 

© Julie Rehnelt 2015

~

 

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿

Project: Fail

I came across a cool idea for an outdoor project that I thought would be fun to do, but it turned out sorta being a fail.  It isn’t entirely completed yet though, so maybe it will look better once it’s finished.  One can hope…  😉

First let me mention that I love stained glass.  Well, I love any type of colored glass, actually.  Many years ago, I used to collect colored bottles of varying shapes and sizes, and would set them on my window ledge to allow the light shine in through them, it gave off a lovely ‘stained glass’ effect.  I’ve since reduced that collection to only a few bottles and have yet to find/decide on a window here to place them in.  Not to mention, I’ll have to find the box they’re packed away in first.  I also tried to paint “stained glass” onto a window in one of my previous homes using specially designed paints.  It turned out looking pretty cool, wish I had a picture of it to show.  Hmmm… maybe I shall dig through some old photo albums later and see if I have any photos to share, but for now I’m going to continue on with my story…  Anyway, this latest project has nothing to do with either of those two things I just mentioned, or stained glass, I only mentioned them because it has to do with colored glass.  Well, with marbles, to be exact.  And I think I may have lost a few of my marbles working on it.  😉

Those of you who have been here with me for a while, know that in the summer months, I spend a lot of time in my garden and on the patio ~ it’s my little happy place.  ❤   Well, along the end of the patio, there is a small section of wood privacy fencing dividing our yard from the neighbors, that I thought would be perfect for this project to add a bit of whimsy and extra fun to my little happy place.

The basic idea for the project is simple ~ you drill holes in random places in the fence and then put colored marbles in them.  Easy peasy, right?  Turns out… not so much…

The main reason I call it a “fail” is because as I was drilling, the wood splintered and it looks terrible.  I think the fact that the fence is stained really makes the splitting more noticeable, so I plan to touch it up with a bit of stain, hopefully that will help hide it somewhat.  The other reason I call it a fail is because the marbles I used don’t really give it the effect I was hoping for, they may be made of glass, but it’s not really the right kind of glass.  Also, even though it’s the sunny south side that shines through, the sun is higher in the sky during the summer, so the marbles don’t catch the light quite right.  I guess I could go out there in the winter when the sun is lower in the sky to look at them, but rather than freezing my butt off, and trudging through several feet of snow, I think I’ll just find a nice window (in the cozy indoors) to set my colored bottles in.  Of course… I’ll have to find them first.  😉

 

But even though it ended up not turning out how I imagined it, it’s still more festive than a plain, ordinary fence.  Here’s the portion of fence with the marbles I’ve put in so far…

It’s hard to really see the various colors of the marbles, and I couldn’t get a decent close up shot, but this one shows them a little more…

And this one shows the splitting that happened when I drilled the hole…

This isn’t the worst one of the bunch, and you don’t even want to see what the other side of the fence looks like.  But I’ll have to wait and see, hopefully it’ll look better once I touch it up with the stain.  *crosses fingers*

 

My tiny garden is looking quite happy though, and I’m so very pleased with how well everything is doing!  I’ll share some photos with you in a future post.  Until then… hope you have a wonderful day, and may all your projects turn out just as lovely as you imagined.  Or even better!   😀

~

✿~Peace & Love~✿

All Good Things Must Come to an End…

One of those “things” being my garden.

I’ve never really liked that saying, and I don’t even believe it to be true.  Although, I suppose I must concede that there is a beginning as well as an end to all things.  Did I basically just contradict myself there?  Haha!  Oh well, I can say whatever I want.  Okay, let me rephrase… I don’t want to believe that all good things must come to an end.  😉

The entire growing season has been so weird this year, and it’s been hard to plan anything.  It’s November 4th and I’ve still got things growing out there, but with the temps continually dropping and the threat of snow in the forecast for this week, I figured I better get out there and put all of my garden stuff to bed for the winter.

But it’s hard when there’s still life happening out there.  Mainly, it’s my herbs that are still thriving.  They’re so lovely and aromatic, I hate the thought of yanking them out before their time.  I’ve got most of them growing in pots and so I got to thinking maybe I would bring them inside and try to keep them alive over the winter.  I’ve never done that before so it will be an experiment.  I like experiments.  Mwahahaha!  Besides what is there to lose, they would have died out in the cold anyway, at least this way I’m giving them a fighting chance.

There aren’t a lot of suitable spaces inside the house for bringing in a bunch of plants, but I cleared off a ledge along the basement stairway that may work out.  There’s a south facing window that brings in a lot of light, though not direct sunlight, but I don’t think they need direct sunlight when wintering them over.  I actually have no clue about that really, because I must confess that I haven’t read up on it.  At all.  Guess I should do that.  😉

Anyway, yesterday I brought in several of my pots and set them along that ledge.  I may also put up some sort of temporary makeshift shelving too, if I’m feeling particularly industrious later on.  But doing this has got me thinking that if I am able to winter them over and they do happen to survive, I may want to set up something more permanent for this type of thing in the future.

It has also got me thinking that I may need to invest in some more houseplants to enjoy during the winter.  I have a few, but not enough of them to satisfy my need for being around the lush green and growing things.  Oddly, although I have a green thumb in gardening, when it comes to houseplants… not so much, I often inadvertently kill them.  I’m not sure why that is.  Maybe I won’t be able to keep my herbs alive after all…

But here’s hoping!  😀

I was outside for hours yesterday tending to things in and around my garden.  It was supposed to be nice out, but it got super windy as the day went on, and that wind was blustery and cold.  {{{brrrr}}}

I gave all the plants I was bringing inside a good shaving.  I really hope I didn’t over-do it, they all look so sad now.  😦

My lemon thyme…

It’s such a sad looking little spud, but I’m going to use its fresh clippings to try out a recipe I found online for lemon thyme bars.  I love lemon!

~

And here’s my sad looking chocolate mint…

I’m going to dry the clippings from this and use them for tea.  I’m also going to dry the clippings I snipped from my peppermint and spearmint plants to use for tea as well.  I do love me some mint tea!  ♥

~

Speaking of what I love… I also snipped two of my lavender plants to bring inside, the wonderful aroma was pure bliss!  I really hope they survive.  Gosh I wish lavender would grow as a perennial here…

If this project works out, I maybe consider growing all of my herbs in pots so that I can bring them inside over the winter.  Just look at how lovely the oregano that I planted inside my vegetable garden area still is…

I considered digging this up yesterday and putting it into a pot so that I could bring it inside too, but I thought that would stress the poor thing out so much that it would be a lost cause anyway.  Besides that ledge in the basement will only fit so many pots as it is at the moment without any shelves.

~

I also don’t have enough room to bring in this berries and cream mint that I planted in with my peas…

But I may go out there and snip some of it so I can dry it out for yet more tea.  😉

~

That is, if I can get out there before it snows.  I’m really not ready for snow…

And neither are the trees.  As of the other day when I snapped this photo, you can see that there’s still lots of colorful leaves on the trees…

Although they may have blown off now with that wind we had yesterday.

~

I guess all good things really must come to an end, whether I want to believe it or not.  But you know what?  Life is a endless circle, and so with every ending comes a new beginning.  And with that new beginning, there will most certainly be more “good things” to enjoy.   And I really do believe that.  😀

Peace & love…

✿~Gardening is my therapy~✿