Lazy Days of Summer

If I had known I would take almost two weeks off from blogging, I would have warned you, dear readers, as niece Debbie in Hutchinson recently did. But it was more a case of life taking up more energy than I thought, plus a serious case of nodding off once darkness falls. But to those of you who have inquired, we are OK. Really. Just being lazy in the midst of high summer. The Welcome sign is out in the back drive, and July has brought us promise of more company than we have had in a while. Doug and Matt are in St. Louis this week because Matt's sister Michelle had surgery yesterday. She is reported to be doing well and the guys visited our gardens on Tuesday night when they came here for dinner. Our next visitors will be my cousin Mike and his wife Debi around June 18-20.

On our drive through NE Oklahoma coming home from our vacation, we saw banks full of native purple coneflowers in bloom. And when we got home, our own plot of cone flowers on the south side of the house was in full array as well. When we moved here in July 2001, there was one clump of them. Now they range the full length of the house. These are just a few of them.

We also came home to an explosion of day lilies both front and back. The bright sun kind of washes them out, but we have yellow, cream, salmon and other shades in this bed. Matt helped dig it several years ago and we transplanted lilies from various places in the yard. They seem to like this spot.

Once again, the pale apricot "Judith" lilies bloomed profusely. The roses are finished for now but we know they will re-bloom later, when the nights get cool again.

Most of these lilies were once behind the garage or further back in the shaded yard. We thought all of them were orange, but some yellow ones showed up this year! Norm dug this bed in the side yard, in front of the back yard fence, so that our neighbors to the North would have something to enjoy when they pull into their driveway. We know that the lilies will be finished around the middle of this month, so tonight we raided Home Depot for some pots of bright zinnias, yellow and orange. We have also started some zinnias from seed--old times say to sow them on July 4. We did it a week early. The idea is they will start to bloom around labor day and skip the seasonal mildew that often disfigures zinnias around here.

The over wintered geraniums still bloom on the front porch, so much so that we haven't bought but one new geranium this year. Meanwhile, the rubber tree keeps growing. I may have to emulate my sister in law Kay and give it a trim when it's time for it to move inside for the winter. At Home Depot tonight we also bought a planter full of dark purple petunias, since that fragrance was missing from our evenings when it's nice enough to sit out after dark and listen to the tree frogs, which started right on schedule on July 5. Our porch is home to one hummingbird feeder, and we have another at the dining room window, where we can watch them feeding while we eat. This week we put a third feeder in the back yard. We keep them out of sight of each other because the little hummers are Very Territorial. They also are very hungry, despite all the flowers around here. They drain an 8-oz feeder in about 24 hours. We are looking for bargains in sugar!


So, what do we do all day, besides admire blooms on our hydrangeas? Well, there is exercise four days a week. A little bit of business correspondence. Some church volunteering. Saturday trips to the local farmers' market. Once in a while, a spate of cooking, followed by a desire to eat out. Reading for our reading group. I'm researching more about the places some of my ancestors have lived and trying to get serious about writing. Today we went to a lovely brunch at the home of one of the women in our water exercise group. She was unveiling her remodeled kitchen, but her screened in porch and gorgeous shade garden around her patio were what called my name! We are also trying to straighten up the place in advance of our next batch of company. Unfortunately the guest room is kind of a dumping ground for all the files that need to be put away, plus lots of stuff that just needs to be shredded. We bought a shredder tonight, too. Then we came home and played with Ava, who is visiting us until Sunday while Barb goes to market in Atlanta.