Choice Morsels

It's supposed to thunderstorm later this afternoon/evening, so I've been mowing the front yard. I did the back on Memorial Day. In fact, I spent 3 hours working outside. Not just mowing, but I had around 9 hybrid day lilies that I needed to move to sunnier locations on the south or east beds. They'll be happier.  Day lilies prefer a good amount of sun. Today, now that mowing is done, I want to work on moving some of the Bugleweed to a shady back bed. (I'm on lunch break right now.) Today's Garden Pics:  First: What I See When I Look Out Our Sliding Glass Door: This beautiful, huge Curly Parsley with the Red Salvia behind it! So pretty! I have an arrangement of 3 pots on the patio, all with herbs and either red Petunias or Red Salvia or both in them. There are two types of Parsley : Flat & Curly. I like the Curly because it's showier! In the deep south, Parsley winters over. I planted this one last spring. Parsley is a bi-annual, meaning...

Because for tomorrow's Mama Kat I'll be doing the "illustrate emotions with photos," prompt, which will involve flower pictures, I'm not using any flower pictures today! So for today's Garden Pics I have a nice shot of my Blackberries, which haven't turned "black" yet and also a Purple Finch! The Promise of Blackberries: These are a thornless hybrid breed of blackberry with an upright habit. They get around 5 feet tall, so I have to keep them tied to tall stakes. I have around 9 stakes worth with 2 to 3 stems on each. They propagate themselves easily by root underground, so I'm always having to dig up and move little sprouts, which is how I get so many.  My plan for these once I harvest them all: blackberry jam. The Beautiful Purple Finch: I captured this photo in Alabama actually, in March on the way to Indiana.  This was in front the motel, where a small flock of them were flitting among the trees.  A sparrow size...

Well, today I decided I was going to cover one window with plastic insulation wrap.  A flaw insulated window glass has is it occasionally looses it's air pocket. So the center bay window in our bedroom isn't doing what it's supposed to anymore. Seeing condensation between the panes isn't a good thing.  So, Ace Hardware sells Window Insulation Kits that contain two-sided sticky tape & plastic that you cut out 2 inches wider then your window, stick to the tape and run a hair dryer over it to tighten it up. (Applied to interior side of window.) Once done, it works perfect and since I don't open that window, I can leave it there. I noticed the bedroom felt cooler almost immediately after I got it up.  Today's Good Eating recipe is a pasta side-dish I created to go with our grilled pork chops that used up 2 cups of plain, cooked pasta I had in the frig. I call it, "Italian Veggie Pasta." The main thing about this side dish is you want m...

Today's Mama Kat topic is intriguing. It's speculative fiction  about an alternate line of reality: "What if I HAD to go back in time and choose a different career path--what I would choose?" An Air Force Basic Training Flight Photo from October 1975; not my flight, but a sister flight that was there when I was. I wore the same outfit. I joined the Air Force right after I graduated high school in 1975. It wasn't the popular thing to do at the time. Vietnam had only ended two years before and the military was not held in high regard by the public. Only two other students from my class joined the service. I served 4 years and 10 months, having extended my enlistment to take an overseas assignment. My plan from the start had been to serve only one term, get my G.I. Bill, then get out and go to school. The people I worked for loved me and begged me to re-enlist. I was a medic in the Labor & Delivery unit at the time with the special responsibility of...

Today was mowing-the-back-yard day, especially since thunder showers are possible this evening. I also tied up tomatoes & hibiscus, trimmed off the outer edges of both Pampas Grass out front and watered the veggies & blackberries with Miracle-Gro. Today's interesting Garden Pics are 4 O'Clocks, which are an old-fashioned flower. It also has a more elegant nickname: "Marvel of Peru," which comes from it's genus-species name, " Mirabilis Jalapa ." 4 O'Clocks were exported from Peruvian Andes around 1540. Three years ago I bought seed from Park Seed for 2 specific colors of 4 O'Clock: Limelight & Broken Colors. And they've performed beautifully. They are short & bushy in form and bloom profusely at dusk every evening. They also come back faithfully every spring. Pictured below:  Limelight 4 O'Clocks Bright lime green leaves with fushia blooms. Next: Broken Colors: An heirloom, this is the original 4...

Welcome back! This past weekend I randomly decided I wanted the outside of my front door, which has been brown for 20 years, some other color. Since my interior entry has teal accents, I decided on teal. The fact a new Sherwin-Williams paint store just opened nearby had something to do with it. The interior garage door was going to get a fresh coat of white, too. Just two doors.    That doesn't sound like it'd take a lot of time, does it? Well, it took from about 1 pm to about 6 pm to get those two doors done. Fortunately, Hubby was helping--or it would have taken me way longer by myself. The hardware had to be removed, then the front door has glass that had to be taped and the frames had to be taped and the doors had to be gone over with a bit of sand paper, then those plastic frames on the glass required a lot of retouching. But the result was worth it! Here's our fresh teal front door! (The other side is white, if you're wondering.) There's ...

The Mama Kat prompt for today is: "Share A Quote You Love." Actually, I have a ton of quotes I love and I love them because they tickle my fancy in one way or another.  I keep a whole file of them on a board in  Pinterest !   So this is just a sampling: A nice garden themed quote: Unfortunately, the next one overly true: I think in general introverts get underestimated because they're so quiet, even withdrawn. But the fact they are silent lets them see and hear more: And who could live without a good coffee quote? I totally love this one. It's so...me. This last one just totally cracks me up: That's all the favorite quotes I have to share today! What's yours? ***** Thanks for Visiting! To join the Mama Kat blog writing link-up, go here for the rules & sign-up for the email!

It's still so lovely out right now! Sunny, yet cool. My kind of weather! It's fun working outside right now; it will be less so when temps get sweltering. I put a couple honeydew rinds out in the back yard the other day for any Box Turtles. They like that sort of thing. This morning I saw Mr. Albino-head enjoying them. I replaced them this afternoon with a couple watermelon rinds. One of today's tasks was cleaning up and tying up the climbing rose on the corner of the house. It was done with it's first round of blooming and dead-head snipping and new growth needed tying to the trellis. I bought rose fertilizer this year for the first time and now that climbing rose has exploded with new growth finally becoming the rose I'd wanted it to be when I planted it 3 years ago. Definitely--if you have roses, buy the rose fertilizer! It makes a world of difference! Watering with Miracle-Gro alone just doesn't make the grade. Today's Garden Pics: My Ne...

Greetings! Hope you had a great weekend! I did needed puttering around the garden today after coming home from Zumba. Tomatoes & Hibiscus needed tying up and baby marigolds I'd sprouted needed transplanting. I recycle old bed-sheets for "string" to tie up my tomatoes or Hibiscus. I just cut a little snip about 3/4 inch wide, then grip either side and rip off a strip of sheet. Works great and makes colorful ties. The Marigold seeds were a 50 cent  mixed color packet from the Dollar Tree that I sprouted in the front bed. Must be 25 of them. They provide spots of color all the way into late fall, though so a Marigold here and there everywhere is good. Today's Good Eating Recipe is what I made for dinner tonight: Leftover Italian Sausages & Zucchini from the garden with steamed rice! (I had a two remaining garden carrots to use, so chopped them up as well for a touch of color.) Since we are just two, this recipe serves 2 people.  What I Made f...