This gallery contains 12 photos.
Last weekend was the 29th Annual Mushroom Festival a few miles away from here. We had wanted to go on Saturday night, but we got heavy rain and decided to try a restaurant around the corner from where we live. I lately haven’t been pleased eating out. I got lobster mac and cheese which was […]
This gallery contains 23 photos.
We went and brought my mom here to take her to Hershey Gardens which is a couple of hours from here. She hadn’t stayed with us since January! She had full charge of my brother’s old dog during the weekdays until the old fella was put down in July. I had taken my mom to […]
This gallery contains 22 photos.
This past Friday, on the 7th, Brian took me down to the annual Philadelphia Flower Show at the Convention center. I saw that Rachael Ray was going to make an appearance (at a flower show, thought that was interesting as she is known as a cook), and I wanted to see her. We had gotten […]
This gallery contains 23 photos.
Last week I decided to take a solo journey to Longwood Gardens as I was dying to see their yearly mum display. I was going to try for 1/2 hour and stayed for 2 hours! I walked over to the Conservatory and was wowed by the what I saw! There are over a thousand blooms […]
This gallery contains 21 photos.
Visiting these gardens have been something I wanted to do for a few years, but never got around to it until a few weeks ago. They have a Facebook page and their photos were tempting me so much! So Brian and I went over to Wayne, PA and spent a few hours enjoying the property […]
It’s one of those weird, weird summers. First we had rain, rain and more rain! (Gee, all these multiples means I am making a point maybe?) So now it’s been the heat which has dried up the mucky yard, but the veggies have suffered. Weeds are everywhere!
A bright spot in my yard with 3 locations of these beauties:
Star Gazer lilies look like they may be difficult to grown. I have two pots with the bulbs in them and they sit outside all winter. Actually one pot is about 6 years old and the other is new-both Star Gazers that look a bit different. The first photo are ones in the ground. Their aroma really defines July to me (other than the smell of firecrackers!).
We were down at a park in Maryland yesterday. We had wanted to go to Ocean City, NJ, but didn’t get up soon enough. Elk Creek State Park will be my next post. And it will be an interesting one, I promise!
Now I will share some beautiful old buildings with you from near where we live. I am pretty happy with my Samsung cellphone’s photos. We have had their tv for a number of years and love it. The only thing that the phone does is to start to flip between screens if I overdo it with the photos. I am sure I’ve taken at least 300 photos since March.
This is The Blue Church (1832) in Springfield PA.
This building, which is now the oldest standing church building in Springfield, came to be known as “The Blue Church” because Lownes had constructed it of blue Pennsylvania limestone, which turned a shade of blue in wet weather.
This is in an area where there are shopping centers on both sides of the road, so a busy very modernized area here. I know a FB pal’s pal got married here.
This is Walden School in Upper Providence township, PA. It was called Sandy Bank school (1836) for many years. I went here for kindergarten, 2nd and 3rd grade. Kindergarten was in the basement. When our day was over, it turned into the lunch room. I have many memories of using the red tablets that stained our teeth so we saw where we were missing in the brushing department. Also loved the seesaw and playground. Being able to draw Snoopy in 3rd grade and having the other kids want me to draw for them. Listening to the teacher read Pippy Longstockings. Kids making fun of my speech impediment. Having the teacher yell at me for sucking my hair (ugh). The coat closet, a room in itself and struggling with boots-the kind you had to pull up over your shoes. Awful.
St. Mary’s Chapel (1873), Exton, PA
This happen to be the little church my husband Brian was baptized in. His parents said he cried a lot as baby and having him in church didn’t make a difference. We were in the area for my MRI (I have another post about my back to do) and we stopped by a few places and this was one of them. This little chapel not only had a geocache behind it, it had an Entenmann’s outlet store next to it!
This is also off a very busy road near a mall.
Across the street:
The “King’s Highway” was originally laid out in 1690, as an east-west thoroughfare enabling people and goods to move from the Philadelphia area to Lancaster. In 1791 it became a toll road, known as “The Lancaster Turnpike.” Along this busy thoroughfare, James Bowen erected an elegant tavern known as “The Ship Inn”. Across the street from the Inn stood a fine, gray stone livery stable first built in 1793, where those lodging at the Ship Inn would house their horses.
This is said to be haunted!
And last but not least, The Kennett Inn, a few miles from where we live:
The Kennett Inn, originally founded in 1835 was renovated in 1927 as “The Green Gate Tea Room “during the era of prohibition, then in 1976 the Inn was restored with great care to present a formal dining room and colonial tavern with hard wood floors, cherry tables which preserves its history with a friendly small town hospitality.
Well, that isn’t going to happen with one day left in May. I am rather slow this year with getting my gardens cleaned up because of my arthritis issues. Plus the weather has gone from cold to hot and back again and windy thrown in! I only have two gardens that look fairly good. I’m really proud of the Asian themed one I have under the Japanese maple that came from my mom’s house as a wee sprout. I think all of her kids have one or more of them in their yard as do a few friends.
I love Sweet William or Dianthus and only a few plants came back from last year. I added about 18 new ones in white, burgundy and pink. The bushy one in the front is the only good one from another growing season. I added a few hostas (Brian did the digging for me) and the wild begonias come up by themselves. I also added a few orange impatiens and red begonias. The wild ones are pink. It the pots are Stargazer lilies and a Passion plant.
Next is the red mulch which is really cinnamon color.
I did some planting around the pond where I have the ‘Mod Squad’ of frogs. I always call one Elvis (as in Elvis as left the building, meaning they usually jump in when we approach). The little one I call ‘Squeaky’ as he sounds like a dog toy when he jumps in with a quick squeak and a splash. The other one, well let’s just call him Froggy-lol.
Anyway, I like to plant salvia around there for the hummingbirds. I added a chocolate Cosmo next to the burgundy Coral Bell plant. I’d like a few more ground covers. My Japanese iris gave me one flower.
What is looking good this year are geraniums. I just re-potted mine last night (I always re-pot them and always keep them in pots). I have some bare spots around the house, think I’ll get a few more geraniums.
I used a filter on Instagram and it made my steps look really dirty. But I have to admit, the steps and wall there need a good power washing. That’s the last thing I do.
It got really warm today, about 90. I decided to plant some things in shady areas under my front bushes. I did impatiens and begonias. I then went around and started my fairy and gnome patch and got some little ‘globe’ flowers and snap dragons in before I got tuckered out.
My yellow rose bush is gorgeous! I didn’t prune it back and I am glad I didn’t!
So I had to go to the dentist (filling repair) and doctor to see about my recent blood work. My glucose is was 115 and the doctor felt that it was ‘pre-diabetes’ since I have two siblings with it. I’ve been told that was kind of in the normal range. I really didn’t like my triglycerides being 50 points above what they should be. I’ve been making more vegetable based dinners. Last night we had Black Bean and Sweet Potato chili which I liked better than the kind I’ve been making with meat my entire life! I have some work to do, and I slip up as we have the tempting food in the house and I try to eat fruit or drink water first before I give in.
So I guess it’s better to take my time with gardening anyway. I just want to avoid the mosquitoes and other bugs.
Sean and I went up to Lancaster on Memorial Day as Brian was working. We only did a little shopping, but we also did geocaching! We found 6 out of 8! We saw a couple of covered bridges too.
We were all set to apply for our passports, even got our photos taken at CVS (they look like mug shots as you can’t smile). We then were looking for our birth certificates and Brian has misplaced his! He had to order a copy. We were hoping to go to Canada and Niagara Falls this year….sometime!
As the time ticks down for when Brian will be busier, we are trying to squeeze some more hikes into our days that are left. I will hopefully be busier also as I get a few of my online stores up and running again in a few weeks.
Yesterday we went about 10 miles from here to an area off of Rt. 72 in Delaware called Paper Mill Park. It was basically a patch of woods in between nice housing developments. When we pulled up, we didn’t see anything except lush green. Bri backed up a bit and then I saw a walking path.
It was a narrow path and we saw a pond to our left with about 50 feet or so of trees and brush on both sides. The two caches we found were on the pond side….near trees.
We first had to walk under this ‘gnarly tree’. I felt like I was walking in the woods of the enchanted forest!
I had just gotten those seafoam color shorts the night before. I like them! (Caribbean Joe).
Nice pond we checked out after finding the two caches here.
There were a few of these large boxes-I think they were bat houses! They eat mosquitoes and we should get one as the skeeters are so bad all the time now.
We went to find another smaller cache called ‘the most tacky cache in Delaware’. Yay, curiosity got the best of me. The place was a ‘road’ that lead to fields all around and the grass was really long (tick land). I think the cache was nearer a somewhat quiet road, but when the cars went by, they zoomed by. We would of had to walk a bit through that grass. I think ‘tacky’ meant it was magnetic. I’d like to find it when the grass is cut!
We also found a cache near a park where people mostly ride horses. Bri is getting good-he saw a path off a gravel path and the cache was in there! But he looked in the wrong tree, it was actually under a stump that had a hole in it like a fairy house. I dropped a travel coin in there to pass along.
The plastic on this map was really scuffed up!
We are up to 96 finds now! Hope to get 4 over the weekend as we are going to a flea market on Sunday and there are some near this area.
We stopped at a new Cali-Mexican place for dinner and I could only eat half of it as I got full and I was more thirsty then hungry. We grabbed a few groceries and headed to the cache at the dairy we couldn’t find a few nights earlier. This time we saw a woodsy area we ignored the night before. We went in there and found it right away! The cache was very visible, but the log was on the ground in several pieces. We picked it up the best we could and replaced it in a better hiding area. The cache owner emailed me and said it had been ‘muggled’ five times this year. Kids have to be doing it.
We did get to take my mom out to dinner a few nights ago. We picked a classy Asian style restaurant and it was really delicious. Mom enjoyed her meal as did Sean and me.
She had a chicken, shrimp and scallops in a tangerine sauce. Sean and I had Imperial Shrimp. The menu was so fancy, I didn’t know what some of the items were on it!
And Zoey was right, my Persian Shield really came back nicely after it was overwintered in the basement.
I didn’t do much today, though I am about to make dinner. I had terrible indigestion from either the new restaurant’s food or some snack food I was eating. I am better, but I was tossing and turning a lot last night.
I noticed some of my now old blog header wasn’t showing up, so I decided a new look was in order. I haven’t moved all the widgets in place yet, but I liked the cleaned up look and wild design at the top. The one I really liked was about $60, no thank you! Update-for Zoey, this was a free design.
Not too much happening. I went to see my mom and we went out a bit on Wednesday. Today we went to a new grocery store (actually we have the same one right up the road and this is about 4 miles away). Brian was applying for a job there and Sean filled out the application there yesterday.
I did grab a few outdoor ‘close-ups’. I can’t show you the gardens until I pull out some weeds. I can’t do that in this weather.
Brian was watering a window box and found this little one:
There’s like a little bird’s nest ‘hut’ in there and I saw two of these-nut hatches maybe? They got a little wet.
I have to make something out of these…thinking Chili and salsa:
These petunias are gorgeous on my back patio-they smell nice too. All for $1.00.
Zoey was right, the Persian Shield came back. Sorry for the blurry shot, it was starting to get dark.
I can’t wait to see the white Moonflowers, but I am enjoying the heart-shaped leaves!
I decided to share a few photos of my flowers ‘up close’ as the garden long shots aren’t worthy of shares as they are so weedy. We had wonderful rain Saturday and also Sunday night. It’s great how things as small as grass blades perk up. Many of plants are from seed too. I love that.
Cosmos from seed just beginning to open
Zinnias-they have been taking a beating-wilting daily (seeds)
If you want flowers that will welcome you from 25 ft away with their amazing scent-plant some Starglazer lilies! The Sweet Bay Magnolia has been scenting the yard on the side of the house nicely too.
The Coleus are hanging in there nicely.
The prolific tomatoes are popping out of the fence. Hope I get these before the deer or groundhogs.
Very nice to have a few gourds on the vine. I am not seeing any pumpkins or watermelons. I was hoping that they would take off in this space. Maybe I’ll be surprised.
So…we geocache usually coming and going from places lately. Today we tried for 4 and found 2 though we were right in the correct spot for all of them. The one was a park in my hometown named after a man my grandfather worked for. : ) We went down a steep path to an open area to see that the coords wanted us to ‘bushwhack’ about 25-30 feet. I was wearing a dress and sandals, so no. We’ll go back. Then we took my mom to dinner and one was suppose to be behind a Target store. There’s this long metal ‘barrier’, I think so trucks can’t go to the edge of the parking lot. We were right where it was, but it was hot and sunny. We couldn’t find it. We had found one behind a Hooter’s on the way to my mom’s house.
On the way home (I had gotten my hair done too), I asked Brian to stop at the local mall. It lead us to a fire hydrant next to a Kohl’s and lo and behold…Brian found a ‘nano’-the tiniest cache you can find. We didn’t sign the log-too tiny.
I have hid 3 caches now myself. I had trouble getting the 3rd one accepted as the name was for the local businesses near where I put it. A no-no. I changed it. The first person who found it said the box had been opened and the stuff spread all over the ground, even a travel bug! We are thinking a raccoon got into it. It’s not far from the restaurant dumpsters, so maybe. Wow!
Collages & Creative Goodness 