T Stands for Tuesday-Gardening

   It's time for T over at Bleubeard and Elizabeth's-find link in my sidebar to visit or join in with a drink related photo.

 I spent a 3-day weekend in the garden-weeding and planting. I bought way too many plants this year. I have decided except for the petunias I will grow annuals from seeds next year-which will give me a big savings in the end.

  Friday I spent most of the day adding more garden soil and planting ground cover thyme and a few flowers up on top of the hill. That ended up being quite the job-once it fills in will be nicer than the weeds that grew there

  Here is a look from the top down to a row of bushes-the lake is on the left-down hill and to the right is the driveway

  Saturday morning though I shopped around outside of Versailles, Mo visiting Amish greenhouses and stores. I had bought my plants last week Monday but our friend that comes over to visit and join Larry for a cup of coffee said him and his wife knew of several different nurseries. So his wife called and wanted to know if I wanted to go with her-Yes. Which is a big treat for me to get out of the house with someone else driving-smiles-I never enjoyed driving even when I had to commute to work

     I did not grab my camera as the Amish do not want their photo taken, so out of respect I didn't want to take any photos in the greenhouses either. I think after this trip I have it my mind finally how to find things without bringing along my GPS.

    We did start out at Zimmerman's greenhouse as my friend wanted several annuals. She thought the same as me, that the plants were not as nice as last year, and much more expensive than last year too.  I did find several nice herbs when I shopped before along with new to me mints. 

   The next stop was a huge nursery and greenhouse. I think I will visit this business first next year as they had lots of perennial plants and in nice size pots. I bought two lovely lavender plants and one columbine.

 

    These are the nicest lavender plants I have seen. The columbine was gorgeous too. Late Sunday after weeding and getting most things planted-here are a couple photos

I had planted fennel seed last year for the butterflies-nothing came up-but surprise here is one large plant from the seed-it is to the right of the daffodil plants and in the back by the stone wall-would you believe that is a huge plant of chocolate mint? I will need to pull some of this out as from two little plants it is everywhere now.

Another view-in the back right is a new to me weed that grows crazy here-easy to pull out too-that's my next project-clear all that out-add some bags of garden soil and plant sweet woodruff from seed-as an aromatic ground cover there. More rocks need to be hauled up to these hills as well

These stone pots were here when we bought the lake house. I moved them here and usually plant geraniums in them

  I started from seeds German Chamomile which you can see in the middle, and I planted vinca with the pink flowers In front of this photo I planted red yarrow from seeds (in the bottles too) which is at the corner coming down the steps. That green patch in front is chocolate mint

I will take a photo to share next time of the columbine as I see it wasn't in these photos.

  Our last stop was at the very large Amish Dutch Country Store-which is on the same highway as the perennial nursery. In front of the store they had a small greenhouse full of plants -they were gorgeous and the best we had seen so far. I only bought a garlic chive plant as I spent my limit already.

  

 Sunday was pancake day-Larry has his breakfasts planned out now-pancakes-then omelet-and then yogurt & granola day haha  Here is my gluten free version with fresh blueberries in the pancakes, topped with fresh strawberries from the Amish grocery store-soooo delicious-and a little whipped cream for fun In the back is my decaf coffee

We still have had no rain, it keeps missing us here in our area of the lake. Saturday and Sunday we were in the 90's-ugh so not ready for the heat just yet. I think it is at least a month since we have had any rain.

   So please send us some rain if you have extra-smiles

Happy T and new week everyone Yes the lake was packed with boaters over the weekend-enjoying the first hot days of the year

T Stands for Tuesday-We Have Photos

  Hellos to the T gang and all my readers

     It's Saturday morning so writing this up early for Tuesday. For the T Party we gather over at Bleubeard and Elizabeth's and link up with a drink related photo in our post, and visit others on the link up. 

  We have spring blooms here, and another round of severe weather coming through today. Here are a few photos from early today (Saturday)  Tornadoes etc are still in the forecast for the rest of the day. There are allot of boats on the lake today for the big Bass Tournament-winning fish prize is $100,000.

  The skies were very black for awhile, windy with white caps on the lake-and then it left. I would not want to be on the lake during this type of weather.

  We also have lovely blooms.

  This first photo are dwarf size iris's I brought home from the family farm years ago in Indiana. This is the first year they are blooming well here at the lake-they got settled back in.

Lots more full size iris-different colors and gladiolas  growing

There is a very old red bud tree here-to the left-and the lilacs began to bloom

This is last year's crop of creeping thyme ground cover that I grew in bottles last year-the root system seemed to really spread over winter-these will get dug up soon and transferred to other areas.

Last week I estimated that I had 50 bottles-I actually have around 70, with 9 more to plant.

 The pink blooms are the ground cover phlox I bought from the Amish greenhouse last year

And the amaryllis has bloomed-it was slow to open up which was nice for longer lasting views.

 There will be 3 blooms on this stalk

Saturday the bloom opened even larger

I really love this color

  I also gathered dandelion flowers for my soap making-I infuse it in the soap with my lavender flowers-strain it and add the melt and pour soap to the molds. The dandelions here at the lake are large and lovely

I have always loved dandelions with their pretty yellow flowers welcoming in warmer weather.

   I am still spinning, getting better at the wheel, but still not even yarn and I don't always keep the wheel moving constantly-still spinning every day to hopefully improve.

  I found a bag of alpaca I had bought at one of the Fiber U events that I shared in the past of the classes I took there. I also found a big bag of small sample bits of alpaca that were for needle felting-so they were quite short-I blended them on the blending board. 

Rolags made from the blending board-the browns were small samples of alpaca

Here is the green-drawn out to spin 

Above greens spun into a very arty yarn-below photo

 I am now spinning on the wheel- white alpaca, next up a grey alpaca. I also found our (late) wolf Nikita's hair that she grew over winter-and then needed brushed out-very very short fibers and soft-I am carding that with alpaca and spinning on the drop spindle for better control. That will be an art yarn as well, will see how this looks after washed and dried-could go into a scarf. I have been able to spin it finer since this photo.

  Since I took above photo-found out how to delete date and time on photos

  I have been drinking my decaf coffee with whipped cream this past week, and a splash of my homemade kahlua  This is a hand thrown pottery mug we bought way back before retirement I have always loved handmade pottery dishes.

   

   I  make pancakes for Larry once or twice a week now for his breakfast-I made a gluten free batch for me today. I am using up the dried blueberries I had picked up at the Amish grocery store last year, with maple syrup-of course-smiles.

   This pure maple syrup we buy online from Pennsylvania-we were gifted this syrup from a friend years ago, so now I buy this for us. The best flavor we have ever had and we have tried many different homemade maple syrups from different states.  My cup of decaf black lemon Bigelow tea is also in a hand thrown pottery cup.

Sunrise early last week The sky was a brilliant red for just a bit

After the reds faded out

Happy T and new week