Pay phone repurposed

A cache hidden in plain sight in the neighborhood....

DH is not bringing this travel bug door home to move to another cache. 

It's international geocaching day

And block party

Geocache walk

Just a dare to see if the sprinkles will increase.  

In the Garden

Many speedy bees in the lavender, borage

and flowering broccoli.

I harvested beets.

In the Pond

There were 5 more between the two rocks.   They're each smaller than my thumbnail, some a lot smaller. 

 

Happy July

One more

space...  the cut out up there at the top of the building.  

Philadelphia Spaces

Swim Break

Panama City Beach, FL and St. Andrews State Park.

Perfect combination of sandy beaches and just right water temperatures. 

Where...

...could we find this most of the time?
Ecuador
Napa Valley area
Hawaii
San Diego

They are worth consideration.

April Flowers

Seize the Day

The weather changed my plans today.  After an appointment, I made my fastest ever Carpinito Brother's visit. I walked out with vegetable seedlings even before my coffee could get cold.

Broccoli, three types of lettuce, Swiss chard, peas and beets.   The beets have such long roots they may not transplant well.  I usually plant them as seeds.  There were many beet seedlings so we'll see how many make it.

While the days will be sunny this week, the nights are frosty.   Part of the seedlings are protected by the cloche, now in a different row than last year.    Since they are all vegetables that can take some cold weather, hopefully they'll do ok in the rows without the cloche also.

What was in the plans was planting the last of the 30 cedar seedlings.   And now that's done too.

Oooh...Old Shiny Things

 

I wish I could record this as a scratch and sniff.   Wonderful old car garage smells are a powerful memory trigger for me.   What a fun evening with dinner, visiting, and touring car and garden projects. 

   

 

 

This is a La Salle Flower Car, used for carrying flowers for funerals (and sometimes as backup hearse).  You don't see one of these every day or even one a year.  Our host has restored it, piece by piece.  When an original piece couldn't be found, he had to build it.

 

This one lived in our barn for a while.

Piece by Piece

A close up of my friend's mosaic at the Regional Mosaic Art Exhibition at the Tacoma Public Library through April 26.   The show has art of many styles, colors and materials.  Visit the library to see how amazingly the pieces come together.

Three Treats

Library, mosaic art, and geocache all together.

The mosaics are what took us there. The geocache was a surprise.

Go Shocks!

March Snow?

This morning, we had snow to go with our dead furnace.

Time to get out the seed catalog, plan the garden, and plant tomato seeds (I enjoy tomato seedlings if I can keep the indoor pests away).

Welcome More Frogs

First one voice, then three, now to many to count.

Another Impression...

 

...from my Saturday excursion.   This is how it came off of my phone.  I like it. 

Welcome Frogs

The tree frogs returned to our little pond about a week ago.  I thought they were late, but looking back to prior years, they may be early.    Adult frogs, above, and this post from 2010.

Young frog, above, and this post from 2012.  More young frogs here.

 

It must be time to order seeds.

Spring Surprise

The travel bug was missing, but this is the first geocache guard hippo we've encountered. 

See posts of geocaching tours here.  Our first explanation of geocaching is here.

Now I simply say - it's like a world wide Easter egg hunt.  People hide stuff and post GPS coordinates and hints on geocaching.com.  Other people try to find the stuff and post comments and photos from the excursion.   There are lots of cool or creative hiding places near and far.

Cup o' Sun

 

Local coffee table , during the first excursion for the day.

 

 

LaMay Car Museum

And guided tour underway. Photo shows just one of the floors.

I like the thought of the cross county trip this car took in the 1960s.

 

First Garden

I put away some Christmas photos my friend sent me.  Then perused the photos I took with the same friend on a trip to Nashville in 1989.  That led to the photos of our Alabama garden in 1990.

 

Here is my dad looking serious with his beard and mustache he grew for his last weeks or months before retirement.   He was on a post retirement road trip, including a stop to visit me.   We were watching birds in our back yard.

  

 

The Alabama garden in late summer with mostly herbs and flowers remaining.  I didn't photograph the vegetable harvest then.  I discovered I like fresh okra and I remember lots of tomatoes.

 

It's Time

Ok. Fine. We'll take it down. It is only now loosing needles. Time to plant more. And in 6 or 7 years we'll have a Christmas tree again. For my next sabbatical.

Surprise Treats!

What a surprise to find a package from Japan on my doorstep!  Tea, snacks and three sizes of "cloche clips" or clothes pins to non-gardeners.   Here is a link to show how the clips will be used to hold the plastic on the cloche:  http://petunias-garden.blogspot.com/2012/05/covered-wagon-cloche-returns.html 

Thank you for thinking of us and sending this nice surprise!

(I have a related photo from Japan to add later.)