Category: Flowers

Early Morning Encouragement

Good morning all. I bring you a little encouragement this morning as some of us are beginning to be able to get out a bit and try to resume life…cautiously.  We are having a beautiful morning today but it will get hot as the day goes forward, so I bring you some early morning freshness from my yard and some heartfelt expansion from my morning devotion.

The pictures below are from my own yard this morning as the flowers are starting to open and express their beauty as God had intended.

image000000 (11).jpg

image000001 (4).jpg

Have you ever thought about the wonders of Eden…and walking with God as you explore it together. What an amazing thing that would be as this earth is only a small glimpse of the beauty of heaven. Today in Jesus Calling, Sarah reminds us that we were chosen before the foundation of the world to walk with God along the unique path he chose for each of us. A path that he will walk beside us as we take each step.

chosen.jpg

Even though our paths may take us down bumpy roads or scary paths, our hope and future are rooted in heaven, where eternal ecstasy waits for us. So hang on to God’s hand as he walks with you along your chosen path.

Jeremiah 29 11.jpg

So let’s keep our focus on Him today and He will keep His focus on us. For we are sealed in His Love.

ephesians1_14.jpg

Have a sonshine day and always try to be kind.
Kind breeze

FOTD, June 15, Lilies

I love this time of year where I can share my love of flowers with others who also love flowers. Cee has a wonder challenge with Flower of the Day where we see all sorts of plant life, such a fun challenge. Today, I am sharing my lilies. My white are open, and my red ones are just starting. I purchased some yellow one this year and they are open as well. My day lilies are just now starting to bud so those will be beautiful mid summer.

image000004 (1)

 

 

image000003 (2)

image000000 (10)

And I remind you as always, the value of kindness is a value that can never be measures.

kind value 1

Red Flowers in the Rain,

We are taking it a little stretch with City Sonnets June challenges for today of the color red and water but since we are stuck inside today because of the weather, I think it fits.

image000000 (6)
My red dianthus in the rain. Its really beautiful standing tall in the sunshine.

Other reds are my red verbena and a red/yellow dahlia.

And as always, remember to always be kind. It spreads like ripples on a pond when used.

kind ripples

Waiting on Cristobal, FOTD

Growing up in south Georgia and north Florida, tropical weather is a norm. But now that I live in the Midwest, it’s kind of a weird phenomenon. Watching the clouds start rolling in last night against the setting sun were beautiful. The colors seemed to glow.

When looking at the radar this morning, I knew I had time to grab some quick photos before possible damage and then take all the hanging planters down as well as the bird feeders. The winds from the second storm coming from Nebraska on the tails of Cristobal seems to have worse wind potential and I down want plants flying about. Below are a few of the prettier flowers plus my lilies that are just opening. Hope that can stand the torrents. Come join in with Cee’s Flower of the Day.

And one last closeup of a ant wanting one last taste before the storm hits.

image000004

Remember that all of us are going through storms, some small, some huge. Never underestimate the value of kindness to help us survive life’s storms. Sometimes when we show kindness during our own storms, relief and peace can then surround us. Try to always be kind.

 

kind storm1

Gate Finally Complete, More Adult Coloring

A couple of weeks ago, I posted about my fencing nightmare where the fence part finally got corrected from very poor installation. If interested, you can go here to read that post. I had promised in that post when I got the gate finished I would post that as well. The gate also was a nightmare that I am still working on to shave thickness off the frame as when it rains the wood swells and the gate won’t close without force. But my “gate mural” turned out okay. I am not an artist but I had fun, like I do with the adult coloring books.

IMG_20200606_191206

The flowers, rabbits and butterflies are wood cutouts that I purchased plain and then painted. The reason for the haphazard of wood pieces for the door was to find pieces to go with what already was done to try to make it look decent. I don’t have a saw so my options were limited. The tree had wooded leaves but they were a clumsy to adhere and did not look like what I wanted so I took them off and painted on leaves. I still have 2 more flowers to paint and 3 more butterflies. At least I will have continuous flowers in my yard.

I am kind of good at out of the box thinking to pull odd things together to make a decent end project work. That is mostly what this project involved. But the purpose of the fence being able to keep the dogs off a chain and still protected was the main purpose, and that we have. So it’s all good.

I am tying in again with this month’s Escapist Coloring Club prompt as this was fun at relieving my stress of the poor construction of the fence.

And remember, even when you are faced with difficult tasks ahead, if you keep a positive attitude and smother it in kindness, good usually always rises to the top.

kind way

Flower of the Day, Peonies

I am a day behind on Cee’s FOTD, Peonies, as that was yesterday but I had my fence flowers I wanted to show off yesterday as I finally got them planted. Her flower today is a gorgeous Iris. This is such a fun challenge and I need to take more pictures to have in my archive so when snow is on the ground I can still play with flowers. But today, it is my peonies. I started with one plant and now have three in the same area. I didn’t know they would do that.

IMG_20200530_194525

In past years, when that would be in full bloom and smothered with flowers, the stems had a hard time holding up the weight of the blooms, so this year I added tomato cages to them to see if the support would help. We have not had a storm come though yet so we will see but the cages are hidden form the size of the bushes.

IMG_20200530_194549

IMG_20200530_194619

Such wonderful flowers. I would bring some inside but the ants love them too and are all inside the blooms. They don’t seem to damage the blooms so I leave them be.

And as always I remind you to be kind whenever you can. Sometimes it is real hard but we must try when we can.

kind11

 

Ain’t Old Yet!! FOTD

Even though there may be gray hair on the head and wrinkles on the face…which I earned with life…I ain’t old yet.

grandma-turtle
Picture courtesy of Grandma Illustrations

After the nightmare of trusting the wrong company to put up a fence for me, them backing out half way done, then sending a single guy who tried to work with the mess they created…then putting the lattice sheets 8″ too high per county code, it is now almost completely corrected, and I did it myself. Ordered a drill from Amazon. I had posted earlier how they put the post in, left all the dirt in the yard for me to move and then the post were not all the same height, which means they are in the ground at different depths. Good grief! When the guy(and I) started adding the lattice, we saw the post were not even either. Below you will see the misaligned posts (thank goodness I am using plastic lattice), The front board height that I corrected next to height he had used, and the the boards not being the correct length on the inside and just put in haphazard.

My drill came Friday so Saturday I went to work and got the front sections to the correct height, which also meant I had to rehang the lattice sheets. But it is done. This morning after video church service, I put out my concrete block planters and added the flowers. Looks pretty good – not bad for a 69 year old turtle! It is not perfect but better than it was. And it serves the purpose of no have the dogs on a chain.

IMG_20200531_124622

I am enclosing the pictures of the flowers that are in the block planters to tie in the Cee’s Flower of the Day. Since the dianthus around the mailbox did so well last year and came back beautifully this year, I felt like that is a less expensive planter situation and less likely someone to want to walk off with you planter of flowers.

close

 

In all this mess, I am at lease beginning to see the light of my vision and when the plant hangers are up and the gate is complete, I will repost those. The gate will make you laugh. And we all need a little laughter now a days as the US is imploding on itself.

In  the chaos of life and stress we are all facing remember the value of kindness, a much needed value for right now…and always.

kind value

FOTD, May 25

Cee posted a beautiful purple iris for her FOTD post and my iris are sad this year. I had major construction to the steps around my iris bed and you know some workmen have no clue. Ah well, we will see if they make a comeback. In the mean time I will share my columbine that I swore last year was pink.

IMG_20200525_144008

Since the blooms hang upside down, I wanted to catch one picture looking into the bloom. You know how on your phone you can take a selfie by flipping the direction image of the camera, I tried that to see what I would come up with and it turned out kind of neat with the bright sky in the background.

IMG_20200525_152707

While my iris are not doing well, I did found it interesting that my annual “Johnny Jump ups” came back…in pots where I didn’t plant them. Thank you, birdie.

Some calls these weeds but I actually planted these on purpose last year. They look like tiny pansies.

Flowers make me happy. When we are happy we are usually kind. Try to be happy all the time or at least try to be kind even when you don’t want to be. Kinds looks better on you than the person receiving the kind gesture.

How Humility Will Make You the Greatest Person Ever
There is no greater beauty that to show kindness to another being.

Flower of the Day, Coreopsis

When I went flower shopping, I wanted something bright as this weather lately has been anything but bright, and we are due another week of rain…enough already.

I love Cee’s challenge of Flower of the Day and we see so many beautiful post from everyone. Once I got home to put these in the ground I chuckled to myself and said had I see the color variation of this particular Coreopsis, I would have bought them any way as reminiscent of my college day and the bands I listened to. This color is “Jethro Tull” – what a hoot. A flower named after a rock band…or maybe the band named themselves after this lovely flower. What came first – the chicken or the egg…

IMG_20200520_162940

I love how the petals form a little tuber. I hope my hummingbirds like them as I know they are fond of tubers. And then the tiny little flower inside center section. Amazing.

As you go along enjoying the flowers, remember the joy they bring you share that joy and kindness with others. It may just make someone’s day.

Kind fire