Rhubarb

This rhubarb quilt caught my eye.  Some people are so clever!

The recipe can be found
here at Dorian Cuisine.

Someday

"What if the thing you most want to be doing is the thing you actually should be doing, except it's going to require you doing it instead of thinking about how you'll do it someday. (yeah, I never do that either.)"  Brian Andreas

Bee....hind

"Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things." Robert Brault

One of those days when a little joy presents itself during breakfast.  My friend Becky shared a FB post by Emilee Willow of sweet little bees getting down to business.  How can you not smile when you see these little bee....hinds!  To check out all the photos click here.

  

Hancock Grill

This is the third year we've hosted the first "Hancock Church Grill" of the season. Every Wednesday during the summer months folks gather in someone's back yard for good food and conversation. I didn't get an exact count....but we had 40+ people in the backyard  tonight.  The weather was perfect....the food was outstanding....and the conversations were delightful. 

Before:

During:

We set up all the food in our patio area....it works really well.

After:

This is the second year I've outlined my gardens with Christmas lights for the party....it's not only festive....it's helpful as it gets a little dusky.

Mosquito Memories

I love this little guy....he sitting on the back patio in Maine.  Great memories of a sister weekend three years ago in Wisconsin when we visited a metal sculpture shop....we all bought mosquitos.  I wrote about here.  

This fall my sisters are gathering again in Maine at our condo. All the tickets are booked and I'm very excited.

For a while now Margie has been my priority while I've been in Maine.  But a little more that a week ago I planted some grass seed to fill in some bare spots in the back yard. Keeping it watered became a new priority.  Margie and I have been chuckling because she became second fiddle to the grass...and actually was a bit relieved.  She's doing quite well!  

Little baby grass is filling in and I'm leaving it in the hands of my son while I go back to Lexington for a few days.  We're hosting the first Hancock Church Grill in our back yard tomorrow night.  It's time for a party!

There's new grass and gardens...but the woods is the the show stopper of the backyard.  It's such a lovely and peaceful setting to put our feet up. Today was absolutely spectacular....all day long.  And hardly any live mosquitos....yet.

Kitchen Art

Art comes in all of shapes and sizes....and all kinds of media. Yesterday it came in the form of a custom made kitchen island for the condo.  Rich, a long time friend of my son Sam, is the artist and I couldn't be happier with his masterpiece.

He made it out of reclaimed oak so the wood has a lot of character. I didn't want it to match the cabinets....I wanted it to compliment them and lighten things up a bit. There's just enough red undertone to work perfectly.

 

To secure a couple splits in the wood Rich created inlays using little pieces of dark walnut and a little piece of maple giving it a whimsical detail. It actually embraces the concept of wabi-sabi....the "art of imperfection."  The Japanese fill cracks in china with gold filler....Rich uses contrasting wood.

 

I love the attention to detail...like the way the shelves wrap around the legs and the dark walnut pegs against the lighter oak.  Yes...it's a work art and will last the rest of my life and beyond.  

 

I love the sight line into the living room....it ties in with 

all the warmer tones I have going on in there.

The shelves will be a handy place for bowls and serving platters and 

the extra work surface will be a welcome addition to the kitchen!

Kitchen art at its finest!

Bravo Rich! 

Junk Beach

If you're having trouble keeping track of where I am....join the club.  I'm back in Maine for a few days and after a delightful morning and lunch with Margie I wandered over to South Portland to the junk beach.

It's not a pristine beach....but it's a great place to look for interesting things.  I loved that it was an overcast day...just perfect for beach combing.

 

This is the beach I've talked about before that has remnants from an old metal factory.  There is one end that is just littered with these curly metal shavings.  It's oddly interesting and almost artistic in its own weird historical kind of way.

A nice view of the Portland/South Portland bridge.

There's nothing like a dose of coast...and a few nuggets of sea glass from the junk beach to top off the day.

Follow-up

Melodee thinks my unwanted guest from yesterday's post is a rabbit and Linda thinks groundhog.  hmmmmm  Since I haven't seen any groundhogs in my yard I'm guessing rabbit...I know I have lots of them. 

On a more positive note...I'm pretty excited about the first rain lily bud in the pot that I moved to the front stoop in Lexington! 

These blooms were from the first year I planted the bulbs....kind of funny looking without foliage.  I ended up with lots of foliage that year but only one more bloom that fall.  It just reminds me that this year I'll have to practice patience.

Unwelcome Guest

I'm back in Lexington for a few days and as I walked the yard I saw something unusual in the lawn.  Do you see the little brown spot in the grass near the back? At first I thought it was a paper bag or a piece or cardboard.

I was kind of alarmed when I got a little closer. 

That's quite a hole with some aggressive dirt removal. I'm not sure what has moved but I'm pretty sure they're not welcome. Any ideas what to do about it?

The Start of Something

Once there was nothing but a nearly dead hydrangea in the back yard of the condo in Maine.....

...now there's something.  Or at least the start of something.

We love the view of the woods off our patio...but the back yard needed a little help.

It started with planting a tree that I wrote about a month or so ago....and it's been slowly evolving ever since.  I wanted to hide the heat pumps and soften the edges with small gardens where I could transplant some of my favorite perennials from Lexington.

Aaron and I removed the sod in parts for the gardens....and he sheet mulched where we planted shrubs covering the sod with cardboard and mulch. Over the last couple of weeks I've been slowly planting and trying to figure it all out.  I thought I had more sun but once again I have pretty much a shade garden.  It's still very much a work in progress and I'm nearly at a stopping place until fall.  

This picture above was almost a month ago....and with the cold spring and too much shade...unfortunately my repotted rain lilies are not much farther along. The first time I planted the bulbs several years ago they didn't do much so I'm not giving up yet.  They really started taking off the second year so I'll be patient.  I may have to find a full sun foster home for some of them. One pot is making it's way back to Lexington for the front stoop where it gets good afternoon sun.

Hopefully these will be nothing to something at some point too.

Deserted

I've been working on the front and back gardens at the condo and I realized that I hadn't seen the bird in the nest that I wrote about in a while.  Generally she would sit in the tree and keep an eye on me while I worked and as soon as I disappeared would return to her nest in the wreath by the door.  I'm sure she was thrilled when we were in Lexington.

But because I hadn't seen her....I did the selfie nest shot again....and the place was deserted. No sign of the eggs on the ground anywhere. Can birds move their eggs?  Or did a predator get them?  I'm kind of relieved....but also kind of sad.

Another Petal Post

Believe it or not I do have more going on than peony petals....but I can't help myself...they're bringing me a lot of joy so it's another petal post.  They're finally done in bouquet form.  Just one touch after I took this photo almost all the rest fell off.

I'm keeping a full bowl for a while just because I can.  I'm anxious to see how small they shrivel up to.

I couldn't help myself....I had to play.

I have to give another shout out to Anita for giving me all this entertainment! 

Blue Corn?

During my breakfast I was cruising through my Pinterest feed and this vibrant blue ear of corn caught my eye. I love blue!


I knew the photo was digitally altered and I was curious about it's origin.  So I clicked....and it took me to a site called Design Crowd.  The image was from a Photoshop design contest called The Blues 3.  Here a few of my favorite entries.

Humoring Me?

I'm collecting the peony petals in an orange bowl because I love these two colors together.  I'm enjoying it so far! And I smiled this morning when my friend Janice sent me a photo of peony petals all over his kitchen counter. I'm wondering if they're still there so she can watch them too.

Paul is embracing the wabi-sabi thing too....or maybe he's just humoring me.  A couple of weeks ago he sent me this photo of a lovely rhododendron blossom outside the church.  Since then he's been tracking its decline.....finding the beauty in the perfectly imperfect.  Or it's just that humoring me thing.