Category Archives: Country Life

July Garden Walk

I think the gladiolus are the most glorious thing in the garden right now. I haven’t planted any in many years. I can’t think why. They are splendid.

The glads are tall and majestic. Their flowers are a thing of beauty. Definitely more glads! They blend perfectly with the butterfly bush in the foreground. Both are tall and willowy.

The butterfly bush does come by its name honestly as you can see. We have quite an abundance of these black and yellow butterflies, and an occasional swallowtail. On a warm, lazy afternoon such as this I sit and watch them.

The snapdragons and petunias are an enjoyable site too.

The clethra also draw in the flying creatures. We have two in the raised garden beds and the bees love them as you can see. The sweet scent draws them in.

And who doesn’t love a rose? I certainly do.

I like some of the old fashioned types of plants too. The phlox are spectacular when they are in full bloom. And the best part is they draw the phlox bug, otherwise known as the hummingbird moth. No picture of those yet. I will keep trying. I get excited every time I see one.

We even have pink phlox growing beside the house.

It and the beebalm put on quite the show.

The trumpet vine is an endearing plant for us. The hummingbirds come to it in groups of two or three to enjoy it’s sweet nectar.

The Rose of Sharon in the front yard is very tropical looking to me. Although it is a shrub, the flower looks like a hibiscus.

No garden walk would be complete without a stop at the vegetable garden. Things are looking pretty good here because we just weeded. Look quick, it doesn’t last long. Soon the weeds will be back.

Some of the trees are interesting now too. The mountain ash trees have their orange berries and the red buckeyes are setting nuts.

I always end up back at the walled garden with its raised beds. They seem almost like a canvas where we display shapes and colors that we find appealing. This area never fails to soothe my soul.

Sanctuary Acres Weekend Part II

July 7, 2015Country Life, GardensCountry Life, Gardens, Weekendscindyhazelett

This past holiday weekend was also wonderful because I got to spend most of it at home. I often feel like I am on vacation when I get to sit outside and enjoy the greenery. That is when I’m not weeding. I have to make it a point to take time to smell the roses, or sometimes the puppies, as the case may be. I took a walk around on Sunday evening to get some pictures to share of the things that I enjoy. I started where I was sitting and reading a book. I love the red mandevillas. They are always in bloom and so tropical looking.

Also in the patio area is this lush hydrangea. It was a gift. Lucky us. The dark green leaves are nearly as attractive as the blooms. Fortunate are we, who have friends that would give us such a gift.

As I leave the patio area I enjoy the plantings in the flower boxes on top of the wall. This year we have verbena in lavender and peach tones and various pastel shades of celosia. I rather like the rainbow effect.

Even the thyme is getting into the act by blooming and looking attractive. It is the herb that I use the most of when cooking. Every year I trim the plant back and harvest all the clippings to dry and cook with later on. For the first time ever, my thyme did not survive the unusually cold winter and I had to buy a new one. The old plant was one that I dug up and moved from my previous house some years ago. So it was like loosing an old friend. The new one is growing heartily so I hope it fairs better over the winter.

I love this red maple. I always feel like I am in a park when I look at it with the hostas growing underneath. I think it is very picturesque.

Our property has black raspberry bushes growing in various places. They re-seed themselves in addition to spreading by runners so they show up the oddest places. Above was one day’s pickings. I usually get enough to make two pies and then have enough berries left to freeze almost a gallon of them for muffins throughout the winter months. At this time of year I am usually covered with so many scratches from the briars that it looks like we have a kitten. My fingers are stained for several days too from the berry juice. Well worth it!

Here I am in front of the yucca plant at our last stop for this walk. Thanks for visiting. Until next time…

Evening Walkabout

June 25, 2015Country Life, GardensDogs, Gardens, Walkscindyhazelett

It turned out to be one of the rare evenings this June that it didn’t rain so I decided to take a stroll around the yard before weeding. I started at our “Secret Garden” across the driveway from the house. It’s not very secret but I do find that it holds magical things.

I enter through the archway with its large wooden doors and veer to the left. Taking the brick walkway the first site is a raised sandstone flowerbed with a beautiful red shrub called a nine bark.

I look down the path and see and smell the new Stargazer lilies. They were a recent gift and much appreciated.

As my walk continues I have to stop and look at “my” urn. I never tire of its beauty. This was picked out of the dump at a local cemetery. I couldn’t bear the thought of it being lost to a landfill, so home it came. It’s probably from the Victorian era and I could not let it meet its demise after surviving for this long. The world needs this kind of beauty and history in it.

I turn back before I leave this garden to enjoy the patio and fountain. This was once a side yard with nothing but lawn. Lawn is nice but this is better. You may have guessed that we don’t have many idle moments in the warmer months. I am fortunate to have a husband with the desire and ability to create and build such things.

I continue my evening ramblings and end up in what we call the spoke garden. The center consists of a witch hazel bramble surrounded by five small mounds with various types of plants in each. This is in the very corner of our property. There is a street on two sides with a stop sign in the corner. It is just four feet beyond the row of shrubs. When I come home I feel safe and insulated from the happenings of the world and this little garden illustrates why.

Lest you think we only do ornamental gardening I walk past the vegetable garden and get pictures of the cabbages and beets. For some reason these shots make me think of Peter Rabbit, sans rabbit.

But then I have to stop and take a picture of this petunia that grows on the border between the herb bed and vegetable garden. I put it there because I thought it would be nice to have something pretty to look at while tending to the vegetables. Why should we confine beauty?

And on my way back into the house to cook dinner, I pause just long enough to take this last shot of a fern that grows beside the door. I have tried to grow flowering plants here without great success. It is in the pathway that the dogs take as they run back to the house.

And for me, it is always about the dogs. Dogs win. So I reserve this little bed for green things such as ferns. And this suits me well enough.

A Fortunate Investment

June 2, 2015Country Life, GardensBeauty, Country Life, Gardenscindyhazelett

Things are really kicking into high gear in the gardens. This provides me much new subject matter but less time to write! Maintaining and upgrading these gardens does involve a little bit of time. I was going to say “unfortunately involves time and work” but decided it was not unfortunate. I would not appreciate the beauty nearly as much without the time investment. Planting, mulching, weeding, fertilizing, and otherwise tending these plants and gardens makes me appreciate them all the more. Working so closely with them I also see tiny changes and bits of beauty that I might otherwise overlook. I guess what you put in, you get out. Above is my new climbing rose called America. The tag says it is a coral pink and I love the color. It has the best bits of all colors, a little pink, a little peach, a little red in the buds. It has it all. I am also hoping that I have found a climbing rose that will survive the cold of the recent winters. We will see. For now I am enjoying the beauty.

I move on to another garden and see one of our nine barks in full bloom. The foliage is the main draw on this shrub. It has attractive red leaves and weeping branches and, you guessed it, various types of bark. I don’t think it is known for its blooms but as you can see, it does briefly, put on quite a show. It reminds me of something that should be a wedding decoration.

This is a shot of the corner garden. Over the nine bark you can see the red buckeye and the arbor vitae in a row on the corner of the yard. All this hides the stop sign and the corner intersection. Just one example of plants beautifying an otherwise mundane area.

This is one of our two red wygelia. The blooms are glorious if short lived. It is an attractive plant with its red leaves, even once the blooms are gone. I understand that they can become quite large. I will have to report back to you on that in a few years.

This is one of the verbena we have in planters on top of the garden wall. They were recently planted but already starting to become something I like to pause and look at on my wanderings around the yard.

And of course, the peonies. They are one of the best things about this time of year. They smell heavenly and are beautiful too. The mass of them is eye catching from a distance and they are equally impressive individually. I need to get more of these beauties! They come in other lovely colors too. I planted a Sarah Bernhardt last year but although it is growing well, peonies are slow bloomers so we will hope for blooms from it next year. Meanwhile, it is peony season so I will enjoy the show.

Why I Prefer to be at Home

May 25, 2015Country Life, Dogs & Other Animals, GardensCountry Life, Dogs, Flowers, Gardenscindyhazelett

Earlier this week I talked about why I like working four 10 hour days as opposed to the normal five 8 hour days. Today I am going to show you. Most of the time at work I am inside without access to windows. I don’t usually know if it is hot or cold, or sunny or rainy. These pictures will share some of what I see when I am at home this Friday. Above is the clematis which is blooming early this year. It is quite spectacular.

As I take a tour around the yard I see the Wygelia and Rhododendron in bloom beside the house. The light and dark pink complement each other nicely.

We have two red buckeye trees and they are currently covered with these stunning red blooms.

The false indigo blooms in several places on our property. The extremely cold winters have been hard on it but there is still some left.

I just finished weeding and mulching my herb Garden so it’s looking good. Here you can see the thyme, oergano, catnip, and globe basil in the urn.

The irises are blooming early this year. These plants have been moved and split many times. I dug them up and started moving them with me two houses ago.

These are columbine and they are really something this year. I have moved them around the yard too.

And here are Shelby and Baxter waiting for me to take them in the house for lunch after being outside for a couple hours enjoying the beautiful weather. Who wouldn’t want an extra day at home with all of this?

Pack Walk

May 3, 2015Country Life, Dogs & Other Animals, Thoughts On LifeDogs, Walkscindyhazelett

The day was so beautiful yesterday that we had to go for a walk. The temperature was perfect and the sun was shining. We went to a dedicated walking and biking path near our house. Phoebe, Baxter, and Shelby are so good that they get to walk off lead. Unless a bicycle or other people with dogs come along, then we leash them back up, lest the others become afraid. This is Shelby ‘ s first year of being reliable off lead and she is quite proud, as am I.

Nikki does walk on lead. She is so skittish that she needs the security of the leash. Even though she is small, she is fast and I wouldn’t want to try to catch her. I just slip the leash through one of my belt loops and that is enough to keep her with us. Alas, poor Roxanne stays home. She is now only able to walk across the house and that takes a while.

So this was our view as we walked. It’s a spillway and reservoir that was constructed during WW II. Often I think of all the houses that must be under the water. The land was previously farms until the land was used for this purpose. But soon I am back to watching the dogs and appreciating how much fun we all have on the pack walk.

A Sanctuary Acres Weekend

April 20, 2015Country Life, Dogs & Other Animals, Gardens, Thoughts On LifeCats, Country Life, Daily life, Dogs, Gardens, Springcindyhazelett

I spent a couple of hours cleaning out the rose bed this afternoon. I foolishly thought I could get it all done in that amount of time. So far I have spent twice that working on it. One more session should finish it up. Unless you count the bulbs I want to plant next to the roses. I also have numerous punctures and scratches covering my arms that make it look like we have a kitten. These are from encounters while trimming the roses bushes, and they won. Oh well, by summer time I will have glorious pictures of flowers to show you.

After working outside I took a walk through the woods. Beautiful daffodils are in bloom. We did not plant them. Someone who came before put them there and we are reaping the benefits.

And I came upon this cross section of log that I thought was intriguing to look at. All the rings bespeak of years of life and make me ponder what happened on this property in the years before we came here.

I stumbled upon this fallen nest. The high winds we have had must have knocked it down. It is early enough in the year that it is probably a nest from last year. Of course it has copious amounts of dog fur woven into it. How soft and warm for the hatchlings.

And what first got me out in the woods today. The ground was finally thawed out enough to bury my Romeo Kitten. His grave is marked with the cross and unmarked stone. Soon it will have his name engraved on it. Beside him is dear Trevor whose stone already bears his name.

More daffodils on the way back to the house. They look so happy with their sunny faces saying “look, we survived, spring is here”.

And to complete an enjoyable weekend, hanging out with the family. Baxter puppers and Lacey cat shown, snuggling on the couch. And once again, life is good!

First Spring Flowers!

April 13, 2015Country Life, Gardens, UncategorizedFlowers, Springcindyhazelett

This winter has seemed to go on forever and I usually like winter. Enough is enough though. So I was very happy to see that our first flowers for the year are in bloom! I was outside picking up some branches and pine cones from the yard and taking them to the pile in the woods where we keep yard waste. And there it was along the side of the path.

Some previous owner of this property must have planted these little gems. They come up every spring before I expect such beauty. I’ve looked them up and they appear to be called Glory of the Snow. This is the blue variety. There is also a pink variety which we do not have. Seeing the one reminded me that we have an area with a carpet of these beauties in another area. So of course I had to stop what I was doing and see if those were blooming too. They were! This made me happy. Spring is here!

Team Work Aborted

April 3, 2015Country Life, Dogs & Other AnimalsCats, Country Lifecindyhazelett

So it turned out that it was not a mouse that Harley and Morty were hunting. In fact it was a half grown squirrel. I don’t know how he managed to fit in that tiny space. The cover had to be removed from the heating baseboard before Mr. (Ms.?) Squirrel would come out. No small wonder with two fierce hunters waiting.

Well, when Harley found out it was a squirrel that was already half grown, he immediately lost interest. The wise old man seemed to know that this was more than he should mess with and walked away leaving it for the humans to deal with. Wisdom being the better part of valor and all that. See Harley below.

Morty, being younger and less experienced, thought that he would handle the situation himself. The dastardly human intervened so as to keep our hero safe. Even now Morty keeps returning to the bathroom. I don’t know if he is looking for action or reliving his big adventure.

Morty at the end of a long day’s work.

Stockpiling

April 1, 2015Country Life, Thoughts On LifeCountry Life, Dog Food, Stockpiling, Woodcindyhazelett

Having a stockpile of things that you need is a good feeling. You can never have too much dog food, dog treats , or cat litter. In fact I am never able to keep a stash of cat litter. We seem to go through it like water. There is a certain comfort to knowing you have enough supplies. I imagine the pioneers and how good they must have felt looking at their larders and fuel supplies as they were heading into winter. Of course it is vastly different for us. If we run out of something, we can just by more.

We spent a portion of Monday splitting wood and now have a full wood box. This means we will have heat until this long winter is over. We have fuel oil heat too but the tank is running low and we don’t want to have more delivered this late in the season. Burning wood will stretch out how long it will last.

Having these reserves is very comforting. Kind of like a squirrel hoarding his stash of nuts.

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