Sarah Lynn's Nature's Splendor: Journal: Gardening, Sewing Pearls, & Mother's Day

Last Tuesday morning it was rainy and chilly – only 46°, with winds blowing at 21 mph, making a windchill of 41°. No working out in the yard that day. Sooo... I set about seeing how many pearls I could get sewn onto the New York Beauty quilt.

Later that afternoon, I was watching a white-crowned sparrow with my binoculars from my quilting room window as he sat in the black locust tree, when along came a Harris’ sparrow, largest sparrow in the States. The white-crowned took exception to the intrusion and ran him off.

Both of these sparrows are migrants on their way farther north to their nesting grounds. The Harris’ sparrow nests in Canada’s Northwest Territories. Maps show that the white-crowned sparrow nests in western Montana, northern Idaho, British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, and Alaska; but we have found nesting white-crowns along the shores of high, mountainous lakes in southern Colorado.

There are Baltimore orioles and downy woodpeckers at the suet feeder. The orioles have such melodious (and LOUD!) songs. When the orioles and woodpeckers aren’t there, the grackles, brown thrashers, and red-winged blackbirds are grabbing beakfuls of it.

We’re out of black oil sunflower seed and Nyjer seed. I need to go to Bomgaars and get some.

Wednesday, Larry sold an Allis Chalmers D17 tractor. Thursday, he used the money to purchase a Toro 3000D riding mower with an 82” mowing deck that he will use to make one good mower out of this one and another one that he got a few years ago. This should give a good return on his money.

It was finally nice enough to work in the yard Friday morning. I dug up a few hosta shoots in two different colors, and later that afternoon, I took them to Lydia. Since I was halfway there already, I continued on to Hobby Lobby for a few more packages of pearls. It seems they only keep three packages of pearls on any given hook at any given time. I got the first six packages, three of 3mm pearls and three of 4mm pearls, at the Hobby Lobby in Lincoln. The next three packages of 3mm pearls I got here in town, and these final three, also 3mm, in town, too. Hopefully, these will be enough.

The sewing-on of the pearls on the New York Beauty quilt is going nicely. When that’s done, I’m going to take the binding back off and see if it’s the binding or the beaded piping that’s keeping the quilt from lying perfectly flat. Can’t spoil the works with a too-tight binding! 😒😏😜

Kurt, Victoria, Carolyn, and Violet came visiting that evening, bringing me a Mother's Day gift of Essential Oils and a pretty diffuser. Most of the kids went together to purchase the gift.

I put three drops of Citrus Fresh and one drop of Valor oil into my diffuser (with water – it holds about two cups of water), and turned it on in my quilting studio. It smelled sooo good. This old farmhouse gets to smelling like damp old wood when it rains... and hot summer sun lets us know that, yes, squirrels did make nests in the rafters. Ugh, ugh. So I’m happy to have something that smells so nice, and doesn’t make my head/sinuses/lungs hurt.

The diffuser has seven or eight different colors of lights. One setting flickers softly like candlelight; another slowly changes from one color to another; and the other settings are various solid colors. Quite lovely.

Carolyn likes the little library upstairs. I sent them home with a few duplicates of the blue Bible Story books. I should look online for the books that would complete the set.

Saturday morning I spent an hour and a half weeding a couple of flower gardens, and separating and transplanting several hostas. After a bath and shampoo and a late breakfast, I swept and mopped the kitchen and vacuumed the living room, then got back to sewing pearls on the New York Beauty quilt. The first block took me three hours of pearl-sewing; but I’ve sped up, and can get a block done in about an hour and a half. I think, but I’m not sure, that I’m about half done with the pearls.

When Larry got home from work, we went to Blossoms Floral to get Norma a gift. A couple of our Jackson nieces have worked there for some time. Recently, one of Jeremy’s and Maria’s cousins purchased the business.

We chose a white wooden hexagon cage lantern with a little white pot inside it holding a silk cactus similar to an aloe vera plant. After a stop at Walgreens for a card, we took it to her, and had coffee and cookies with Loren and Norma.

A gentle rain fell that afternoon – just what the newly-planted hostas needed. Gentle rains are unusual around these parts. It’s more likely to come down in torrents, accompanied by high winds. My flowers are growing like... uh... like... weeds! 😃

That evening, Amy brought me a big jar of Organic Wild Maine Blueberry jam (Mmmm, mmm!) and a beautiful pedestaled pot with a blooming dahlia in it. It's a pot-inside-a-pot, so it has good drainage.

Yesterday morning after church, we walked out to the Jeep – and discovered a big AquaSav pot full of Lobelia, Petunias, and Verbena. That was from Caleb and Maria. Here’s the kind of pot I’m talking about: https://www.pridegardenproducts.com/aquasav/

I set it in a big pot on our front porch. I need to get some spray paint for that pot; the weather has been hard on it. But it’s big and heavy, and stays put in the strong winds we sometimes have.

Dorcas told the following story about Trevor: Sometimes he coughs or chokes and then says, “Trevor, you okay?” He then answers himself, “My good!” hee hee

Keith sent me a $50 gift certificate for Cracker Barrel. I wrote, “Thank you so much. But I keep telling you, you don’t need to spend that much on me! 😏😃”

One of these days, I’ll remember to take a picture of my plate before I eat all the food, and send it to him to show him what his gift certificate bought.

A friend of ours once posted on Instagram a picture of a messy, dirty, empty plate, and wrote, “I tried to take a picture of my food like everyone else does, but I couldn’t find the shutter button in time.” 🤣

Hannah had a bad asthma attack early Sunday morning, and wasn’t able to go to church. Her oxygen level dropped to 87. Scary. She’s taking prednisone today, and is a bit better.

I spent part of the morning dividing and replanting tall lavender phlox and daylilies. I was glad to see that the rhododendron Caleb and Maria gave me last year is about to blossom. There are buds on the irises, too.

A little later, I popped back outside to take a few pictures – and found something I hadn’t noticed before: Rhubarb!

Two plants of it, to be exact. I planted it several years ago, and thought it had died out. The last two years, I didn’t have time to do much more than give the front flower gardens a lick and a promise. I never made it to the far back gardens south of the house. This year, I’ve made my way at least once, and sometimes two or three times, through all the many flower gardens around this place. (We have about three-quarters of an acre.) When I cleared out that flowerbed a couple of weeks ago, I saw no rhubarb --- but today, there it is, almost tall enough to cut!

>> ... lockjaw sets in ... <<

I did take a picture of the stuff, but it’s an ugly little plant, with leaves that look like a sad cocker spaniel’s ears... and I’m kinda partial to pretty pictures...

Okay, the lowering sun is shining on that patch, so I’m going out to take a picture or two.

...

I’m baaaaaaaack! Did you miss me?

You know, I don’t think it’s rhubarb after all! I think it’s burdock, playing a prank on me. Take a look (last couple of pictures in the post): Photos from Our Yard

On the north side of the house, Larry put this big log here the first year we moved in, when we discovered that the seller of the property, who know the land very well, had sold us that particular piece that was the main watershed for the entire hill. So this became the dam that saved our home from flooding every time it rained. It still gets wet inside the garage. Years ago, I planted hostas atop the log, and, last week, peonies and daylilies on this side of it.

Larry constructed a berm in the front yard when we planted the blue spruce trees a few years ago, and that helped with waterflow; but it didn’t entirely solve the issue. It will help when he gets the eaves put up on the garage end of the house.

The peach tree is blooming. I hope all those blossoms turn into peaches!

On the west side of the house there are two types of hostas, tiger lilies, daylilies, double roses, coneflowers, chrysanthemums, tall phlox, Autumn Joy sedum... and a troublemaking Boston Ivy.

Here’s a tiny wildflower that’s no more than half the size of my littlest fingernail.

In the front, the north side of the house, there are old-fashioned rose bushes... Prairie roses... daffodils... tulips... hostas... lilac bushes... Lily of the Valley, both pink and white... crocuses... Autumn Joy sedum... I used to have assorted colors of columbine, but I think the crabgrass choked them out.

Yeah, I have flowers galore. I planted gazillions of them 13 years ago when we first moved out here. I was younger and sprier then! I no longer spend entire days working in the gardens; but I do try to spend an hour or two out there each morning.

There are thousands of daylilies along the eastern edge of the property; I got those from some farm ladies about 10 miles east of town (we are 7 miles west of town). They were thinning out about half of their lilies so the remaining flowers would bloom better. They dug them out and gave them to me at no charge. Larry rototilled the whole east side by the fence, a strip about three feet wide and well over 100 feet long, and I planted (and planted) ((and planted)) lilies.

One year, someone gave me a ton (give or take a few pounds) of Rembrandt, painted, and ruffled tulips. I interspersed them with the lilies, thinking I was following advice in a gardening magazine that showed how to plant bulbs in layers. Wow, what a picture that made, with miles of tulips blooming, and the lilies coming up. BUT. ... I did not know that daylily rhizomes put off a chemical that eventually causes tulip bulbs to deteriorate. Each year thereafter, I had less and less tulips, until they were finally all gone.

Everyone kept suggesting that squirrels were digging them up and eating them; but there were no squirrels anywhere near our house back then, as there were only Austrian pines, and the deciduous trees I’d planted weren’t nearly tall enough yet to attract them.

And then my sister gave me a gigantic gardening encyclopedia, and I belatedly learned what had happened to the tulips. 😏😕

These days, I mostly divide and transplant/replant flowers that are doing well already. They’re free, after all – and I already know they do well in our soil. When everything starts blooming, I look around and can hardly imagine what it would cost to actually go to a nursery and buy all these flowers. 😲

I kept sniffing at a stalk I’d broken off of the rhubarb look-alike, thinking, Surely I’d know if this was really rhubarb... and then I worked up my courage and tried a wee taste.

AAACCCKKKKKKK.

NOT RHUBARB.

((...gulping coffee...)) 🤣

(No; I didn’t poison myself. Burdock is edible, after all. Not that we’ll be having it for supper any time soon.) 😝

Larry is mowing and using the weed-eater. Over by the camper, he ran over something. I went out to see what it was. Just a piece of plastic; nothing important.

I noticed that the crabapple tree and the chokecherry tree are blossoming. Totally missed that, in my earlier trek around the yard with my camera! So I trotted out and took a few more pictures.

Our supper tonight is steamed broccoli, some little personal-sized pizzas from Schwan’s (the egg and bacon variety), sliced peaches, and Schwan’s vanilla almond ice cream bars. Come to think of it, the broccoli is from Schwan’s, too. The only food that isn’t Schwan’s is the sliced peaches; they’re from Dole.

And now I shall go sew pearls on the New York Beauty quilt. Not for too long, though; I intend to get up early to work outside, as the temperature will be 57° by 8:00 a.m., and 70° by 11:00 a.m. Pulling weeds is more pleasant when it’s cooler. This time, I’d better make sure the soaker hoses are in good repair, because it’s going to be hot by the end of the week, and the flowers will need to be watered.

There was a pretty sunset tonight.