Sunday Snapshot ... Treasure Hunting in the Shade Garden

I was such a good girl yesterday!  I went out early, before it got too hot and miserable, and I planted three boxwoods, four hellebores, and an Exbury azalea in my shade garden.  (Are you surprised to learn that I grow more than roses?)  Whenever I dig in this garden, I always have to keep an eye out for buried treasure.

It's like this at many old houses.  Previous owners of our house have used this spot to bury trash.  It's not concentrated in a single area, like a privy, but spread out over most of one side of my shade bed.  (One day, it took me over an hour to plant one hosta because I had hit a particularly rich spot and I was unearthing nails and broken china.)

This time, most of the 'treasure' was glass, but there were a few odd items mixed in.  In the above photo, which reminds me of a page from one of those "I Spy" books, you will find:

Green glass

Blue Glass

Milk Glass

Beveled Glass

An old purse frame

The handle from an iron skillet

Stoneware shards

Two different patterns of transferware

Most of the pieces of a broken bottle

A nail

and an aluminum Jello mold.

I keep all this stuff, and I store it in two Costo-sized plastic biscotti jars.  It was trash to someone, but it's treasure to me.

Happy Sunday!

Connie 

Hanging With My Sister

This is what my sister does on the weekends for fun ...

Dog agility ... and she's really good at it.  She and her Border Collie, Jackson, have been competing for a long time (he just turned 9) and they have qualified for Nationals two or three times.  Jackson is perfection in motion when he and my sister are running a course. 

Three-year-old Roxanne (Sheltie) is coming up the ranks, and she is a bit more opinionated than her brother.  In this video I shot of Roxanne running the course yesterday morning, listen to her telling my sister the way SHE thought things should be done.  (Roxanne refused the second obstacle, choosing a different one that was better to her liking, and the rest of the run was for training because she was disqualified.)

After her run, I told my sister, "Roxanne sure looked like she was having fun."  My sister just shook her head.

Dear Mr. County Building Inspector,

You didn't show up yesterday like you were supposed to.  We must have your seal of approval on the gas company's lines and installation before my beautiful new stove can be slid into its spot in the kitchen.

The crew from Lowes delivered the stove yesterday afternoon, and put it in the dining room.  (One of the guys was borderline-phobia afraid of cats.  I had to lock Alice and the gang away to calm his nerves.)

We will be maneuvering around a large stove in our dining room until next week.  That's the soonest we could manage to get things scheduled, because of the inspector's no show.  Thank goodness I still have my electric range in place until then.

The Gas Man Cometh

Last month, I told you that we are installing propane for the new, beautiful, not-here-yet-gosh-darn-it stove in our kitchen.  This plan also includes a new propane tank for the greenhouse ... which is undergoing a bit of a renovation.

This 100-gallon tank means that we will no longer have to drag our 25-gallon tank to the gas place every 3 weeks to be refilled.  No more stressful monitoring of the greenhouse temperature as cold winter temps drag on and on, worrying about running out of gas.  The gas company will fill this baby on a regular schedule and I can sleep peacefully.

What about the tank for the house?  More on that tomorrow.

I'm participating in The August Break 2011.  I will post a photo a day in August, with or without words (you KNOW that I HAVE to have words ... I'm too chatty to go wordless.)  Let's see how far I get into the month before I bust out and break the rules.  :)

Ghostly Deer

Wouldn't you know it.  The ONE photo that I have of wildlife that walked past my game camera was taken when it was foggy.

If you look carefully, and use your imagination, you can BARELY make out the outline of three deer.

I'm still waiting patiently to capture an image of the bear.  No progress to report on that front.

Queen of All She Surveys

Visitors here are usually greeted by Kimba, our outdoor cat.  I tell folks that she conveyed with the house, when we bought it in 2002.

She was very wary of us, and all other humans in the beginning ... for a long time, in fact.  It took two years before I could get close enough to her to touch her.  I would sit quietly on the porch, beside her food dish, so she became comfortable with my presence.  Gradually, I could get closer and closer to her ... until she would finally let me pet her.  It was such an accomplishment!

I was told by the previous owners of our house that Kimba came here in 1996, and that "she was old then" ... whatever that means.  I take it to mean that she was an adult cat at the time, a minimum of three years old.  Doing a quick bit of math, we calculate that Kimba has been here for 15 years, which makes her at least 18 years old!  Our veterinarian concurs with this estimate.  What a ripe old age this is for an outdoor cat!

She spotted me, and she's coming over for a hug.

Until a couple of years ago, Kimba was quite a hunter ... she didn't care for the heads of her prey, though, and I would find random severed heads around the house from time to time.  Her hearing is pretty much gone now, so hunting really isn't an option anymore.  I think she did it mostly for sport and because of instinct, because we have always kept fresh food and water out for her at all times.

Kimba is a fixture here at Hartwood Manor.  She has shelter with a heated bed to stay warm and dry in the winter, and access to our cool garage in the heat of summer.  Bringing her into the house to live has never been an option, because the outdoors is her domain and it is where she is happiest.  She sleeps on the porch most of the time now, but I catch her prowling around from time to time ... as if she's checking up on the subjects in her kingdom. 

At her age, we know that every day with Kimba is a gift.  Her health is incredibly good considering how old she is.  (She had surgery to remove a mass on her face in early spring, and she handled both the surgery and the recovery like a cat half her age.)  Everything has a lifespan, though, and it just won't be the same here without her when her time comes.  Fortunately, it looks like we won't have to deal with that anytime soon.

EuroDesert Bare Roots ... Blooming!

When I went outside earlier today to water my potted roses (it seems like I'm ALWAYS watering pots these days), I saw that two of my EuroDesert roses have flowers!!

This is 'Blastoff', an orange-blend Floribunda bred by Ralph Moore in 1993.

Look at the healthy foliage!

This color will definitely catch people's attention in the garden.

Here is the potted 'Black Ice' that I showed you last time.

(Ignore the messy work table in the background.)

It's been just under five weeks since I received these roses in the mail.  If you're considering ordering roses from the EuroDesert sale of mother plants, worried that it might be risky to ship bare root roses in the heat of summer, let my results calm your nerves.  I am super excited with how these roses have progressed, and I can't wait until the rest of them bloom.

(Do you want to sign up for email updates to order any of these one-of-a-kind roses from EuroDesert for yourself?  If so, click HERE.)