Day of the Dead

Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead, in English) is a Mexican celebration of one's ancestors on November 1 and 2.  It is believed "that the gates of Heaven are opened at midnight on October 31, and the spirits of all deceased children are allowed to reunite with their families for 24 hours.  On November 2, the spirits of the adults come down to enjoy the festivities..."  source

I bought this little figure at Target last month.

I take time during Day of the Dead to remember and celebrate the critters that have been part of our family and have passed on.  Each is precious.

Murphy, the gentle giant who taught me to love dogs.

Cindy.  Still my best Christmas present ever.

Amy.  Barn cat, turned house cat, born deaf ... and she never knew that that was supposed to be a handicap.

Emma.  The precious soul who started my journey into the wonderful world of Greyhounds.

Maggie.  My miracle survivor cat.  The friendliest cat ever.

Daniel.  The dog who picked me.  

Kimba.  The Queen of Hartwood.

... and Winnie.  What can I say about this wonderful little dog ... I adored her.

I gathered these photos of some of my precious critters, and each of them made me smile.  Better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.  I remember each of them with love, and joy, and I am grateful for their presence in our family.

On this final day of Dia de los Muertos, take a moment to remember your precious loved ones, whether they're human or otherwise.  Be still, and I'll bet you can feel them nearby.
___________________________________
If you'd like to read a lovely, short article about Day of the Dead, click HERE.

Winnie

Winnie went to Mexico yesterday afternoon.

Her little old-dog body just gave out.  My husband and I decided that it was best to send her on her way.

My heart is broken.  Grief is as deep as the love that she and I shared, and right now it's pretty overwhelming.

RIP, and vaya con Dios, Bitty Dog.

Winnie's Gotcha Day

Three years ago, a friend shared this photo on Facebook.  As soon as I saw it, I knew that this tiny, geriatric little dog was supposed to be ours.

Winnie's appearance has changed a lot since then.

Day one with us.

A recent photo.

What hasn't changed is her feisty attitude, and amazing spirit.

Barking at the doorbell.

Surveying her yard.

Reluctantly modeling her Christmas sweater.

I credit these changes to good food, lots of love, and giving her the chance behave like a dog.

Leaving the spot that I swept for her, to go poop in the snow.

Barking, again.

Walking at Hollywood Cemetery.  "Stop taking pictures and come on, Mom."

Rolling on something 'fragrant'.

I never saw myself as the type of person who could have a little dog.  Winnie changed this, with her big dog personality in that little dog body.

Happy Gotcha Day, Winnie!

(As I was gathering these photos, I was amazed at number of sweaters in Winnie's wardrobe.  All of these are knit from a pattern that I designed, available for free HERE.)

I'm Still Here ... Just Not as Often Lately

Oh, my ... has it really been a full month since I posted here?  Where does the time go?

Spent some time away from home doing fun stuff ... a long weekend visiting my brother and sister-in-law at their place in SW Virginia ...

Photo of a very happy couple, during a visit to Bear Tree Lake.

... and another long weekend at a greyhound event in Wheeling, West Virginia.

These are nine-month-old pups who really wanted to snuggle.

These yearlings are the same pups that I met last year when they were four-days old.

(Photo with a puppy from last year)

Ruby and Winnie stayed with my parents while we were out of town ... it was their version of a summer vacation.

The cats ... they have been doing what cats do.

Dorothy loves her new cat basket, in the sunshine on the dining room windowsill.

I have been spending most of my early mornings in the garden.  The roses are recovering nicely from the annual onslaught of Japanese Beetles.  Their season appears to be over and the nasty critters are mostly gone now, thank goodness.

Mine Road Noisette

Indoor time has been spent doing things like canning quart after quart of farmers market tomatoes ...

... and in the basement workshop with projects.  This is a door from an antique corner cupboard that I am stripping to repaint.  I work on this a little at a time, when schedule permits.

I have mostly been concentrating on being home, decluttering and downsizing, and organizing what's left.  The pay off for this effort is a much lighter mental load, and a house that's getting a whole lot tidier.

This is a view of our family room from one morning last week, as seen from the dining room.  It's an angle that I don't think I have shown you before.

I have stopped posting to the Hartwood Roses Facebook page, and have switched to Instagram.  I'm getting the hang of it, with the hash-tags and stuff, and I find that I like the spontaneity of it.  It's fun to instantly share whatever I come across in the garden or am working on at the time, without some logarithm that limits who sees what.  Come on over and follow along, if you're inclined.

As you see, life is pretty much the same as it has always been ... I just haven't made time to write blog posts about it.  I still have lots of stuff to share, I just need to take the time to do it.  

April Photo Dump

As rose season approaches, I have a lot of stuff to do outdoors and my blogging time has to yield to allow for this.  I spend as much time as I can in the garden getting the roses ready for their big show at the end of the month, and less time online.  

I haven't been writing blog posts very often, but I have been doing stuff and taking lots of photos.  Some of the photos get filed into my blog folder to use in future posts.  My infrequent blogging results in a glut of photos in that file ... which means that it's time for another Photo Dump!!

1.  I'm no floral designer, but I love to bring small bunches of flowers indoors.  The other day, I picked some of Lily of the Valley and a stem of Hellebore, and I dropped them into a vintage Farmer's Creamery bottle.  

2.  For the past two weeks, I spent my early mornings at the sewing machine making collars to beef up the inventory for events with Greyhounds Rock Fredericksburg ... one of which was Greyhounds in Gettysburg last weekend.  A couple of hours of effort over a period of time really adds up, because I was able to assemble 85 new collars!  (Each collar sells for $20, and all $20 is donated to GRF to benefit canine cancer research and support.)  Volunteers who worked the booth in Gettysburg told me that business was brisk and a LOT of lucky hounds are now sporting my snazzy collars.

Sugar Skull designs continue to be popular.

Alice appears to be doing a thorough quality control inspection on the heap of collars.

3.  In the middle of the collar-sewing period, my mom and I jetted to Charleston, South Carolina, for the 2016 annual meeting of the Southern Garden History Society ... a long weekend of touring gardens and plantations, listening to interesting speakers, eating fabulous food, and meeting new friends with like interests.  I took 700 photos during the trip, which I hope to distill into a blog post soon.

I love looking at clouds from above!

That blurry blob in the center of the frame at the horizon is Fort Sumter, as seen from the window of our hotel room.

4.  It was obvious that Winnie missed me while I was away.  She's not usually a lap dog, but she was for the first couple of days that I was home.  She just needed some mama time.

5.  I love sports, and I particularly love hockey.  Since the 1980s, I have been a fan of our home team, the Washington Capitals, through ups and downs, coaching and player changes, winning seasons and depressing losing seasons.  They are in the play-offs now, and my husband and I spend many an evening eating dinner on the sofa in front of a hockey game on TV.  Last week, we treated ourselves to take-out steak and cheese sandwiches.  At one point, I looked up from my plate and away from the TV and I saw this face.

Notice the drop of drool on her chin.

6.  I'm still working to donate unused/unwanted things that we don't need and to find places for other stuff in storage that I want to keep.  As I was staring into the living room the other morning, contemplating a new arrangement for the furniture, I took this photo.  I reminds me of a scene from an abandoned house or, as a FB friend remarked, a Van Gogh painting.  Either way, I think it's a pretty awesome image.  (My Donation Box is just out of the frame on the right.  It's getting full again, which means that it's almost time to make another run to the thrift shop.)

7.  Finally, we have this scene from the other morning, which is NOT the breakfast of champions ... a left-over piece of Red Velvet Cheesecake (courtesy of our daughter) and coffee in the mug that I bought at St. Paul's Cathedral in London two years ago.

This year, in addition to all of the normal spring things on our spring To Do list, stuff that we do every year to shake off winter, my husband and I are hosting the Stafford County Historical Society on May 21.  The garden will be ready as always, but we have to tidy and declutter the inside of the house, too.  A little over a week after this is Memorial Day, which is the day of this year's public Open Garden ... mark your calendar.

It's been cool and rainy for the past few days ... perfect conditions for pulling a LOT of weeds ... which is what I'm heading out to do right now.

Weekend Snapshots

1.  Spring has truly arrived, and more and more flowers appear in the garden every day.  I am thankful to have my iPhone in my pocket most of the time to capture the images as I see them.

'Pink Perfection' is the only spring-flowering camellia that I have.  I prefer the fall/winter flowering sasanqua varieties ... they're a bit more predictable and less susceptible to unpredictable spring weather.  

Pink Perfection looked to be poised for a spectacular number of flowers, till Friday's gale-force winds knocked off most of the big, fat buds.  There they are, on the ground.  :(

 The Dogwood tree at the center of my Hybrid Tea Garden in the front yard is just beginning to open its flowers.  It's going to be spectacular by the middle of next week. 

I saw the single-flowered form of Kerria japonica at a garden on tour last spring.  Mentioned it to a friend, who happened to have a plant that she wasn't going to use.  It is now growing on the shady west end of one of my front yard rose borders.  (This flower is about the size of a quarter.)

As I was weeding and pruning last week, I noticed this tiny, perfect bud on 'Dr. E. M. Mills".  This bud, and many others that have also formed already throughout the garden, hold the promise of a spectacular rose season to come ... in about eight weeks!

2.  Mrs. Wren is now sitting on her eggs in the flowerpot nest in my greenhouse.  I think she has five eggs.  I noticed her camped on the nest, when I carefully peeked at it on Friday afternoon.  A quick Google search told me that wrens incubate their eggs for 12-16 days.  In two weeks, give or take a day or two, the babies should hatch.

3.  Winnie likes to think of herself as a guard dog.  She watches for 'intruders' and then she barks and growls to sound as fierce as she can.  In this case, it was our daughter coming home this morning from working an overnight shift.  As you can see, Ruby trusts that Winnie has the situation handled.

4.  Today is chilly and windy ... a stark contrast to the warm weather that we had here for the past few days.  My husband had planned to work outside today, and that's exactly what he did ... cutting and securing timbers between the fence posts to form the back border of the Rambler Fence.  He deals better with cold and wind than I do.

Ruby is in her window, watching the progress.

5.  I have been keeping myself occupied inside today, where it's warm, making big pots of soup for dinner tonight and to restock the freezer with quick, healthy weeknight dinners for the next few weeks.  

Cauliflower Potato soup, as seen before I whirled it smooth with the hand blender.

Recipe is HERE.

Black Bean and Pumpkin soup is ugly but incredibly yummy and LOADED with fiber and other good-for-you stuff!

*************************

Black Bean Pumpkin Soup

32 ounces chicken broth

3 cans 15-1/2 ounce cans of black beans (rinsed and roughly pureed in blender with some of the chicken broth)

1 16-ounce can of pumpkin puree

1 can tomatoes w/ chilis (like Rotel original)

1-1/2 cup finely chopped onion

4 finely chopped cloves of garlic (or 1/2 tsp garlic powder)

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. black pepper

1 rounded tablespoon ground Cumin

6-8 strips cooked bacon, finely chopped.

I dump all the ingredients into my favorite soup pot, and simmer gently for about half an hour.  Serve as is, or add a sprinkling of grated cheese and/or a blob of sour cream.