lately

Summer has been rolling along and I'm afraid it will be August (otherwise known as the end) too soon. But in the meantime, I'm enjoying occasional furniture shopping...

....having time to make iced lattes for Jesse every morning...

 and trying out new recipes. I made honey cloud pancakes (recipe here) and used nectaries and blueberries since that's all we had, and it was a hit.

We also have been exploring places to swim and paddleboard, since last week it was too hot and hazy to do anything else. Now it is rainy every afternoon, but I try not to complain about anything summer-related!

(note: Jesse's wanted a small couch in this room since we first started the woodstove this spring. I was against it at first, but the first night the stove was on I immediately wished we have a comfy couch right in front of it. I wasn't sure I'd love having our table in the sunroom, but it fits perfectly and turned out to be fine...it's nice looking out the bay window while doing work!)

more peonies, because I love them so.

They come out right when summer starts, they smell so sweet and they are so fully and classically pretty! I remember getting off the bus at school and smelling the fuschia pink blooms every June, and it still is one of my favorite smells.  

new plantings&more weeds.

As my annoyance and frustration with our weed problem has increased, the new plants we seem to be given every week or so has counteracted the negative feelings. It's been so great! I figured it wasn't a good use of time or finances to invest in lots of plants and flowers to plant this summer, since we have plenty of areas that need to be demolished spruced up. I didn't want to let myself buy a whole bunch of pretty things, and just ignore the stuff that needed to be removed. So, I work away (slowly) on weeding and bagging the awful bishop's root (the name of the weed that shall not be named) and then every so often we're given a great new thing to plant. This week was Thai basil and an artichoke plant from Ronnie, which we added to Jesse's beginning stages of an herb garden. Next to that was where we decided to put the tomato plants. They're still in pots in case we want to move them. My dad brought them over and helped me set them up.

He also brought more lilacs! He'd planted some for us behind our mailbox, so it will make a little hedge around it. These we decided to put near the road, to block off one of the yards from the driveway and road. When our new leachfield was put in, they cleared a bit of greenery so it looks sort of....sparse.  At least they planted new grass.

My dad also brought a little birdhouse he made, so we hung it in the tree that is right near the kitchen window and our sunroom bay window. He said only wrens could fit in it, and sure enough we now have a wren neighbor craming nest materials into the house every morning!

Bishop's root behind the stone wall, which I may not get to this year...At least it's out of sight most of the time.

On the side of the stone wall, I've cleared some of this.

The beginning stages of weeding the front of the stone wall. Seeing it come BACK after a good rain shower (which have been daily) is just like a little stab in my not-green-thumb.

I've been working away at this little slope, and have almost gotten to the bottom. It's been about 6 big trash bags worth of weed, and lots of snails and slugs.

We also want to dig up these ferns that have taken over the front of our house...I regretfully urged Jesse to keep them when we saw the bulbs starting in April ("We don't know what they'll be! It might be pretty flowers!) and now we know they are huge jungle fern. It almost seems silly to dig each of them out this summer, so we'll make sure to tackle them early next spring when they're just little bulbs poking out of the ground. I thought this was too much, but they are now taller than me:

Father's Day with new blooms!

This weekend, the house finally started looking floral. Our peonies took their sweet time to come out, but when they did, it was worth the wait! They are a beautiful light blush color, which I hadn't expected (my parents have bright pink ones that I've always loved) but these blush are so pretty. And, since it had been so rainy and miserable the last couple weeks, other peonies had turned brown and ruined. So ours turned out to be at a great time.



It was weirdly great being able to bike over a Father's Day treat to my father in-law:

It's also just great having this hog...

Ronnie came over with young sunflowers, and I was in the process of weeding the front garden so we thought they'd be a nice replacement in the previously weed-infested space:

I can't wait to see how they do--hopefully they'll all be fine and we'll have bright yellow sunflowers to distract from the awful ferns we have yet to dig up.

Jesse has been gone to Costa Rica since the beginning of June, and has missed lots of great flowers blooming. I sent him a picture of these irises (he loves them too) and am so happy we have these pretty flowers all over that we happen to love! It makes me feel less guilty about the lack of gardening we've done. There's always next summer...?