Fairie Garden Surprise

Something I have started this summer (and let's just pick the hottest summer on record to start this) is walking almost every evening. Don't give me any credit for this. My youngest daughter usually stops over and cajoles me into joining her. She also brings my granddog, Mia, and I like to think that my daughter is walking both of us.

We have a few routes; a four mile route with big valleys and hills (big to an out-of-shape woman of advanced middle years anyway), a two mile route down our tree lined Main Street to the local elementary school and back, and our six mile round trip down Main Street, past the school, through the downtown district to the outskirts on the other side of town and back (longer, but flatter).

It was on our Main Street walk in early Spring that I spotted this little bit of beauty in the tree lawn in front of one of the large, two storied, front-porched house on Main Street.

How adorable! A fairie garden right here in front of me. Something that every car going by is missing and only those who meander slowly and watch their feet can see :)  I made sure to take my camera on our next walk. As we neared the house, I saw the fairie gardener herself taking pictures of the same spot!

I expressed my admiration for her little fairie garden and asked if I could take pictures myself! She was kind enough to allow me to do so. Ms. Fairie Gardner told me she was taking pictures for her blog and invited me to see her porch and backyard fairie gardens, too.

The ceramic pieces are all her own creation, from the little "huts" to the mushroom. She told me how she experimented with different shapes and sizes. Some have removable roofs.

The picture above has an adorable little metal wagon hiding on the right. The photo below has little houses she purchased at a dollar store and painted and "decorated" with small pebbles.

This photo is one of the gardens featured on her front porch. I love the little chair.

The garden on the opposite side has small cottages - I guess that is where the fairies were hiding.

This garden was located in a new area of her backyard. She had just had a small concrete patio poured and had a cover built over it. Her fairy gardens edge the new addition.

A little wheel barrow for fairie gardeners.

When I returned home, I realized that I had not asked her about her blog! It has been several months later and, finally, she was out "care taking" when I shuffled by last night.  She actually has not had time to start blogging yet (that time factor that affects us all). She loves her little gardens and showed me many improvements (no camera with me). She has created a screening method for wood mulch to reduce it to "fairie size" and has mulched the little gardens which look just lovely. She is a working mom and creating the fairie gardens is what allows her to relax and forget about the rest of the world.

I just wanted to share a little bit of "How I spent my Summer Vacation".  I really appreciate my daughter's motivation to try to make me exercise.  I had been having problems with balance and pain and had really turned into a "sitter". I visited the doctor and I will not bore you with details of the 12 sessions of physical therapy, except to mention how humorous the therapist found it when I wore two VERY similar, but different tennis shoes to the session.  It turns out that you really don't have to suffer with the pains of old age (sometimes they are just a muscle/tendon issue) and doing exercises prescribed by the physical therapist can actually help (when you actually do them!).  We are leaving on a short vacation on Sunday. With my blogging schedule, you will probably see pictures in November.