First Day of Summer

 

It's the first day of Summer! 

I can take no credit for these flowers. Mother Nature is in charge of my favorite ditch lilies ( a red letter day at my house when they first start flowering).  My mother and I used to strap my kids in car seats, put the shovels in the trunk and head to country railroad crossing to dig them up in clumps. I understand from a law enforcement officer that I gave birth to that there are hefty fines for this behavior these days! 

I have six of these wonderful hanging baskets. I have 3 similar to the one in front. My youngest daughter purchased one for me for Mother's Day and I purchased two more. My middle son and his wife purchased two equally gorgeous ones with pink geraniums that are inbetween the multicolored baskets. I have one that is mostly yellow transplanted in the basket of the pink bicycle I have strapped to my tree. We purchase all the baskets early in May from local Amish warehouses that sell wholesale to walk in customers. 

Mr. Merry has taken over the care and feeding of all the flowers and it is eye popping! I get so many compliments from neighbors, passersby and on Facebook about my lovely flowers. I have absolutely nothing to do with them once they leave the back of my vehicle. 

Meanwhile we are very busy in the grandchild care business. My middle son has a new job and was just sent out of state for two weeks for training. We have his two elementary boys every day now. My youngest sons three boys, aged 6, 5, and 2 are coming this week since teacher mom has a mandatory class and their other grandfather is back in the hospital. My oldest daughter's daughter (one of my two granddaughters) does not have camp this week. She is eleven and is at the age where you really aren't comfortable to leave her home for an eight hour day and this week they have workers coming in to work on her kitchen. We picked her up from two hours away today and she will be here until Friday.  So - busy busy. 

I am also waging war with city hall in my free time. It is a long story involving changing zoning and trying to destroy our property values. We have lived in this single story house for 42 years and remodeled every inch into our forever home and I am pretty much over the edge.  

So, anyway, enjoy your summer! 

Mother's Day Tea

 

This was going to be a happy post! A return to the New Normal Post. A record of my second time out in the real world and the first get together with family (who are also my girl squad!). 

I had gathered my two daughters, my two granddaughters, my two daughter-in-loves, my co-gramma and my daughter's sister-in-love and niece.  I made reservations for tea at the most elegant tearoom and my most favorite tearoom, Sweet Shalom in Sylvania, Ohio. 

We started with the scone course. Our cream scones were served with butter and jam. We were so eager to sample them, I forgot to get a picture without a bite! 

Our delicious scones were following by the soup course. This broccoli cheese soup was every bit as delicious as it looks in the photo. The list of teas is to my right. With such a large table we were able to order three separate teas in refillable pots so that we could sample several varieties of Harney and Sons teas. Or should I say vari it teas? 

My youngest granddaughter had the "child's tea". Here we see some peanut butter and jelly tea sandwiches served with a fruit cup, cookie and dessert. The younger ladies could also choose pink lemonade instead of tea. 

Our tea trays (this one is for four)

We each sampled a cucumber tea sandwich, vegetable confetti popover, egg salad tea sandwich, spring fruit salad and an Irish lace cookie on our Johnson and Johnson china dinner plate. 

Followed by a Daffodil Cake served in a glass goblet. 

Followed by .  .  . Decadent Chocolate Cream Pie with Whipped Topping. And yes - forks and spoons were immediately inserted into the pie; this was the best photo I could grab before they disappeared!!

The Sweet Shalom Tearoom hosted teas on Fridays and Sundays with a themed high tea menu each month. During the pandemic they even had carryout teas available for preorder. Unfortunately they are almost two hours away which was too far to pickup.  

I was eagerly stalking their webpage for details on the summer teas in the coming months. Unfortunately they announced last week that the very tea we attended was the last seating of their last tea. The two proprietress' are retiring and closing the tea room. The tea room was worth every second of the drive to and from their adorable Victorian home turned tea room and was only a few blocks from my oldest daughter's home. 

I am so glad we were able to make time to visit but I am pretty devastated that the tearoom is closing. 

Flowers!

 At this time last year I was recovering from a displaced spiral fracture of the left humerus. I was sitting in a chair with a sling and ice packs with my arm carefully balanced on pillows. Our PT department was closed and by the time I was able to go (I think that was June) I also had a frozen shoulder and tennis elbow for good measure. My main goal was to dress myself and my dream goal was to be able to put on and take off a bra by myself. As I would walk to and from the car for doctor's appointments, I would go by my weed infested empty flower beds. 

I never thought I would be able to plant flowers again - but a year later - I did!

Our shopping trip started on a Friday about a week and a half before my mother always said you should plant (Mother's Day) and almost a month before my gramma said it was safe (Memorial Day). They were right as the following week we had several days of frost and we were shuffling flats and pots in and out of the garage for safety. 

You know it's the right greenhouse when you see the underpants hanging over the driveway. Could it be any cuter? 

We have a large number of Amish farms near the southern edge of our county and there are several greenhouses to choose from. Everyone has a favorite.  We were able to squeeze 5 sunflowers, 8 flats, 17 pots, 5 hanging baskets, 1 five year old and 2 grown women in the car for the ride home. I had to make a second trip for two tomato plants and two more planters. 

My porch has four hooks and it works out well for Mother's Day. My youngest daughter got me one of the pink flowered baskets and my son and daughter in law got me the two pink geranium baskets. My husband built me a porch just for perfect for hanging baskets. 

After a few attempts in previous years at planting it myself, I found it was easier just to buy ONE MORE hanging basket and transfer it to the burlap lined bicycle basket. 

I just love it. Especially with the yellow day lilies behind it. I am not sure where I got these lilies, but they flower multiple times over spring, summer and fall. 

I planted petunias, zinnias, and dianthus in different pinks all over the foundation and beds.  I planted double the amounts of those in two sizes of marigolds. Last year you could not find any mums in the fall and I am hoping for lots of fall color in September. 

I know they don't look like much, but Mr Merry has made a few trips to Menards for Miracle Grow and has been watering like crazy. Luckily tonight Mother Nature has finally taken over and we got a nice rain tonight.   

Last year I bought Mr Merry a potted tomato plant with a cage, almost as a joke. We ended up having a tomato or two a day from mid June until the end of August. This year I bought him two plants hoping for even more. Instead of leaving them in pots, he decided to plant them in our horrible clay soil so I am a little nervous about the crop. 

This path leads to my secret fairy garden! I have to dig out the supplies for this project. 

And here are some random pictures of my baskets and stuff. I am super happy with everything this year! 

We are patiently waiting for my day lily day! All those clumps of leaves are giant orange "ditch" lilies that get about 4 to 5 feet tall. I collected them from ditches about four decades ago when my mother and I would pack our shovels and my kids and hit the country roads. It is my understanding that there are hefty fines for that behavior these days. 

And, in the interest of total honesty, I do have one of those nifty kneelers with the tall handles that I use to plant. It works like a dream. 

Stepping Out

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there.      

I hope you had a wonderful day. 

We are both over two weeks past fully vaccinated and numbers (although there still are numbers) are down.  We are still a little leery about venturing out. Our area still has a mask mandate which is unfortunately often ignored and horrible attendance at vaccination clinics which isn't just nerve wracking for us oldies, but for our young grandchildren cannot be vaccinated at this time. 

My favorite part of the watching the children during this time is that they have no problem with mask wearing unless someone tells them they should. Our preschoolers like to wear masks when we go out even though they never leave the car. Sometimes they wear them around the house. The "big" kids put them on in the morning with their coat and hat so they can climb on the bus. When we pick up kids after school, I see most children in the parking lot still wearing their masks, even after they climb into vehicles or start walking down streets. It has become second nature to them and they are not uncomfortable protecting others. 

Mr. Merry has no intention of rejoining the world. He was never a people person and between retirement and quarantine, he had reached his happy place.  He has found a chain hardware store that enforces mask wearing and he is perfectly happy spending the rest of his life either purchasing home improvement supplies or doing home improvement projects all by himself. 

I have begun to break free! This weekend I took my daughters and daughter in laws to a nearby college town to visit an eatery. I know this very liberal town and college would be very covid conscious so that Mr. Merry would not be too upset and thought it would be a nice foray back into some sort of normality. Everyone wore masks, even on the street where distancing is difficult. All stores required masks and had limits on numbers. It was a nice start. 

Somehow the second lady in this generation has turned 40 (how can that be? how old am I??) and we tried to celebrate inbetween the baseball, soccer, running and other activities that my moms are shuttling back and forth to and from. We settled on a favorite spot with an amazing new brunch menu! My first time eating in a restaurant in 18 months was a rousing success. 

This Thursday I am going to the early bird dinner at a little diner with two of my neighbors. One of them works at a factory bakery that supplies McDonald restaurants in our state. Employees can purchase sandwich buns and English muffins at the end of shift if there are overruns and she helped supply us early in the pandemic when breads were scarce. I am treating to thank her. 

Then on Sunday (can you hear the chains falling off?) I have made reservations at a tea room about 2 hours from here. My most further daughter in law will drive 40 minutes to my house where my vehicle will leave with another daughter in law, a daughter, a granddaughter and myself to drive an hour and 45 minutes to my oldest daughter's house. We will carpool with my other granddaughter, her mother in law, sister in law, and niece to a tea room where we will take up the entire little private dining room.  The beauty of all these teachers and healthcare workers and retirees is that all of us over the age of 18 are fully vaccinated. 

After the fiasco of the fire department chicken dinner drive thru (where no one selling tickets, fixing boxes or delivering to cars was masked) Mr. Merry has no interest in ever eating in a restaurant or socializing or really leaving the house. Luckily I have family and friends who are being brave with me.