Sunday 26 June 2016

The Sunday Prayer




Dove of Peace by Pablo Picasso


Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.
For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.
For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.
For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou
(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)

Friday 24 June 2016

Feel-good Friday

Thursday 23 June 2016

The Thursday Poem

Potted Flowers with Books IV
Eric Barjot


From Mossbawn: Two Poems in Dedication
For Marie Heaney
Sunlight

There was a sunlit absence.
The helmeted pump in the yard
heated its iron,
water honeyed

in the slung bucket
and the sun stood
like a griddle cooling
against the wall

of each long afternoon.
So, her hands scuffled
over the bakeboard
the reddening stove

sent its plaque of heat
against her where she stood
in a floury apron
by the window.

Now she dusts the board
with a goose's wing,
now sits, broad-lapped,
with whitened nails

and measling shins:
here is a space
again, the scone rising
to the tick of two clocks.

And here is love
like a tinsmith's scoop
sunk past its gleam
in the meal-bin.

Seamus Heaney
(13th April 1939 - 30th August 2013)


Wednesday 22 June 2016

Words on Wednesday

Alphabet Overlay 1


Failure is more frequently from want of energy
than from want of capital

Tuesday 21 June 2016

A little wander around the garden


It was my birthday on 6th June and when my sister-in-law and her partner came to visit last week, they brought some pressies with them :-)  The first was this group of resin toadstools, which I think look very good peaking out from beneath the ice plant...

 

 ...and the second was this handsome ceramic frog, now sitting just a hop away from one of the nature pools :-)

 

There is still plenty of staining to be done.  I only got half of my work shed finished last year ~ what a difference between the two halves, eh!



I gave the bird box a sprucing-up.  The woodstain is called Pale Thistle, by Cuprinol.  It's a very pretty colour and I will be using it elsewhere in the garden.  Adrian had saved an offcut of roofing felt leftover from the chicken houses which I glued to the bird box roof, so it has a bit more protection from the weather now. 


 A man and his tools LOL

 

Creeping Jenny is a recurring theme in my garden.  I know it can be a wee bit invasive, given half a chance, but I find it very useful for filling in odd or difficult spaces, and keeping the weeds down.  It's easy enough to simply pull up plants when they start to stray into areas where I don't want them.


I really like Jenny's pretty yellow flowers :-)


Some of the houseleeks are starting to flower...


and all the offshoots are now settled and doing well.


I bought this purple sage at the Triangle Garden open day the weekend-before-last.  The leaves smell divine and the flowers have already had numerous visits from bees.


I don't know what variety this geranium is but I've had it ~ or rather, offshoots of the original plant ~ for a good number of years.  It's a very pretty shade of blue and grows well in the garden.


This is Osteospermum Weetwood.  The pretty white flowers close up, like other daisies, at night or when it is a very dull day, which I find very endearing :-)


The flowers on the campanula are starting to open now.


I finally got the fern, liriope muscari and pulmonaria planted in their new home.  I decided to add woodchips as a mulch and I'm very pleased with how it looks.

The pot on the right now has a very young garden mint in it, another plant I bought at the Triangle Garden open day.


Do you like my new outdoor rug?  I wanted something bigger than a standard doormat to put by the patio door, and found this online from Matalan.  It's been rained on in this photo so the colours look a tad duller than they really are.



Some of the coping stones on the brick raised bed have come adrift, but hopefully Steve will fix them before winter comes this year. 


View from the patio door.  As you can see, the garden is only small but it keeps me occupied and out of mischief!

Monday 20 June 2016

Hard work but so worth it!


The weekend before last, we still had a manky old concrete path and miscellaneous paving slabs in the back garden ~ really not a pretty sight!  On the Saturday, hubby girded his loins and started attacking said paving with my Dad's iron pry-bar (which we have had custody of for years now LOL)...


...and this was the end result ~ no more dodgy paving (well, not in the slate chippings area, at any rate!) and weed membrane in place ready for the next stage.


Just look at those chunks of concrete and all the rubble attached to the underside!  The path was most likely put down when the house was built, back in 1955.  It had lots of cracks across it and was generally in a bad state, so it was a relief to finally get rid of it.


We also had yet another pile of rubbish waiting to be taken away ~ where on earth does it all come from!


On Wednesday, Richard's guys came and collected all the rubble and other rubbish...


...looking better already :-)



Last Friday we had 50 bags of green slate chippings delivered, which Adrian and Sam then moved from the front garden to the back when they got in from work.  Neither of them needed a trip to the gym after moving all those bags!


On Saturday, Adrian and I spread out all 50 of those bags of slate.  We thought that perhaps we had ordered too much, but we used it all.  It looks quite pale and white here but now that it has rained (yet again *sigh*), the dust has been washed off and it looks lovely :-)  Oh, and Adrian (with a little bit of assistance from yours-truly) also re-roofed both the chicken houses on Saturday, too!

Sunday 19 June 2016

The Sunday Prayer




Dove of Peace by Pablo Picasso


Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.
For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.
For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.
For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou
(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)

Friday 17 June 2016

Feel-good Friday

Thursday 16 June 2016

The Thursday Poem

Potted Flowers with Books IV
Eric Barjot


In just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame ballonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old ballonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's
spring
and
the

goat-footed

balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee

e.e.cummings
(14th October 1894 - 3rd September 1962)

Wednesday 15 June 2016

Words on Wednesday

Alphabet Overlay 1


People seldom improve when they have no other model
but themselves to copy

Tuesday 14 June 2016

Another week in the garden

Things are moving along nicely ~ 'tis a shame that the weeds are growing just as well as the plants though LOL 


 The creeping jenny and sweet woodruff are starting to fill out in this pot now.  I'm sure it won't be long before no soil is visible!


Considering it's confined to a pot, the rhubarb is doing well too.


This gentiana is actually a deeper shade of blue than it appears in the photo.  It is very pretty.


I don't have many yellow flowers in the garden, they seem to be mostly blues, purples and pinks for some reason!  This hypericum gives a lovely splash of sunny colour.


This little campanula lives next to the hypericum.  When I first opened up the parcel, I was surprised at the scent coming from it although it isn't really noticeable now it's been in the garden a few days.


I hadn't managed to get the "shade" container planted up when I took these photos as I was waiting for more compost to arrive.  I've got it now so will be getting the fern, liriope muscari and pulmonaria out of their pots and into their new home soon.


Another photo of the "neglected fern" LOL  It is really enjoying it's new spot in the garden :-)


The geraniums are filling out nicely and the little houseleek offshoots are settled in their pots.


This lovely grass is festuca glauca "Elijah Blue".  I bought one plant and was able to split it into two, which I was very pleased about.


Just a few plants left to put in the garden now.  I am going to put alpines in this planter in due course.


Do you like my new bench?  I think it is absolutely lovely!  It's made in Indonesia by local craftspeople, using teak reclaimed from items such as old ox carts.  I bought a seat cushion to go with it but it's comfortable even without it.


I moved the bay tree from beside the blue shed.  I think it will be okay here as the bench will offer some shelter for it.  The festuca is the other half to the plant further up the page.


The planting in this raised bed is done now I think, although I may add some ground-hugging plants.  I will put in some miniature spring bulbs in the autumn.


This raised bed is finished now, too.  Again, I will add some ground cover and spring bulbs.


The chairs were over where my lovely new bench now stands; we have another seating area now :-)  Please excuse the dirty marks on the chairs ~ it's bits and pieces that come off the shed roof when it rains!


And to finish off, a quick trip indoors to show you the lovely flowers I had for my birthday on the 6th June ~ the carnations were from hubby and the gerberas from my daughter :-)