Thursday Tea in the Garden With The Fairies

 This post is especially for my granddaughters who worked very hard helping me craft a small outdoor tea-room for the Mad Hatter's Tea Party. The fairies were excited about this party and invited Mr. & Mrs. Little who are currently residing in our china cabinet.

 I decided to make a very big pot of tea for myself and any who dropped in for the tea party . The party was held on the table overlooking the pond where it is cool and shady and a little bit mysterious.

 Mrs. Little dressed up as the White Rabbit. The fairies did invite some of the wild bunnies to the party hoping one of them would portray that character but the bunnies are making themselves scarce because my husband is after them for devastating our vegetable garden. ( No green beans or carrots for us this year. The bunnies got them all.) I'm calling my husband Farmer McGregor nowadays , but I digress. This isn't about Beatrix Potter's books.

Mr. Little was the Mad Hatter. He had a good time sipping his tea, smoking his pipe, and read his book while eating the tiny sandwich my granddaughter MN made for him.

 Can you see the pet bumblebee this fairy has on her wrist ? Granddaughter MN made it for us.

 The food was delicious. There were fairy cakes, boiled finch eggs, cranberries, and acorn bread to eat, and plenty of peppermint tea.

 One of the fairies was dressed as the Queen of Hearts . Granddaughter KN made her costume and the hats worn by a few in the party. These two were whispering about something . Apparently someone forgot to pick fresh blueberries and raspberries for the party but they were too kind to tattle. There was plenty of food though and all was well.

 I watered the hostas growing in big pots by the pond while the fairies partied. This year has been so dry and the water level in our pond is very low for this time of the year.

 My cheerful polka dotted teapot favored by all of my grandchildren.

Tea in the garden this week was pleasant with a little work, mostly watering and dead-heading flowers . I've really made a point of taking time to sit down with a cup of tea or coffee every day to simply take in the beauty of our gardens. It is hard but I am getting better at turning a blind eye to the weeds when I sit and sip my tea.When I sit quietly I see so many things I miss when I am busy , busy, busy. Just look at what I would have missed if I had been too busy today ~ sharing tea with the fairies !

You might want to check out Judith's *Lavender Cottage and Kathleen at *Eggs In My Pocket. They both have beautiful gardens tended with love, but live in very different gardening zones. I think you'll appreciate what each of these ladies has done with their gardens.

Thank-you for taking time to read this long post and have tea with me and the fairies with special thanks to 2 of my lovely granddaughters KN & MN.

Gardens Thrive With Sweat & Rain & Sun

 Rhododendrons thrive here on Cedar Pond.

 They grow wild in our forests, but the blooms are not as colorful there as the typical rhododendron found in landscaping in city & town.

 Snapdragons are doing well in our gardens and our flowerboxes.

 Pots of hostas, hens & chicks, phlox, snapdragons ,  and Campion are sitting next to our garage awaiting planting in other parts of the gardens.  

 Columbine sprouts, grows, and thrives everywhere here. We have several colors of Columbine , white, pink, purple. We did not deliberately plant it, but somehow this lovely wildflower found it's way into our gardens and we've grown to appreciate it.

 The kiwi arbor my husband built in front of our dovecote has finally been accepted by the kiwi. We actually have shade from the kiwi vines this year and the kiwi grows so quickly I know we'll enjoy shade from the hot summer sun here this summer.

 Fuzzy Harwood kiwi. We have a thriving male and female growing here . Each has it's own side of the arbor but they seem intent on meeting. Ah, romance ! We hope the romance of the male & female kiwi will produce fruit for us , but for now their joining producing shade is a good thing too.

 The grape arbor my husband built is greening with the grapes he planted  and I know we'll have a bountiful grape harvest if I beat the birds to it. Last year I made grape juice from these grapes and boy oh boy, my home made grape juice was so good ! I need to quadruple my grape juice canning this year because it  is so good we ran out of it quickly. Beats any commercial grape juice in taste for sure.

Flower box under the kiwi arbor between the chairs. Snapdragons, lobelia, and a red geranium.

 

All of the gardens on Cedar Pond thrive because my husband has worked hard to prepare the soil they are planted in. He has used the manure of many generations of our chickens, goats, & sheep composted and tended to produce rich soil . Rich soil that was hard clay in places and in other places  rocky & barren when we first moved here years ago. Rich soil produced with the sweat of hard work . Hard work that reaps it's harvest after the abundant rains we enjoy give way to sunny summer days . Yes, gardens thrive with the sweat of hard work , abundant rain, and glorious sunshine.

Recycled Junk for Sedum Planters

 I have a lot of poultry equipment that is too rusted out for its' original purpose - watering poultry. The hanging planters full of sedums are the lids of old chicken waterers. We drilled holes in the bottoms of the lids to string wire through them. Then I planted sedums I dug up from around our gardens and walk ways. Sedums grow very well here and bloom abundantly in the summer and fall. Our honeybees love them. The hens & chicks ( sedums below hanging planters ) are in hyper -tufa planters I made last year.

 I have 10 more poultry watering containers to turn into hanging planters. I am going to have a lot of fun ! Maybe I'll plant some hanging geraniums, or Kenilworth Ivy in a few. Those plants always do well for me.

 The days have been very warm and today the temperature was almost 80 degrees in the shade of the porch. Our porch thermometer and the weather man said so .The ducks sought shade under our hostas for their afternoon naps.

Tomorrow the weather forecast calls for temps in the 60's and a light rain so it should be a very good day to recycle a few more old poultry waterers and give them new life as planters. By the way, the bottoms of the old waterers are also great planters , click here to see them. *

Gardening Around The Dovecote

 This flower container is along the picket fence leading to our dovecote. The pansies surprised me by coming up again this year along with the pink phlox behind them. The phlox won't bloom until mid-summer, but they'll be more than 2 feet tall and fill the air with their sweet scent.

 This is the view from the other side of our front porch. The front porch wraps around two sides of our home. The grape arbor has 2 seats under it and provides a very cool shady spot to sit in on hot summer days. At the end of the fence, upper left of the photo, is the dovecote my husband built me.

 I have 2 chickens in the dovecote too. They clean up the dropped seed and keep things interesting.

 I just finished cleaning up the flower beds around the doves. This year I set aside a week on my calendar to catch up on spring cleaning in the garden. The past few years have been hit & miss and our gardens have suffered. My husband has worked so hard to make the flower beds and herb garden for me and I want him to know I do appreciate his hard work. Tending the gardens is the best way to show that.

 I love the way this bird bath seems to emulate the scallops of the Lady's Mantle growing around its base. Lady's Mantle is named after the Virgin Mary. Dew and raindrops in the leaves look like pearls, and on very misty mornings each leaf looks like it has jewels all around it. The drops often reflect eye-piercing rainbow colors when rays of sunshine hit them.

 Hostas & blue Lithodora.

The weather is so beautiful, especially now that it has warmed up. There are new blossoms and baby birds everywhere. Hummingbirds & butterflies too. Spring has finally arrived around here !

I Am A Rainy Day Gal

I love rainy days. I am very much a rainy day gal. "Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby." Langston Hughes

This is a good thing because God has placed me in a state well known for rainy days.I love to fall asleep to the sound of rain outside our bedroom window.

These pictures are just a few of the reasons I love the rain. Green lush lawns,

abundant green foliage,

layers upon layers of green in our gardens.

If I want to decorate with moss I can just go out into our woods and gather all the moss I desire.

I can pick ferns for flower arrangements and grow them everywhere around here.

Hostas thrive, as do our Bleeding Heart plants, Lady's Mantle,Ajuga-

just look at some of these Hostas my husband cultivates. They bloom profusely in the summer and fall, but with foliage like this flowers are just the icing on the cake.

The Hostas peek out from under rhododendrons and Japanese Maples. Tiny miniature Hostas, large blue Hostas, bright white and green Hostas.

Rainy days , good thing I love them because we are having record rainfall and low temperatures for this time of year. Of course, the slugs love the rainy days too, but this is a bonus for the ducks for it provides slugs to eat and weather they thrive in! "Many a man curses the rain that falls upon his head, and knows not that it brings abundance to drive away the hunger." St. Basil

"If you never go camping without waterproof matches and a poncho, you live in Washington." Jeff Foxworthy

"For He draws up the drops of water,they distill rain from the mist, which the clouds pour down, they drip upon man abundantly. Can anyone understand the spreading of the clouds, the thundering of His pavilion?" Job 36:27-29

Extra Help In The Garden

Buttercup and her son Basil were enlisted to help my husband tame his vegetable garden.

This has been a very cold and wet spring. Combined with my husband's work schedule and many weekend obligations away from home, time in the vegetable garden has been scarce.Which means the grass and weeds are thriving. My husband loves his vegetable garden though and has a lot more planting to do but the back half of the garden was thick with grass.

I reminded him we have grass eaters living here , lots of them. So he put temporary fencing between the planted vegetable beds and the out of control grass, then we put mother and son Jacob sheep (Buttercup & Basil ) in the back half of the garden where they filled up on the grass, and fertilized the garden too! I also put 2 little chicken tractors in the garden . Each chicken tractor has 1 rooster in it and I move them daily. The roosters scratch up the earth as they eat the bugs and grass under them. They also take a lot of time to crow at each other and fertilize the garden.

Another view of the bi-sected garden with sheep and chickens at work.The area behind the vegetable garden is a wetland that divides our property from my husband's youngest sister and her husband's home and property. The duck pen is the red-roofed structure. The ducks pen themselves up in the evening where I usually remember to close the door to protect them from night predators. So far this year we have not lost any of our ducks to coyotes, raccoons, dogs, etc. A first for us. I recommend penning your ducks and other poultry around here if you intend to keep them alive.

My husband's Hosta bed. This bed is the temporary home for the Hostas until we find new places to plant them.Kind of a Hosta foster home.The Hosta Fosta home is in the vegetable garden too, all the little Hostas waiting for a home. Maybe with better weather and a bit more time, plus the enlisted help around here, we can get on with a more successful and productive garden before our winter/spring and winter/summer turn into winter/fall~