Thursday Tea In The Garden

 Thursday tea in the herb garden is a time of sitting quietly, sipping the herb tea I brewed in my pink teapot, eating the crackers smothered in cream cheese blended with chopped chives and chive blossoms from this very garden while soaking up the sights, sounds and scents of spring in full bloom.

 "Tea is quiet and our thirst for tea is never far from our craving for beauty ." James Norwood Pratt

 "Doing nothing is respectable at tea. " Sasaki Sanmi

 After a generous tea time I walked around Cedar Pond checking out the gardens as I watered them. The garden shown above is the vegetable garden my husband plants and tends. The garlic, onions, strawberries , and peas are coming along quite nicely. The slugs have been giving him a hard time with the beans and lettuces. He has to re-plant them, dang those slugs.

 Our rhododendrons are amazing to see from a distance. These bushes are taller than me !

 "Tea is a divine herb." Xu Guangqi

"Perhaps it is while drinking tea that I most of all enjoy the sense of leisure. " George Gissing

Tea in my gardens is a blessing and a pleasure I don't take for granted. All I need do is brew a pot of my favorite tea , choose a pretty teacup, take them to the garden ,forget the weeding and garden chores for a short while , sit down and enjoy !

Work & Rest ~True Gifts

 Sun dial in our Blue Bottle Garden. We bought it many years ago especially for this garden and placed it in the bed of thyme. It is surprisingly accurate if you situate it according to the compass direction of north to south and it is a sunny day.

 The garden really does look sparse after severe weeding and culling of plants, but the bare bones of the garden are pleasing to me. The white-framed window to the middle right of the photo was once our living room picture window. It was cracked from side to side after a very big earthquake we had in this area a few years ago.  After removing and replacing it into our herb garden I am still happy with it there and have my plans for it later.

 Bright green plant in the bottom center is a lilac bush.

 Blue bottle tree , blue bottle markers, blue bottles. ( I see a theme here .)

 Sage

 Lovage

 Oregano

 Bronze fennel

 Chives

 I ran out of scalloped bricks to line the herb bed, but the herbs in this bed ( shown above ) were all transplanted from the old beds. I did not buy any new pots of herbs because the herbs I have are doing very well, they just needed a good weeding and placing into different spots of the garden that will benefit them.

 This shows where the herb garden ( Blue Bottle Garden) is in proximity to our house. I can look out of our bedroom window and see my herb garden , a delight for me every morning.

On the other side of the hedges out of view of Blue Bottle Garden,but in full view from our living room, is the fountain with the two doves my husband & I bought to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary. How appropriate for us to watch hummingbirds court and bathe in this fountain, and swallows and  sparrows check out the birdhouse above the fountain as a possible new home for them and their young. Our Blue Bottle Garden brings us much joy. We sit together in the garden and watch the parakeets in the aviary, the hummingbirds at the feeders there, enjoy the herbs in our cooking, and from our living room watch the drama of bird life . We truly believe if everyone had a small patch of land to garden and a small window to observe the everyday blessings of their endeavors, this world would be a better place. A little bit of work that satisfies the soul and also gives a weary body the need for rest and a true deep and restful sleep . Blessed and peaceful sleep , a true gift from God.

Blue-Bottle Herb Garden

 The dovecote my husband built me for my herb garden makes me happy . I especially love the detailing in the roof ridge that mirrors the roof ridges he put into our larger dovecote , the goat house, and also the grape & kiwi arbors.

 I keep only 2 doves in my herb garden, my Blue Bottle Herb Garden. You can see how we decided on the name...

 ...there are blue bottles everywhere in this garden.

 These blue bottles are holding the prongs of upside down tomato cages together to form supports for my comfrey . Comfrey loves to get big and floppy , and does so very quickly, often taking over this shady corner of my herb garden if left unattended too long. I use a lot of comfrey for my livestock, poultry, and also make poultices out of it for my feet which have a tendency to get very dry and crack & bleed. Comfrey poultices are great for this. ( I will do another post on this later.)

 Our dog Hawk keeps me company as I weed the garden.

 This old bike holds an old milk crate stuffed with blue bottles and flowers. It is leaning up against a picture window we had to replace after a big earthquake here a few years ago caused the window to split & crack. I like the window in this garden and it helps  keep the woods on the other side of the garden fence at bay.

 Fennel has a lovely licorice scent and thrives in my garden. The fennel has seeded itself in other parts of the herb garden too. It is like growing feathers ! You can see some of the sage and Lady's Mantle growing at the foot of the fennel.

 Lovage also thrives here. I have metal cages and stakes around and through the lovage to keep it from bending and breaking. I love this herb. It tastes like celery, the leaves are yummy chopped up and used in salads, eggs, soups. Anything celery adds flavor to would benefit from lovage. It has a little stronger celery taste, so not too much is needed. The stems grow up to 6 feet in my garden and are hollow so if you strip them of leaves ( or not ) you can use the stems as straws in any drink you might garnish with celery such as tomato juice, delicious!

 My rosemary grows quickly in this garden, and thrives all year, even in the coldest winters. Since my older rosemary plants are now unruly bushes I decided to start 2 new rosemary bushes and encourage them to be more orderly and well-behaved. I placed a large tomato cage upside down over rosemary planted in a large pot. The blue bottle holds the prongs of the cage together. I like the touch of blue it adds.

My blue bird bath sits in the thyme portion of the garden, along with a sun-dial ( not shown here). There are several varieties of thyme in this garden and when they bloom it looks like the bird-bath is perched on a beautiful carpet of color. Our honeybees love the thyme garden especially. My Blue Bottle Garden is a source of herbs my husband and I use for cooking . Some of the herbs are especially beneficial to our health. The garden is also a place of delight on sunny days to soak up the sights, sounds, and scents of Cedar Pond . God is so good and we are truly blessed !

I am joining the Thursday Farm Blog-Hop*. Please check out all the blogs offering useful and inspirational information regarding all things farm,gardening, crops, food preservation keeping poultry & livestock...decorating too. You don't need to have a farm to appreciate all you can learn as you visit these blogs !*

Duck Eggs With Lovage & Chives

Eggs, farm fresh eggs laid by my poultry. Chickens, ducks, & turkeys I tend. They are fed not only commercial poultry feeds, but fresh greens from our gardens. The large white egg in the lower left of the picture is one of many eggs laid by my flock of ducks.

This is one of my Pekin ducks. Yes, she looks like the duck you see in the insurance commercials . ( I love those commercials )My Pekins are spending most of their time sitting on a clutch of eggs. Since my flock of ducks has been very prolific this spring in their egg laying I take quite a few for our consumption.

I have a herb garden where I cut herbs for home cooking, and when you have an abundance of farm fresh eggs and farm fresh herbs you have the makings of some good eats ! Above you can see the lovage I am growing in my herb garden. Lovage tastes like celery,is very tasty in salads and also...

...with eggs. Here are some of my eggs pictured with herbs from my garden. Lovage ( upper right ), chives, and thymes. ( left )

The duck eggs are the big and bright orange eggs. My ducks free-range which enables them to eat all the grass and greens they desire. The greens are what give eggs their bright orange, almost red-orange color. If your eggs are this richly orange you are eating some good eggs ! I whipped these eggs up with freshly chopped herbs, seasoning salt, and cooked them up for dinner the other night. My husband & I sprinkled grated cheddar cheese over them, served them with buttered toast and YUM !

I am joining the Thursday Farm Acre Blog Hop* today. Please check it out, you will learn so much as you visit the blogs participating in this Thursday event even if you do not have a farm or acreage . I hope your weekend is full of blessings and the enjoyment of this beautiful world God has created for us. "It is I who made the earth, and created man upon it. I stretched out the heavens with My hands , and I ordained all their hosts. " Isaiah 45:12