Author Archives: Lori

My new Fitbit

We had a great time at Longwood Gardens. We spent an entire day there on Saturday. The weekend was too short and I haven’t even downloaded the photos off my camera yet!  I owe you those as it was a fabulous place for sure.

But a new toy for me. I received a fun gift for my birthday. I didn’t really ask for any gifts this year and only specified no jewelry LOL.  So everything was a surprise. My sis and family got me a Fitbit Charge 2

The screen stays dark until you tilt your arm towards yourself (like looking at a watch). And yay for freckles! I can coat myself with sunscreen and not get burned, but the freckles still come during biking season.

I used to wear an activity monitor years ago, but it was a little clunky and it had a monthly subscription to the software. Not much money, but still.

I’m still getting used to all this does and getting it set right for me. It connects to an app on the phone, which is pretty cool. You can see your daily stats that update in real time. Today so far as of 3pm.

I’ll hit 10K today for sure. I do get in a lot of steps on a daily basis, so that is good. The second full day I wore it was on Saturday and we sure put in the steps at Longwood Gardens!

You can scroll through the days for activity, but the weekly exercise and sleep only shows the current day.  Speaking of sleep, I knew that it would show my poor sleep and I don’t really want to look at it.

It seems to show that I took a nap on Tuesday, but I think that was just me on the couch very still. I was so tired that day and  when you see 4 hours and 41 minutes of restless sleep, that is probably why.

I can also record my food and water intake and it has all kinds of goals and challenges you can set up.  I could use a little push to be on track and get off that extra weight. I do notice it when biking compared to last summer.

Still trying to figure out how to log the bike miles. Even though it is connected to my phone and Bluetooth, it doesn’t accurately record the mileage I ride. At all. I rode 14 miles and it showed as 2.5. However, it recorded an hour of activity, so I need to figure out what I’m supposed to be doing for that.

 

Anyone else have a fitbit?

What’s Blooming!

Thank you for all of the birthday wishes! Just a quick blooming post today. As a gift for myself for turning 50, we are taking a weekend trip to Longwood Gardens so that I can soak up all things flowers 😀  I’m so excited and the weather is supposed to be nice!  Yippeee! First vacation is many, many months.

Anyway, on the home front there are some new things:

Calycanthus bush

It has lots of buds on it.

We need to make/buy a snow protector for this bush as it is in the drop line for snow slides off our roof, which broke a chunk off it over the winter.

This is the Purple Sensation allium after it goes to seed.

I love how these look and leave them up until they dry up and fall apart. I haven’t gotten any baby allium that I know of from the seeds.

Here is my very favorite allium – Star of Persia:

I have them all over.

They are still filling out and will be even bigger once they are done.

Last of the Boysenberry Buttercup iris:

One more iris to open up out back still. Late bloomer 😀

On a side note, Woodrow is still coming around a lot:

His leg seems better, although I suppose it could be a different woodpecker.

Potted heliotrope:

One of my new favorite annuals. It smells divine!

My peonies are still going strong:

One of the bushes only has one bloom on the whole plant, which is weird. It could be from road salt as it does get some from the plows in the winter. Who knows?

My Zepherine Drouhin rose:

It is a climbing rose, but a lot of the canes die back in the winter here, so it is pretty short. I have two and one is much bigger than the other, likely due to the sun. I may move these this fall, but I’ll wait and see how much they grow this season.

Looking good for June!

Still have that blue/purple theme going right now.

Have a great weekend!

The big Five-Oh

It’s the big birthday today! 50 years old.  Sometimes I just don’t know where all the time goes. It seems like I just turned 40 LOL.

I wasn’t sure I was going to bike 50 miles or not. The weather wasn’t supposed to be great, so I had assumed it wouldn’t happen, but it was kind of sunny out and so I took my bike and myself out for a birthday bagel:

John was working, so I was solo. I figured I would take a long ride after breakfast and see where I would end up. It was fairly cool for riding in the upper 50s to low 60s.

I got back home at mile 26 and had to check and pack some orders. I decided I was going to shoot for the 50 miles even if it meant having to split it up because of working – not to mention biking by myself. That meant it was a bit of a boring ride because I was just putting in the miles closer to home in loops. I did 3 runs. The first was the 26 miles. The second was 16 and the last was 8 miles.  The last 4 or 5 miles and I was ready to be done. Not really physically, but mentally done. But – I did it!

This is an unfiltered post 50-mile look:

As I said on Facebook – next year I’m going metric.  50 miles is a lot of biking – 4 solid hours of riding time. I knew if I didn’t do it that I would have regretted it in the end for a milestone birthday.

That many miles meant a big piece of cake!  We had people over, so it had to be shared, but I still got a nice piece with a big flower of icing 🙂

This was from a local bakery. John has been so busy that I didn’t want to have him under pressure to make a cake this year. This was really good. Almond cake with raspberry filling and buttercream (of course!).

Now starts a new decade and I look forward to all it has in store!

What’s Blooming 6/1

Okay, last time I posted was last Friday. Oopsie! Time just gets away from me. Welcome to my garden blog 😀

I’ll start in the back today.

Heuchera. This is getting a bloom spike on it. I actually forgot they bloom since I planted them all as baby plants a couple of years ago.

Pretty foliage colors:

The wind and/or critters removed a lot of my plant markers so I don’t remember the name of this one. It’s either Marmalade or Southern Comfort.

This is a lilac bush that I got for my birthday last year.

It suffered a little in the harsh cold, I think, as the leaves are a little sparse. It’s supposed to rebloom, so we shall see.

And, our magnolia tree is officially dead. Nothing green on it at all and the end branches are dry and breaking off. I’m sad about that and we really don’t need the expense of a tree removal right now. It’s not really too big. I almost have half a mind to remove the branches and leave the trunk to decorate somehow.

The back garden still is somewhat sparse. This is taking me a long time to get it where I want it and filled in.  I have moonflower seeds planted where that black metal stand is. The plan is for them to twine up that.

Alliums in this bed along with the Boysenberry Buttercup iris like I have out front. It bloomed about a week after the one in the front bed.

When we moved into this house in 2015, the back garden was atrocious. I didn’t keep anything really, except for some iris rhizomes. I have been nurturing them without any blooms since then. I told myself if they didn’t bloom this year – out they go. Well, they must have listened because they bloomed!

I didn’t even know what color they were going to be! I wonder if the fact that they were in the shade for probably years is why it took them a while to get going again once I got them in the full sun that they need.  Patience is good for a gardener, but hard LOL.

Speaking of irises, the Brindled Beauty has opened up:

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Out in front, I had another surprise. I planted a Tour de France (yay cycling!!) iris rhizome, which is supposed to yellow and white. It didn’t bloom last year as it was establishing and I was sooooo excited to see buds on it this year. Then it opened.

That doesn’t look yellow to me. I obviously was sent the wrong plant. I am going to contact the company. I don’t really expect them to do much since I got it 2 years ago, but what a disappointment. Not that it isn’t pretty, but it wasn’t what I ordered.

Star of Persia allium just starting to open.

I’ll get a better picture once they are full. This is my favorite allium.

And the rhododendron that I “rejuvenated”. It’s flowering now.

You can see all that nice new growth at the bottom. I will be taking off most of the top of this. You can’t see from this angle, but those flowers kind of stick out from thin bare branches.

Love the flowers:

It’s weeding time in the garden this weekend. Have a great one!

What’s Blooming!

I love my garden so much! It makes me so happy to putter around out there and see all the changes day to day – and even from morning to evening!

Allium are still blooming. They last a long time, which is always a plus for a flower.

I also planted some small alliums, but now I can’t remember the name of them LOL.

My big bearded irises are showing off right now.  Boysenberry Buttercup:

 

This is a nice mature iris. I have had it for at least 6 years? I had it at our old house and I cut a chunk off for Radiance Manor 3 years ago.  There is one in the back garden as well, but that one hasn’t opened yet.

There is a blue/purple theme going on right now.

The front part of this bed has some ranunculus bulbs planted. I have no idea if they will come up or not, so it’s going to look bare until I decide I can’t stand the emptiness anymore LOL.

Batik is also about 3 years old. Nice size and lots of blooms this year:

This is one of my favorites.

Remember a couple of months ago when I did that container workshop?

It’s home with me and looking good!

I love it and am still trying to figure out where I’m going to put it.

Again, this is the calibrachoa annual. I have these in my tippy pots, too, but they haven’t bloomed.

My holiday weekend plans? Getting our back patio in order. It’s quite the mess:

I finally got all the solar light strings untangled, so hopefully those will get strung up as well.

 

Have a great weekend!

A day of fishing

I had an unexpected day off in the middle of last  week. For Christmas, my sister had given her husband and our dad the gift of a striped bass fishing tour.  Fast forward to mid April and Colleen texted me that there was room on the boat and asked if I wanted to come on May 16th.  I said yes in my mind thinking the 16th must be a weekend because why would it be scheduled on a weekday?  Then promptly didn’t think about it again with my overworked brain.

Then a week or so before the excursion, I asked John if he was going to need the car that Saturday. I said Saturday the 16th. He said that was the 19th. Puzzled confusion at this point and I realize that the fishing trip was actually a Wednesday LOL.  It’s probably a good thing I didn’t know that when Colleen asked or I likely would have said no. However, I deserved a day off and John could cover for me.

The tour was on the Hudson. Here is the dock:

Our boat was the last one on the right.  Not a very big boat. There was the captain and his first mate, plus the four of us. I think that would be the max.

The tour went into the Hudson. It is striped bass season and you don’t need a fishing license, but you do need a marine registry to fish for it. In NY, it is free to get this, which is pretty nice! Not only that, but you could register online and print out your registry. One of those times when technology is so awesome!

Ready to go!

We moved around to various spots, but didn’t have much luck with the striped bass. My father hooked one, but it got off the line before he could get it in.

Waiting for fish (I was snacking 😀 )

This is the Hudson and there are a fair number of bridges that cross it. When a larger boat goes through, they don’t lift the bridge, but it gets turned:

This bridge was for trains.  The boat goes through and they close it back up.  That boat on the right had a large antennae on it, which is just visible in the picture. They didn’t think it would fit under the bridge, so it was opened to let them through.  On a side note, there is an osprey nest at the top of that bridge and we saw one of the adults a few times flying around.

Striped bass eat herring, so our captain was fishing for herring during the tour for our bait. I wanted to try it, so he set me up with the pole and special lures.

Catching herring is really easy. Who knew?  Here I am handing one off to the captain to put in the bait bucket:

My herring:

I also caught a perch. We were trying to make it look bigger by putting it closer to the camera LOL!

He got sent back into the river to live another day.

While no one caught a bass, it was a nice day to be out on the boat and relaxing with family!

What’s Blooming!

New stuff to show this week. It’s going to be the pink and purple edition.  Our flowering cherry tree has started to drop all the petals and the ground is covered in pink:

It’s kind of romantic, really. This is in the shade bed. Or I guess the tree makes the shade bed, to be more accurate.

Speaking of the shade bed, the Solomon’s Seal is flowering:

Isn’t that a fun plant? Those white flowers don’t open. They just stay like that. I planted two of them and they seem to be spreading just a bit – which is good! This garden bed gets morning sun and then shade the rest of the day.

More from the back yard is the flowering almond. Dang if this thing isn’t completely covered in pink!

I do need to try to stake it as it is leaning to one side a bit.

Up front the allium have opened up. These are purple sensation:

I think I mentioned before that the foliage isn’t very attractive, so I try to plant it further back in the bed so other plants hide that. Or I will go out and trim the yellow stuff if I feel like it.

My rhododendron (back right in this pic) is struggling a little. I did that rejuvenation pruning on it a couple of years ago and it was doing pretty good, but I think this winter cold got to it. I will try and shave off the top as the bottom is nice and green.

More allium:

I have a lot of these all over in the front and back. The interesting thing is that the ones in the back garden haven’t even opened up yet. It gets later day sun and this part gets sun right from sunrise and I think that makes a difference even though the actual hours of sunlight are pretty much the same.

This is one not quite open:

That’s my toad house on the left. Broken pot. The hydrangea will cover this and give nice shade to our toads.

Here is the fully opened allium

It’s like a starburst.  I have other alliums that I will showcase once they bloom. I’m sold on this plant forever!

I bought some petunias for the front. Long-time readers may remember that I’m not overly fond of the petunia, but the colors on this are really cool and I got suckered in to buying some.

It’s called Surprise Green Tambourine if you want to ask for it at your local garden center.

Closer look:

Have a good weekend. Come back next Friday for Iris Palooza!

Yummy Salad and Glass Art by John

I was solo for dinner tonight. When we went grocery shopping over the weekend, I snagged an easy dinner for one of the nights he would be out.  This sounded appealing to me:

The whole bag is one serving and it makes a huge bowl. I couldn’t quite put all the lettuce in my bowl, but I was able to mash it down LOL.  I wanted extra protein, so I added some chicken breast on top. Ta da:

Doesn’t that look good? It was really tasty.  There were bits of dried pear mixed in with the nuts, but more pear flavor came from the dressing, which was a little weird because I wasn’t expecting it.  I would definitely get this again – especially in the hot summer months.

Anyway, on to the other part of the  title for this post. I posted way earlier this year that John was doing stained glass.  He decided to take it to the next level and open a business.  He focuses mostly on nature and flowers for his glass work.  He did a show last month and here is a portion of his setup:

The show itself wasn’t that great, but he did sell several of these pieces in his Etsy shop. The bird of paradise has been a popular piece:

And a plug for myself here in taking this photo for the white background 😀

His specialty is the potted orchids, or I guess I consider it his specialty:

Here is a link to his Etsy shop if you want to see some of his other pieces. Glass Art by John

His shop has been open for about 6 weeks and he also is on Amazon Handmade. He was surprised that he has been getting sales, but I wasn’t. I’m so proud of John and his creations!

What’s Blooming!

For real – blooms!  Warm weather and the garden popped out all over.

I haven’t planted tulips in a couple of years and mine are now on their last legs.  Here are the few that are left:

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There is a lot of greenery from the tulips, but they just don’t bloom anymore. So it’s time to dig them up and plant more. I won’t put any tulips out back because the rabbits ate all the buds that I had back there. They don’t eat in the front yard – for whatever reason – so only the front beds will get tulips.

Right next to the house, the lily of the valleys are blooming. Everywhere else they aren’t flowering yet, but it’s sheltered and warmer here:

Fragrant powerhouse!

The lawn violets are blooming:

We actually needed to mow the lawn this week! It feels so good to have things green and feeling like spring is here to stay.

Forget me nots:

And some random daffodils:

I spent some time this week cleaning a ton of maple seedlings out of the garden beds. It looks like the majority of plants survived the winter, including all my rose bushes – yay!  No lupines came back, though. As much as I love them, I think I’m done trying after 3 years.

There are lots of alliums getting ready to open, so those should make an appearance next week.

Have a great weekend!

Taking care of me

This whole year so far has felt just crazy, crazy.  Lots of stressful things and as many of you know, I’m a stress eater. I managed to put on about 10 pounds in 2018, which most certainly wasn’t on my goal list for the year.

Now some of the stresses have eased and I’ve decided that starting right now, I’m going to take better care of myself. Making better eating choices, trying to limit the extra hours I spend on the business (this is super duper hard for me), and getting out and doing my meditating — I wrote medicating LOL — in the garden. Now that warmer weather is here, there is a lot to do outside.

Back to my basics for eating, like my dinner tonight:

Making a concerted effort not to grab dry cereal for a snack at night and choose fruit or a York patty, which I don’t overeat for whatever reason.

Biking season has arrived and there will be a lot of that going on now.

Onward and downward, right?