An Abundance of Rain

 If you have ever tried dead-heading a viola plant, you know it is quite the pain as there are so many blooms and, frankly, oftentimes it is hard to tell what is a bud, or what is a spent bloom. With that in mind, I decided to do an experiment and I am thrilled to report the results so should you find yourself with said plant you will benefit from my experience. I was sitting on the front porch steps, diligently picking off what I supposed to be spent blooms in order to force new ones. So far, so good. Except, with four plants it became seriously tiresome which is when I thought to myself, "self, what do you suppose would happen if you just gave the plant a serious cutting back?" Friends, that is the ticket! After about a week, blooms began appearing and the plant now looks better than ever, just when the warm weather is meant to cause a decline!

Foliage was what remained after the shearing, and take a look at it now!! Bonus points for maple tree starts! Actually they are happening in all of my potted plants out front. As well, Bruce planted a Japanese Maple that started under our tree; apparently they are very slow growing which, in part, is why they are so expensive. A tree that looks beautiful in every season! 

I took the photo above a few days ago and you can see that it is changing from the deep magenta right before my eyes. Well, Bruce's as well, but he is just a wee bit less enthusiastic about all that we see. Not that he does not like it but, let's just say, there are times where he is more focused on doing things. Such as making the frame for our painting which now we are questioning my color choice for the frame. The idea was to match the adjacent windows in the craftsman style, but neither of us are completely sold on the white. Any other ideas? We want to honor both the painter and the frame maker so we want to get it right.

Last week was not nearly as busy as some which left Bruce time to do something he has wanted to do since we moved in. Not the fireplace, although I have information on that front in a little bit, but paint the basement floor. What a task that he made look so easy because he is so methodical. We do not share that trait! We went to our local paint store and by that I mean the one that is privately owned for the last 50+ years and Jeff had just what we needed. Epoxy garage floor paint that had been sitting for awhile so he gave Bruce a half price deal on four gallons. Paint in hand, he was off to the races. You might wonder how he managed and I am hear to explain. He moved things around a little bit at a time.

He has amassed a lot of equipment in our two years of residence, 

and there were plenty of cabinets and what have you when we got here. Look at this!!!

That ancient, well ancient is a bit strong, but anyway, the decades old basement floor now looks amazing and brightens up the whole space.

One of the things he moved out of the basement was an old grave marker. Say what? We've been told the house was once on a Halloween ghost tour because of said marker that from my research has been there for 50+ years! Of course we did not know what to do with it except probably not keep it in the basement any longer so carrying it on a dolly Bruce placed it below the gigantic magnolia tree.

It seems as if it is from the man of the house Roy Dennis Chandler who died the year we graduated high school.  From the linked information, I see that his wife Ruth, who lived here for 50 years, lived to be 98 years old! Well, I suspect when you opened Camera Crazy today that you never imagined I would be writing about this subject. What is interesting is that apparently both Roy and Ruth are buried in the Sunset Cemetery that is up on a hill adjacent to the river walk! It's a small town folks. 

Wednesday, last week, was the day we were scheduled to go to the fireplace store in Waynesville, a town of 10,000+ about 80 miles east of us. 

We saw a version of this gas model which is the only one suited for an old coal fireplace. 

A list of questions a mile long was on Bruce's pad and the young man answered them well, however, we did not say yes that day. It is a very involved project that apparently we needed to warm up to! 

Actually, six days later, I think Bruce has pretty much decided, why not? 

The town is very cute,

and apparently the gateway to the Smoky Mountain National Park.

The mountain backdrop is really something!

And of course, Waynesville is where our pastor is going and will be leading this big church that takes up a whole city block!

We have become accustomed to the idea, but no one is saying that we are not still sad!

The drive to Waynesville was so lovely with walls of green beside the road. Please forgive me for going on about the green, but it is just amazing this year.

Which is actually weird because rain had been sporadic until this week when the heavens opened wide! 

A crazy thing happened last night and not for the first time since we have lived here. We were having dinner at a friend's house up high on one of the mountains during which time it stormed like crazy. During a break in the action, Jonathan happened to text me, saying he was seeing big storms in store for Murphy. Mind you he is in Japan and who knows what time it was, but anyway, I said we needed to leave before darkness fell and it began pouring again. Bruce is better at mountain driving, but is still not a fan of nighttime driving, especially in the rain. Driving on the only road we know out of there, and well, a massive tree had fallen across the road.

The fellow pictured above was coming to see if we had a chain saw, which of course we did not because we have not taken up that practice just yet. Apparently his chain saw got stuck in the huge tree! Now what? I have no idea what happened to him, but fortunately for us, using our trusty iPad, we found an alternate route, one which took us past a pasture with like 25 deer in it!!!! If it weren't dark and raining we most certainly would have stopped for a picture.

Whew! We made it home safe and sound! One more crazy thing about that night is the house was built by John and Laura when they still lived in Dade City and came up for the summers. They used the same floor plan that was on the first floor for the cottage we rented!! It was sort of weird. Then again, it was good thinking about how much we loved the cottage.

Garden update: Cabbages are forming in spite of having "pest pressure" a term I learned on one of the Youtube videos. 😁

Lots more to say about the garden but I will mostly save that for another day. Please tell me why are the pests eating the very marigolds that are supposed to be protecting my plants?!

Shishito pepper plant with a tiny pepper and flowers, okra and spinach on that row. Bottom row are peppers, tomato plant seedlings, bush bean plant and other beans. Time will tell!

It just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Woo hoo!

The next two photos are another super cool thing I witnessed, taken 5 seconds apart. Tree swallow family was considering a move into the bluebird families home.

Not so fast!!

Both parents swooped in at once! A little before the above photo, I took the one below that is so fun.

So what about all that rain? I wish I knew. One thing I always did in Orlando was watch the rainfall in the newspaper which recorded how far over or under we were from the norm. And while they measured it at the airport which obviously was not the same for everyone, at least it was something. Here, I have no idea where to look for that information. One bit of information I have is that my garden is happy because of daily rain!

Guess what? Do I really need to know? No. Each and every day I am learning to change my ways and just be grateful. This morning when Lori and I were walking to the bank to pick up the offering, I told her about Carol and Maureen and the motto we adopted when we moved here: doing all that we can while we can." It still applies!

your friend,

Gail