Flowers in Every Room!

It's Wednesday afternoon so already I am a day late posting my thoughts and photographs in a space we call Camera Crazy. For nearly two decades I've been doing so and it still makes me so happy to both take photographs and write about the beauty we see. I hope it brings you a modicum of joy when you read it and seriously, who doesn't love seeing the beautiful world we live in? Prior to sitting down to write I was fertilizing our plants, both indoors and out. The garden is coming along nicely and as I have mentioned before, we are eating a lot of salad these days. And while the vegetables are pretty, the star of our property as I type are the peonies.

In fact there are so many that I ran out of vases and we had to stop by the thrift store to buy another after pickleball today.

Actually the star of the inside of the house right now is this beautiful bouquet that Michelle and David sent me for Mother's Day.

Mostly blue and white, it is a stunner with lilies that have opened and are competing with the peonies for filling the air with fragrance.

After church we joined David and D'Anna at Lakeside Inn in Nantahala where the food was yummy and the view is seriously, unreal. I looked at the photo and thought, if anyone else took this I would be tempted to think it was fake or overly edited, but you know me, what you see is what you get! 

We did good with our boys. While that sounds like I am bragging, I'm simply stating the facts because when all four of your sons contact you before noon on Mother's Day, you have done something right! 😀 I will say that it would have been my sister Carol's birthday and for some reason it really got to me this year, although it has been a long time now since I wrote this remembrance of her. I cannot really read it because it chokes me up, but you can if you click on the link. She was 18 months younger than me and was I also ever thinking of my mom who became pregnant again nine months after I was born. I've said it many times, our mother was difficult but we survived and in some ways, maybe we are stronger for it.

Back to happier topics....

Bruce finally took this out of the bluebird box and you might wonder, why?

Isn't it so beautiful and amazing? He found it like this about two months ago and because it is so perfectly clean I was sure it was new, however, no bluebirds have taken up residence, so we are cleaning house and hoping for a late clutch.

Mr. Bruce has been working hard on making a lovely frame for the new oil painting that will take pride of place in our home. Here he is talking with the artist.

It is interesting that in our Orlando home most of the art would be considered modern, but for this house, the blue painting above looks beautiful. I will show you when he has finished the frame. 

Speaking of the fireplace....oh my word what an experience we had last week and no, there was no disaster but it was interesting to say the least. Since we bought this house Bruce has been dead-set on having someone help us have a working fireplace. In our case, a company from Waynesville, NC said they have done it many times so we had them drive the 85 miles over to inspect the fireplace and tell us what they could do. It was raining like crazy that day, but the fellows kept everything tidy and kept covering their shoes which looked like a pain to me so I told them don't bother and they said no way!

See that debris rushing down into the bucket? You did not want to see it up close I will tell you that much! Who knows how long it has been since someone looked up there and cleaned it out, but by the number of buckets worth of nests of any number of critters, it had been a while. They were terrific and after returning to Waynesville, sent an estimate of how they can put in a box with gas etc. Complicated and what we consider, expensive, we will be going there next week to see the inserts in person. Wish us luck!

Another day I tagged along while Bruce visited a nursery of sorts for plants for the memorial garden at church. While he talked, after receiving permission to roam around with my camera, what fun I had seeing a new environment.

Don't you just love those little buttercups?  Me too. Out in an area called Upper Peachtree, mostly it is rural and what that usually means around here is abandoned something. In this case it was a house that had both sliders open for what I later learned were years.

A messy and overgrown spot punctuated by these beautiful peonies that were going to waste, 

until I asked the lady in the shop if she wanted them for her florist business that was part of the space? No, but you can have them if you want them and you already have seen the evidence of my affirmative answer. One funny thing was that she had mentioned a snake had been on the road which is not funny at all, but thankfully, even though the borrowed scissors dropped out of my hand into that mass of flowers, no snake was detected! It was my lucky day! 

Any day I see cows grazing is a lucky day too.

I talked about the Spring Fling but never showed you any of it so now is your chance! For the first time ever, the new stage was put to use! Part of Laura's legacy with the town.

After nearly two years of disruption in town, the project is nearly at an end, however, new roadwork remains to be done and that will begin next week. In the meantime, everything is looking very good indeed. The festival featured some artisans at their work including this blacksmith, 

woodworkers, and weavers.

She asked me about recent bird sightings because I met her as one of the counters of Chimney Swifts, and goes on the bird walks as well.

Just when you thought you would be seeing birds in every post, they are mostly becoming hard to see because of the lushness of the foliage. This little Eastern Phoebe though made it easy to spot her!

Sorry for the bird insert; back to the fun at the festival where there were all kinds of musicians showcased.

Pictured with our mayor, Tim Radford, the winners of "Murphy Takes the Mic", the singing competition I mentioned. 

It must have been last Tuesday that we stopped into Fairy Cross and found friends. 

It was just like old times and great fun. We went across the street for dinner with George and Tammy who were leaving in the morning to head to New Hampshire.

We have met some very interesting folks since moving here and this couple is but one of them.

I did not win the contest. The moment I saw how high they placed my entry I knew I was sunk. Either that or the judges don't like birds or appreciate how hard it is to get good photos of them. 

No way can you appreciate tiny drops of snow on his little head and puffy body to ward off the cold! 

My bluebird photo was also in a weird spot, but maybe this one would have done the trick? Hard to get two species in one shot.

I want that worm, said baby bluebird to his momma!

Here's something interesting, or at least it is to me. My bale of hay has taken on some friends.

I discovered these weird mushrooms when I went to grab more hay to add to what I already have around the potatoes which are growing like mad above ground! Hopefully tubers are forming below.

Isn't this fun? Every day I am amazed and thrilled with this process.

As to the flowers in every room, well that is very exciting indeed.

your friend,

Gail