The Lovely Peony

The peonies are coming up in the garden. 

 I imagine that in the next week or so, we'll see some blossoms. 

To celebrate their arrival, I pulled a few blossom photos from the archives.

Have a wonderful day!

A Love of Hydrangeas

I brought home a bouquet of cut hydrangeas the other day. 

It's made me think of all the hydrangeas I've planted in the garden. 

I've planted twelve varieties over the past several years. 

I just love them.

There's the Limelight and Mini Limelights that surround our dining patio. 

We also planted a hedge of Limelights along the old sauna building. 

My favorite varieties are those that express this wonderful lavender-blue hue. 

Nikko Blue, Endless Summer, Penny Pac...are all dependable for this coloring in their blossoms. 

This bed of Little Lamb hydrangea are under the windows at the east end of the dining room. 

Hydrangeas (hydro) are named for their love and need of lots of water. If your cut bouquets start to fade, give them a nice cool bath and they will brighten up. It's wonderful to watch. 

Endless Summer. 

This variety blooms all summer long. A few more examples of their blossoms follow below. 

Endless Summer. 

Endless Summer. 

Endless Summer. 

This hydrangea bed has mostly Endless Summer, with a mix of pinks and blues. 

They were so small (one gallon pots and smaller) when we planted them. 

It's amazing to see them so big now. 

You can see a large Nikko Blue blossom in the back corner. 

Classic Nikko Blue. 

They are all so brilliant in color. 

The north facing hydrangea bed has a wonderful view of the valley. 

This Pee Gee hydrangea is in the front bed which receives a lot of sun throughout the day. Pee Gee is a sun tolerant variety so I planted several of them. 

I also planted some Pee Gee's in front of the dining room windows (on left). As you can see, they look a lot like the Little Lamb hydrangeas underneath the east facing dining room windows (on right). 

Here they are again from the porch. 

Hydrangeas have been a wonderful addition to our gardens. They have thrived in our Pacific Northwest environment (we are in Zone 5). 

Also, the deer have never bothered them and unlike the roses, we've never had to treat them for anything (fungus, pests, etc.). 

They are amazingly low maintenance. 

They just need water. 

I hope to plant some of these favorite hydrangeas at our new home. I'll have to wait and see what zone we end up in! 

Easter Light

 

It was such a glorious day yesterday. We spent the last few hours of the day running around in the warm, late afternoon sun, and taking a few pictures of our familiar scenes. 

These trees by the guest house are where we hang the hammock. The ground beneath is carpeted with a wonderful clover ground cover - it's just an oasis of soft delicate sprouts under your feet. 

Which reminds me...I still need to do a post on the guest house exterior. 

Mt. Adams in Washington state. 

The mountains on the horizon are also in Washington state. 

Our beloved fence. 

I commented to Mike that sometimes the mountain reminds me of a renaissance portrait, whose eyes are with you wherever you are in the room. According to Native American legend, Pahto (Mt. Adams) and Wy'east (Mt. Hood) were sons of the Great Spirit. They competed for the love of the beautiful La-wa-la-clough (Mt. St. Helens). As the legend goes, Pahto became very sad when La-wa-la-clough went away. So maybe my sense of the Mountain's eyes are Pahto watching out for the return of his lovely maiden. 

Dusk. 

The mountain is always the last to see the light at the end of the day. 

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Easter. 

Spring Flowers

Lately, it had felt as if winter had left us for the year.

Some of the bulbs have sprouted from the earth. 

A few leaves have begun their sleepy stretch. 

The feel of spring was so strong, I brought tulips and rananuculas home from the market the other day. 

I told the babies that it was time. 

It was time to think of spring. 

Time to dream of a warmer sunshine.

Flowers.

Bare feet.

Time to giggle over the sound crickets make at the end of a long summer day. 

Time to dream of fireflies dancing in the night.  

Officially, it is still winter, and this morning we woke to sleet and very cold rain.

But our hearts are singing spring. 

And even little soft tweets of summer. 

xo

A Crisp Morning View

I stopped for a minute to capture the view from our house this morning. The morning unfolded into a lovely spring-like day - a wonderful way to begin the week.

A White Christmas

Between gifts from family and friends and of course, Santa Claus, we had quite the bundle to be thankful for this Christmas. 

My favorite Christmas present from Mike was his thoughtfulness. He stayed up late Christmas Eve and unbeknownst to me (as I was fast asleep), he tidied the house and baked all sorts of things while waiting up for Santa. 

He even took the time to write all the dishes down on the kitchen chalkboard. 

How cute is that? 

The dishes with the (v) are vegan dishes as we are striving to be more and more vegan each day. 

He baked Sweet Potato muffins (vegan). 

They were amazing! He found the recipe here.  

Take 1: 

This is the face I get when I ask Mike to pose for a picture. 

Take 2: 

This is him contemplating my request to smile like he means it. 

Here he is with his pumpkin pie made with the last of our garden pumpkins. 

He used this pie crust recipe but substituted spelt flour for the white flour. 

Delicious!

Anyone have a fabulous vegan pumpkin pie recipe to share? 

I spied a little still life as I wandered through his bustling kitchen and asked, "Is this wine?" 

He had poured the wine to eliminate the sediment from the older bottle, and to let it breathe a little. 

Was he surprised that I took a picture of his breathing wine? Probably not. 

This Golden Lentil Stew is a new favorite. I think the special ingredient is the chopped dates, along with the combination of the sweeter spices and more pungent herbs. 

This dish is so good over roasted herb potatoes. 

Here is the recipe, although we opted to not add the pasta. 

Outside, the snow fell and covered each and every branch and limb that the eye could see. 

The stillness of that first snow fall is always quite magical. 

I hope that the holiday season is warming hearth and soul. 

Peace

for 

Everyone. 

Happy New Year. 

xo

'Tis the Season

The house is filled with flowers, cedar clippings, and a Christmas tree not yet decorated. 

I draped cedar clippings around the chandelier. I love the contrast between the organic and the crystal. 

I just love this time of year. 

White poinsettias are always a favorite of mine. I could fill the entire house with them but I only put them up high and out of reach of little arms.

These are clippings from a broken plant that toppled over. The cuttings last wonderfully long. 

I always start out with more elaborate plans for the mantle, but in the end left it sparse as usual. I just love the simplicity of evergreens all on their own. 

I made the little wreaths using some floral wire. I saw this in a magazine years ago and I'm just  getting around to doing it this Christmas. 

I didn't get a chance to force paper whites or amaryllis this year.  Perhaps for the New Year? They go on sale soon after Christmas, so perhaps I'll indulge then. 

The little cedar wreaths make the familiar so much more festive. 

The tree is standing with lots of lights (and hopefully freshly watered...why do I always think of checking the water late at night?), but not yet decorated. 

We'll see if we get to that before Christmas! 

We are finding enough time to eat lots of festive foods however. Mike made a pumpkin pie from the garden pumpkins and then there's those Christmas cookies... I just bought some fresh organic apple cider with some mulling spices, and hope that a warm cup of that is going to replace all desire for Christmas sweets. 

I'll let you know how that goes. 

Happy holiday season to you and yours. 

xo