a blog about the garden of life and life in the garden
It's a "Bee-tiful day celebrating Brooklyn's 1st Halloween! She is a gorgeous sleeping bee this evening.
But over the last few days she's been wearing many of her holiday shirts and some of them won't even get worn. What's a girl to do - too many Halloween outfits and not enough time to wear them all. I think she looks like her beautiful mommy...she sure has mommy's big eyes but they are pretty dark so they might turn into daddy's gorgeous brown ones too.
Brooklyn and her parents came home from their hospital stay yesterday. She was so cute wrapped up in her cupcake blanket with her cupcake hat.
Her uncle Nathan and auntie Tammy were the first visitors to see her at home and got lots of holding time in.
Her daddy had to leave today to coach a football playoff game so Brooklyn showed her support in her football hat.
Then she changed into the first of her many Halloween outfits...this one is her "wickedly cute" kitty outfit with matching hat and socks.
One last photo for my readers who come to this blog expecting to see bird photos...a grouse showing off in Jayme's backyard.
In all our joyous celebrations of Brooklyn's arrival we continually pray for Justin as he struggles with pain management and low blood levels and has been admitted to the hospital. Please continue to pray for him - you may reach his caringbridge site by clicking on the "keep praying for Justin" photo on my left sidebar.
Introducing Brooklyn Faith born last night at 8:43 pm.
The proud parents, Jayme & Scott.
After getting weighed at 7 lbs. 5 oz and measured at 19.8 inches she was diapered and swaddled and handed to daddy. She was wide awake and alert taking it all in.
Spending time with mommy...
and meeting grandma Marsha.
Have you ever seen a baby only 30 minutes old be so alert? This grandma is bragging already :)
The first and last photos are from this morning and she is just such a precious little baby...grandma can't get enough of her.
Brooklyn, Grandma & Grandpa J love you!
Visitors outside my daughter's window...still no baby bee, so you get birds and squirrels :)
One year ago today, our first grandchild was born into heaven. Jayme & Scott received the following poem from a dear friend in one of their cards...
It was cold and windy today but yet as I glanced out a window I saw several butterflies...how fitting that today they graced my garden. The dream of the life Ethan would have had here with his earthly family has been on my mind all day, yet I know he is happy in heaven.
Tomorrow, October 15th, is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day, a day to honor all baby losses by lighting candles for one hour at 7 pm in your time zone so that a wave of light goes around the world.
I remember two babies each time I see a butterfly...
and this year Jeff & I will be lighting two candles...
one for our precious baby Ethan and one for our equally precious second grandchild, Nathan & Tammy's Baby J, lost to early miscarriage in June.
A Symbol of Hope...
Yesterday, I read the post titled "What's Still Blooming in Your Garden?" on the blog, My Northern Garden, and it inspired me to post one last garden tour of the season. As you can see our warmer than average October has still left me with lots of blooming annuals. 
The back borders and the west end of the garden have all been chopped down and cleaned up. I also took out all the floating island planters from the pond in an effort to eliminate some of that nasty frog population. The Tamarack (American Larch) tree is starting to change to it's golden color and soon it's needles will fall.
The salvia hummingbird garden is still in full bloom but I have not seen a hummer since October 5th. Speaking of seeing things, Marigene asked in yesterday's post if I saw the monarch migration (butterfly covered trees) this year. Sadly, the answer is no - according to my records it is always around August 26-28th and this year I was in northern MN decorating baby bee's nursery during that time period.
The front of the cabin is especially pretty with some fuschia colored mums, purple asters, flowering kale & gem marigolds.
I've talked about my 3 favorite annuals before...victoria blue salvia (the blue spike still blooming in most of these photos), lisanthus (still blooming) and the gem marigolds. Below, along the path to the gazebo you can see all 3 varieties...the yellow blossoms of lemon gem in the foreground, the orange blossoms of tangerine gem in the middle and the reddish orange blossoms of the red gem (closest to the gazebo).
Gem marigolds grow into a good sized mound, their foilage is finely cut and the blossoms are the size of my thumbnail. The profuse flowering of the plant more than makes up for the size of the blossom for impact in the landscape. I love to plant these along the paths because when you brush them as you walk by you are rewarded with a wonderful citrusy scent (not as strong as a normal marigold). I'm lucky enough to have most of my plants self seed from year to year but this year I also bought packets of seed from Territorial Seed when I discovered they had the red gem seed which I haven't found locally.
The beds on the side of the garage are still blooming with victoria white & blue salvia, imagination verbena & petunias which are all self seeded.
The path to the front of the barn was still blooming with marigolds, petunias & verbena but I pulled the plants out after I keep tripping on their overgrowth while putting away summer yard stuff for the winter. The herbs are still growing strong as well as a few late Polish Spirit clematis blossoms.
The back of the barn has asters, gallardia & some rudebeckia still blooming.
The front rose garden is still blooming along with scattered annuals...
and the front door bed still has color from mums, autumn joy sedum and annuals.
So that's the tour :) I leave you with some mosaics of some of the individual blossoms I enjoyed yesterday.
