A Balmy Christmas Eve – Part 5

 

Last one from our Christmas Eve adventure.  House on fire!

A Balmy Christmas Eve – Part 4

Another from our Christmas Eve light tour.  

A Balmy Christmas Eve – Part 3

Another from our Christmas Eve light tour.  I love this Nativity scene.

A Balmy Christmas Eve – Part 2

Another from our Christmas Eve light tour.  Not many lights in this yard, but the rain-slicked driveway really brightens things up. 

More pictures from Christmas Eve to come.

A Balmy Christmas Eve – Part 1

Christmas Eve, we drove around the Twin Cities looking at Christmas lights.  We had a record-breaking high of 55ºF and it had been steadily raining all day and night.  It was still 51ºF and raining during our adventure.  I was taking pictures without wearing a coat - just jeans and a T-shirt, and I wasn't cold.  In Minnesota, we don't normally still have patches of green grass in December!  

The wet roads added something special to the festive lights.  

More images from Christmas Eve to come.

Twenty-four Hour Triptych 2023

We got 2 inches of snow for Halloween.  Some call it a trick.  Some call it a treat.  I think it is pretty, but much of it has already melted.  The first and last images are exactly 24 hours apart – to the minute!

Late Blooming Babies

 It's late September and my peppers and zucchinis finally decide to start producing!  

Nothing but flowers all summer from my peppers.  

The zucchinis have had beautiful flowers all summer long, but some critter keeps snipping them off before the veggie can grow.  

It's a coin toss as to whether I will get any harvest before the first freeze.  The biggest pepper is about the size of my thumbnail.  The zucchini is about 1.5 inches long.  They are very cute though.

Caprese

 Made some chopped Caprese salad with fresh tomatoes and basil from the garden.

Fruit of my Labor

 We had strawberry plants when I was a child.  I bought a couple plants this year to see how it would go and so far I've been really pleased with the plants.  They are getting big and starting to produce lovely ripened fruit (as long as I get to them before naughty critters.)

They had a rocky start with some of the earliest fruit in June getting bug infested or chomped on by critters.  I'll get more plants next year and work harder to keep pests away.

Smokin'

 

This Too, Shall Pass

The first bird-planted Nyjer flower has opened!  When nature turns bird poo into beautiful flowers, everyone wins.

Bedraggled Butterfly

Thursday evening I was out checking my garden when I noticed a butterfly upside down in a cup of water.  I saw it struggling to right itself, so I quickly and carefully picked it out.  The poor, bedraggled, soaking-wet creature sat on my finger fluttering its wings and trying to dry out.  

I looked for a safe place to set it and found a nice milkweed.  It latched onto the milkweed and sat sunning itself in the evening glow.  It may not be able to fly with such tattered wings, but it seemed grateful for the helping hand.

Fuzzy

 

Happy Independence Day

 Happy Independence Day!

Blooming Strawberries

 

Vibrant

 We had the sprinkler watering the flowers today.  I couldn't resist taking a picture.  I love this color of daylilies. 

This is How My Garden Grows

It's been 12 years since I've planted a produce garden!  We got a couple raised planters this spring.  One is fully complete and I'm enjoying watching everything grow.  These plants (zucchini and snow pea) were supposed to go in the second planter, but they were starting to grow so fast that I decided to plant them in bed number 1 instead.  Yes, I ate that first snow pea.  

Mother's Day Pink

For the most part, I've been avoiding the internet today.  Mother's Day is not my favorite day.  In fact, if I'm being honest with myself, I hate Mother's Day.  It holds no joy for me anymore.

Yesterday I was thinking about when I was a kid, there would always be symbolic red and white flowers for mothers and daughters to take home after the church service was over.  I found a good article explaining it for those who've never heard about it.

My mom would always take a white flower.  As a kid, I never realized how hard that must have been for her.  We'd bring our flowers home – hers white and mine red.  These days, mine would be white and I don't have anyone to give a red one to.  Holidays can be cruel when you don't qualify.

Many moons ago, I was going through a dark time in my life.  It was just one bad thing after another.  Practically every day there would be some new dark twist.  I would cry out to God to please "throw me a bone."  Just a little, tiny something to get me through.  Every time, He would.  Sometimes I didn't even get a chance to ask.  He would throw me a bone before I even asked or knew I needed one.

This year, my husband bought me a bonsai tree for Valentine's Day.  It's been a lovely challenge to keep it alive and thriving, as it's not as forgiving as some plants.  I've had to water it every day, even back when it was still winter.  It's a summer blooming plant and I was very excited to see buds appear a week ago or so.  

Today, Mother's Day, the first flower has opened.  Mother's Day, the day I hate, a beautiful pink flower opens.  A pink flower: Red + White = Pink.

Thank you, God, for throwing me a beautiful, pink bone.