Buttercup Fields and Cotton Candy Clouds

Dad and I went for a walk last week between showers and saw this beautiful vista. The birds were singing! The wind was a bit chill but the sun was warm on our faces. I enjoyed the fragrance of new green and flowers in bloom that always seem particularly heady after a shower. It was a good day.

Sunday project

We may not have had much sunshine, but at least it wasn't raining! And the sun did actually come out in the late afternoon, when these photos were taken.

Brent and Aizia, along with Dad's supervision, started my newest raised garden bed. This will be a mostly shade garden, as it won't get sun until late in the afternoon. I cannot wait to get some soil into it and start planting!

 Here Aizia spreads the all-important landscape cloth or weed-block fabric to the bottom of the bed. We do this in a vain effort to keep out the horsetails. At least it does help for a few years.

 And the untreated sidewalls go up.

After the boxes are completed. The bare wood is lined in heavy mil plastic to protect the wood from soil exposure. It'll buy us a few extra years of life for the wood, without having to resort to treated wood.

First into the new bed will be a division of the Dicentra, or Bleeding Heart, from the corner of the bed directly behind Aizia in this picture. It was transplanted from my sister's garden last year and has just gotten huge! You can see it above her head in this picture.

Next into the bed will be these clumps of fern. They were dug out from behind the steps seen here (before they were rebuilt with solid risers) and spent last summer flourishing despite the fact their root balls were exposed.

I think I will also add some cutting flowers to enjoy in the house, seeing as I still have a flat of Snap Dragons and mixed Zinnias to plant!

Happy Mother's Day!

For the first 24 years of my life, this day was solely dedicated to my Mama and thanking her for all that she had done for me throughout my life.

I remember the 'secret' projects done at school for Mother's Day surprises. In fact, while recently going through the family home (while packing Daddy up for a move into the house across the street from me), I found the napkin holder I  made while in Bluebirds. It was a five pound coffee can covered in crinkled foil, with an unrolled yellow nylon dish scrubbie stretched over it and had a very bedraggled blue plastic flower attached to the front.

Forty years later, it was still in the cupboard. It had no room inside it for napkins now, being full of memories!



1962
Mama: Geraldine Roxanna Fowles Clark Wallis, Nana: Malinda Pearl Bush Fowles (holding me), and Mumum: Theda Geraldine Fowles Clark



1962

For the next 22 years, we shared the day, our bond all that much stronger since I had joined the ranks of motherhood and had a truer knowledge of the depth of her love for me.

Today, after saying a prayer to thank God for the years I had my Mama's presence in my life, I will rejoice in the fact that God has blessed me with three children to love. Loved them as they formed within me, loved them as we raised them through all the heart-melting toothless grins, the temper tantrums, skinned knees, fevers, and teenage angst-filled years.

Now, with pride, I step back and see them as adults, and love them even more!

November 2010

I want to wish my sisters, Janet, 'Reen, 'Manda, Georgia and Alyson a wonderful and very Happy Mother's Day!

As well, I'd like to send a special hug and kiss to the mother who raised the wonderful man I married! You did a good job, Mom! And I love you, thanks for being there, these past 30 years!