It was so easy to make.

  I just picked out a basic evergreen garland in enough length to wrap around my front door and side lights. 

 I also chose a couple of garlands that brighten up the holidays to mix in (in the same length as my evergreen ones). 

I then twisted them together with some light strands and now I have a beautiful garland to light up my front entry.

  Hopefully it will last as long as the previous one.

~”It is Christmas in the heart that puts Christmas in the air.”  ~W.T. Ellis

http://blog.gardenshoesonline.com/?p=11211 Since I have a really big fenced in yard, I always try to grow plants that will vine up the fence so it doesn’t seem so huge.

One of my favorites is the morning glory.

This year I had luck with several different types.

They are really at their peak now with all the beautiful flowers that last longer into the day now that the weather is cooling off quite a lot and feeling like fall.

During the hot months if I didn’t get out there early I could easily miss the glory of the morning  blooms and only see their fading, wilting flowers as the day heated up.

I even was lucky enought to get some moonflowers to blossom this year.  They have a wonderful fragrance that wafts in the air on hot summer nights. 

 I just love them although this is the first year they have actually grown for me.  I plant them each year and somehow they never amount to anything.  Not the case this year.  I was rewarded with two beautfil plants that have flowered beautifully.   They are really large flowers too. 

Just yesterday I was thrilled to find these beautiful double morning glories amongst the others.  I don’t even remember buying these but I am so glad they are here.  I believe they are Sunrise Serenade.

The beauty of morning glories is that they usually will reseed themselves but I always collect the seeds so I am sure to start some early indoors to give them a bit of a head start.

This is myself, the mister and the grandaughter Gracie. 

It was a blustery, cold day but we bundled up and enjoyed the occasion. 

Normally we cut our own, but there were so many beautiful trees already cut and on display in the barn, we couldn’t resist the warmth involved in choosing one inside.  

They had quite a display of fresh wreaths made also. 

 Gracie seemed to enjoy the festivities although I don’t think she quite understood why we passed her around for so many photo ops.

Our good friends came along to get their tree also, which made it even more fun. 

Being sure the tree was secure took a lot of deliberation…

But in the end, it was all good!

The perfect Christmas tree?  All Christmas trees are perfect!  ~Charles N. Barnard

our wonderful dog who is an English Setter.  He is showing his holiday spirit in front of our RED front door with it’s RED wreath.

 ~”Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole.”  ~Roger Caras            

Check out this photo on Front Porch Ideas and More… Thunder is famous now. 

A local orthodontist has these gigantic pumpkins carved every year and puts them in the front of his office for the passerbys to enjoy.

I am not only in awe of the size but also of the work it took to carve them. The largest one stands about four feet high. 

It’s hard to tell from these photos just how enormous they are. 

 It’s a very traveled street so they are seen by many and always enjoyed.  

 What a Halloween treat!

  ~”Tonight the Great Pumpkin will rise out of the pumpkin patch” ~ Linus

I took a ride with my son, his wife and their daughter Gracie to see the beautiful October foliage and to get our pumpkins. 

  We were headed to their friend Matt’s house.  He grows pumpkins and sells them in the barn outside of the farmhouse he is remodeling. 

 He has done a magnificent job restoring this very old home and barn. 

 There is pretty much nothing in the barn right now except for pumpkins

and plenty of them. 

 After a look around we easily settled on a few.  There was one imparticular little pumpkin in the patch that we couldn’t resist…

 she’s a keeper.

~”I never met a pumpkin I didn’t like”.~unknown

The sun has been shining the past couple of days

and the flowers seem to be making their last hurrah,

 almost as if they know the end of summer is closing in. 

The cooler temperatures make them happy but they sure could use more rain. 

The bees seem very busy trying to get their last bits of nectar,

as are the monarchs as they flutter along their journey stopping for a rest on a random butterfly bush flower or nasturtium. 

It won’t be long now and we will be closing it all down,

 anticipating spring once again.

~”Autumn is a season followed immediately by looking forward to spring.”~ Doug Larson

 Although it is spitting a bit of rain here and there today and the temperatures are only in the high fifties, the temperatures over the past few weeks have been sweltering and we have had very little rain. 

No amount of watering has seemed to quench my garden’s thirst.

Not even the very recent cooler temperatures are helping because it has been windy.

That seems to dry everything even more than the lack of rain. 

  My flowers are still trying very hard to look lovely,

 and succeeding, mostly. 

 I try to look past the dried out dirt between them and only see their colors and beauty. 

Ahhh to be blinded by love.

“The foliage has been losing its freshness through the month of August, and here and there a yellow leaf
shows itself like the first gray hair amidst the locks of a beauty who has seen one season too many.”
-   Oliver Wendell Holmes

  

  

 

 

 

Last Friday, my husband and I hit the Madison- Bouckville Antique Show.  I thought it would be fun to show for VTT.  It is a huge gathering with over one thousand dealers in upstate NY.  It’s in the middle of corn fields surrounded by more corn fields.  Really pretty.  We look forward to it every year. 

This time we went on a Friday and skipped the actual show that you have to pay to get into, and just visited the dealers that rent space in the main street.  There are more than enough to keep us entertained for a full day and their prices are better outside of the show.   There are all kinds of great food, snacks, beverages and most importantly cool stuff. 

I always spend the first hour or so being completely overwhelmed and then my mind focuses and I find things that interest me.

 A cute pair of chick S &P shakers for $5 made me very happy.

 One of the things that I noticed a lot of, were metal chairs like the ones my back yard is full of.  I just recently posted about redoing a few I found on the curb. At the show, they sold for at least 38 dollars or more, in curbside condition, as you can see in the photo.  None of them were fixed up at all. Pricey, I thought.

 I bought a few items for my garden from an artist there that did lawn ornaments and trellises.   

My big find of the day was the wonderful chaise lounge from the same eras as my metal chairs.  I had never seen one of these before and we were absolutely thrilled to find it. We promptly snatched that up for $40.  The arms are a well worn red and the wheels are red too.  I am now on  a mission to find  the best fabric to make a cushion for it.  It was a great find.  I will post pictures of the finished project soon. 

 We had a great time! Can’t wait to go again next year.

Just living is not enough.  One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.  ~Hans Christian Anderson

 Visit My Romantic Home for Show and Tell Friday.Visit Suzanne at Colorado Lady for Vintage Thingie Thursday

He very slowly dawdled between flowers in my garden while I snapped his picture many many times. I swear he was posing for me. I suppose if I possessed that kind of beauty, I would like people admiring me too.

I felt like he was  a rare flower with wings that I had to take in quickly for fear he would fly away and I’d miss all that beauty.

The truth is, he gave me enough time to admire him, quickly run into the house for my camera, change lenses and then photograph him as he fluttered flower to flower.   

After he graciously allowed me all of this time, he happily fluttered off across the street into the park and out of my life as if he had an appointment with somebody else. 

 Maybe the warm breezes of Mexico were calling. 

~”You can chase a butterfly all over the field and never catch it. But if you sit quietly in the grass it will come and sit on your shoulder.”
Author Unknown