My Aunt Evelyn, my mother's youngest sister, and her husband, my Uncle bill, were collectors. Wherever they lived - Ballard in Seattle, Falls Church, VA while working at the Pentagon and government agencies in DC, or retired to Port Angeles, WA on Puget Sound, they collected.
When age and dementia eventually took their lives, they left a treasure of antiques to be dealt with by their two kids, my cousins Kris and Dan. When my sisters and I helped Kris deal with some of the treasures in the Ballard house, we received some lovely things. Not knowing what to do with all of it, Kris put much of it in storage.
Now, a few years into the process, she is distributing the items that were in storage. She asked me if I would be interested in some stained glass windows. Remembering how my aunt had them displayed over windows in her house, I said yes, not knowing what I would actually do with them. Kris brought them to us when she came for our big celebration in July.
This week we finally got back to dealing with the windows. I cleaned them up, and put new paint on two of them Now they are hung.
These two, with white frames, needed only a cleaning. We hung them in our living room.
That's my mother's clock in the corner.
The other two windows needed some new paint and we just happened to have some green paint that would work. These two windows are a matching pair.
Today Tom hung them on the garden deck, where we will leave them until bad weather sets in.
It's a privilege to have these treasures. Thank you, Kris and Dan, for sharing them, and thank you, Aunt Evelyn and Uncle bill, for being such interesting people and eclectic collectors. You live on in our memories and in the treasures that have been shared.
Last Saturday morning we joined some of our garden group at a member's home for a lecture on fuchsias, followed by a potluck picnic. Then we said our good byes and drove a few miles north to the Bellevue Botanical Garden for Arts In The Garden.
To quote the brochure, "This is a unique opportunity to see a wide variety of garden art available for purchase among the flowerbeds and woodlands of the beautiful Bellevue Botanical Garden."
The garden was certainly beautiful in its late summer glory, the art was fun and interesting and beautiful and tempting, and yet we avoided purchasing. We have enough. We just enjoyed the free show.
For me, the garden itself is the real art. I love this "meadow" in late summer, early fall.
The Hypericum berries are wonderful.
Fun sedum planters.
Wonderful Honeylocust tree.
I was tempted.
Lovely fuchsia collection.
The Border.
What is this exotic flower?
Oh, it's the remnants of one of these gorgeous dahlias.
I am so intrigued by these Pineapple lilies (Ecomis) but so far we have not been successful in getting one to bloom. Maybe we need to move it into a pot.
Close up of "glass quilting".
We left with smiles on our faces, and we left this little beauty for someone else to take home.
