Foggy Morning Magic

We have been having some warm, sunny days, but they start out with foggy mornings.  Look what i found on my walk in the park yesterday morning.

Warning!  Stay on the path!

Tom's Birthday

We had been working hard in the yard all week, so it felt good to slow down on Saturday and celebrate Tom's 73rd birthday.

He had plenty of time for a slow start and for reading the newspaper and email and Facebook and on line soccer sites before we arrived at Isaac's soccer match at 11:30.

 We hung out with Jill and Irene until they had to leave to go to Irene's soccer match.  We watched Isaac and the Wolverines play until it was time for us to drive to Bonney lake.

We had been invited to attend a garden blogger's plant exchange.  Alison of Bonnie Lassie  and Peter of Outlaw Gardener became blogger buddies of mine when they visited our open garden in July of 2013. They were hosting a meet up of some local garden bloggers and some coming from Portland. They were all bringing plants for a plant exchange as well as a social time. 

While I am not officially a "Garden Blogger", I am a gardener who blogs, sometimes about my garden, so they adopted me, and Tom too.

We met at Alison's home and spent a lot of time admiring her garden and plants and having lunch.  It turned into a lovely sunny afternoon. I'll show photos of her garden in more detail in another post. 

 Alison is the lovely lady in the light blue top and that's her husband Nigel in the black shirt.  They were wonderful hosts. 

 It was about 4:00 when we arrived back home.  Tom took a nap and I got busy in the kitchen.

Tom had said the one thing he wanted for his birthday was to see and spend time with his grand kids.  After all it had been at least two weeks since he had seen them!

We planned dinner for our son Jake, daughter Jill and the grands, Isaac and Irene.

People we were all assembled by about 5:30 from all the various activities in which we had been involved. We grilled some teriyaki chicken sticks and brats to go with the oven roasted potato wedges, the last of the green beans from the garden and a big fresh fruit compote. 

There was lots of lively conversation and eating. 

By request dessert was berry pie, triple berry (raspberry, blueberry, blackberry) to be exact.  Irene took charge of the presentation. 

 While he looks like he might be saying "Oh no, not another birthday!", he was really winding up to blow out the candles.  

 Happy birthday, Grandpa. 

 We had talked about playing games, but Tom had an issue with his new iPhone, a replacement for the one that quit working.  He had not been able to get Facebook to work on the new phone and he asked Jill to help him.  It turned into a long project.  So while Jake and Isaac watched college football and Irene found music videos on Tom's Samsung tablet and danced, I rested and checked in with everyone and followed Irene's orders in creating a song for Grandpa and we performed it and I tried to keep up with everyone, and finally, success!

 So Tom got the gifts he wanted, time with his kids and a phone that works!  And Jill is a hero!

Flowers

The time for flowers is fading.

Some are being left to feed the birds.

Some are being composted.

Others are just coming into bloom.

 Some will wait until the first frost knocks them down.

Others will age gracefully in place.

A few are still there for the picking.

And some are being harvested by washing and drying in the sun before being stored in the attic.

Transitioning

It's the last day of September.  It turned out to be a more pleasant day than we were expecting.

Tom just mowed the lawn, which has gone lush again after the rain and an application of fertilizer. 

Sunday I got in my 3.5 mile walk and then worked in the yard with Tom.  I have begun cleaning out the beds and cutting back spent perennials. 

 Those dahlias will soon come out and be replaced with tulip bulbs ↓

Yesterday morning I started the day off with a dentist appointment.  I had a serious cavity in one of my wisdom teeth.  Such fun getting shot in the mouth and drilled and having to hold my jaw just so for far too long.  I didn't accomplish much after that - some housework and trip planning. It was dark and drizzly outside.

Today we expected more rain, so we decided to go get our flu shots and then do a little shopping for some items for our trip. When we got home, I sat down to pay the bills.  We bank with a credit union and they have been urging me to pay bills on line.  I do have all of our utilities on auto pay, but I decided to finally set up on line payment for my credit card bills.  It worked!  It's always fun to learn new stuff.  I also downloaded an app from my credit union for on line banking for my iPhone.  Now I can transfer money, monitor my accounts and pay bills remotely.  That could be handy when traveling.

While I was out walking this afternoon, Tom mowed and started emptying the garden beds. 

 As soon as I transplant these volunteer fox gloves Tom can prepare this bed to over-winter his bonsai.

 We have started moving tender plants into the green house. To do that we turned Irene's flower shop/playhouse back into a garden shed.

 The geranium jungle is gone from the front porch, replaced with a few winter pansies and flowering kale. 

This just got trimmed back for now ↓

Tom put the patio umbrellas away Sunday, and today I washed down the oil cloth table covers and put them away today.  It looks a little bare but soon the cedar tree will start shedding and make a mess so it's time. 

It looks like more sun is on the way.  That will make this little lingering sunflower happy!  Me too!