Our daughter Jessica gave me some of her dahlia tubers last spring, and I planted them by the porch, outside the kitchen window. Such a unique, and beautiful star shaped bloom! I think this variety is called Verrone's Obsidian.
Tuesday, October 21, 2025
A Surprise Under the Dahlias
Wednesday, October 15, 2025
Goodbye Summer, Hello Fall on the Porches
Sunday, October 12, 2025
Trying our Hands at Drying Flowers
Just a few weeks ago, the U-Pick Patch at our son's farm was in full glory. Howard Family Farms in Salisbury, PA was the place to go to pick and arrange your own bouquet.
Ah, well, this may be a live and learn situation. Isn't that most of life?
They sure look pretty hanging there! Katie has plans for them. It will be interesting to see what all she comes up with!
Saturday, October 11, 2025
Strange Dandelions
Thursday, October 9, 2025
Frost is Coming Soon for our Flowers. Boo.
Chances for frost are increasing, so I wanted to get a final photo of our garden doors before the end of the season. The zinnias looked much better a month or so ago, but that's ok.
George and I made all the decorations. All had been in our shop at one point. The butterflies we made from old tin corrugated roofing were a great seller, as were the various chair planters we had through the years. We had fun making birdhouses and decorating them with old junk. As for the garden angel, we did sell several of them, but we kind of got in on that trend a little late. They were starting to fade in popularity by the time we started making them. Ah, always a dollar late and a dollar short. We ended up keeping a few of them, and I sort of rotate them in and out of use.
This is the view we see of them from our house.
We want to make it look nice on their side too. Although I do have trouble remembering to water the flowers in the little wagon. They aren't looking so hot at this point. Actually, I thought they were dead once, but I went ahead and gave them a BIG drink, and they came back. Then we got a little rain, and dewy nights, and they managed to stay alive despite me neglecting them.
We had bought the wagon to sell in the shop, but it never made it there. I rarely kept things without even trying to sell it, but the wagon spoke to me. "Keep me, keep me!". So I did.
Same with this red one:
I can't remember for sure if I ever had this wagon in the shop, but I'm thinking it also told me to keep it. When a wagon speaks, you have to listen. Hee hee.
Look at those plants! This is a first for me! That coleus... I can't believe it got so big. The sweet potato vine just kept going and going. The impatiens did pretty well, and the sweet alyssum... Wow! This is the first time I even kept it alive. Honest!
I watered frequently, and fertilized with Miracle Gro a few times, and by golly, I got rewarded big time. I hate to lose them to the cold, but I guess that day is coming.
I may fool around and learn how to be a flower gardener yet!
Monday, October 6, 2025
Combining Vintage Items into New Treasures
Thursday, October 2, 2025
We Were Beginning to Think the Buzzards Were Waiting on Us
Instead of walking up the sidewalk to the front door like we usually do, we snuck in the garage door, through the inside of the house and up to the living room window. One had flown off, but the other 4 were still there. I took photos through the front window. They just sat there.
I opened the front door. Still there.
We were beginning to wonder if they knew something we didn't. Were they waiting on us to keel over?
Finally, when I took a couple steps onto the porch, they flew off.
An hour or so later, I looked out again, and they were back. Ok, this was getting really strange. Again, I opened the door, and they just sat there, until I stepped outside. That time, I thought I saw something on the ground.After they flew away, I walked over to the fence. There was a dead opossum on the ground right against the fence, half hidden in the grass.
Whew! It was the opossum they wanted, not us. What a relief!
That was actually our second experience with buzzards this summer.
On Easter Sunday, we took a drive in PA, exploring some backroads. As we were driving up one road, a buzzard started flying up the road ahead of us, as if it were leading us. We followed it for at least a quarter mile, maybe more.
We started wondering that day too. What does it know that we don't? Was it leading us to our demise?
Seriously, we knew that wasn't the case. But we had fun joking around about it, especially since at that point we weren't sure where we were. After a few miles, we finally realized we were headed up the mountain roads to Mount Davis, which is PA's highest point.
Ahh, good. Now we knew where we were. And the buzzard let us go the rest of the way in peace.
A Surprise Under the Dahlias
Our daughter Jessica gave me some of her dahlia tubers last spring, and I planted them by the porch, outside the kitchen window. Such a uniq...

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