Music in the Park

For many years now,every Wednesday during the summer months, our city has Music in the Park. You can see how popular and well attended this is. The band shell is in a beautiful park and close to our Civic Center. If you look toward the right, you can see part of the new addition to our Civic Center. It will be huge but cut down on the parking area.

It is put on by our city Municipal Band, with different directors taking part. It is a 1 hour concert, from 8 pm - 9 pm. There are boy scout troops who sell cookies, popcorn, and bottled water.
The sun was just going down as the concert started.
People of all ages come to these concerts. This older couple in front of us were so cute holding hands and keeping time with the music like they were reminiscing many evenings on the dance floor to the same great music.
Our city has two main High Schools. The couple who were singing [Some Enchanted Evening] just retired from the schools. He was the band director at one High School and She was director at the other. They are very talented people and we are blessed to have them as entertainers.
This was the last song. They always end with America The Beautiful. I think that is very fitting, what a perfect 70 degree quiet still evening.

SUGAR PEAS

These are my tall Sugar Peas. They are up to my eyes so that is almost 5 ft tall.

Can you see the peas? Finally , there they are! Just as sweet and tender as the seed package said they would be.

You can see how thick they are. It seems the more you look, the more you find!
I picked a good 3 or 4 cup's of sugar peas today. We will eat half for a meal and I might freeze the rest for a fresh meal in winter or maybe for stir fry! With the high price of vegetables, I figure if I can freeze even 10 meals of different Vegetables, it will save us quite a bit. Well maybe $20 or so. It doesn't sound like much compared to a tank of gas!

Knee High

A saying that I have heard my parents and others say since before I can remember is "KNEE HIGH BY THE 4TH OF JULY". They were talking about the corn. I guess that was a measurement that meant the corn was doing either "GREAT" or "POOR" Well hear is a picture taken just a few minutes ago and I guess our corn is looking "GOOD"
Better then my knees anyway! So anyway, " A HAPPY BLESSED 4TH OF JULY TO YOU ALL"!
So you remember about 11 months ago we were building our North 6" wide deck!

When my husband finished putting the old maple hardwood flooring on, I found out some old, couple colors pored together, oil stain and put it on the deck to get us through winter. And that it did very nicely.
Now it was time to purchase good oil stain and re-stain the deck. I also stained the glider bench and the wood rocker. I did this on July 1st.

Then yesterday the 3rd, I put a fresh coat of the same oil stain on our larger west patio.

Today or this morning I stained the 2 benches on the patio and our German wood keg. We found this keg about 22 years ago when we first moved to Omaha NE. We retrieved it from a deep creek area. It really didn't mean that much but we used it on our cement patio as a small table. When we received orders to Germany, we put the keg and other items in storage until we returned 3 years later. That is when we noticed the name and also recognized the name ZWEIBRUCKEN on the keg. This was a small village not far at all from where we had spent 3 years in Germany. How amazing that God would give us our German souvenir even before we knew we were going there. How all knowing and powerful. I have been trying to find a verse n the Bible that says something like "I know the plans I have for you" says the Lord your God. I can't find it so if anyone can, please let me know. There are many many Psalms that reassure us of His power,knowledge and the truth. I will share a part of my favorite PS. 139. O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; You perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord.
I just thought I would share a few more flowers and garden scenes.

This is the corner of our garden pond. It is quite small but I love it.
This is what we call snake grass. My mother has some. It looks a lot like grass so you have to be very careful when pulling grass from your garden. I always remember about 32 years ago when my mother has been in the hospital for a long time recuperating from a bad pickup accident. My father wanted everything to look extra special and nice for her when she returned home and not knowing, he pulled up or off the snake grass plants just on the North side of their house. My mother noticed , but out of love , she never said a word to my father about the plant. It came back extra thick and today I have some of it at my home.
It blooms very pretty and in clumps of blossoms.
This is a Potentilla plant. these flowers are tiny, about size of a nickle.
This is a different Potentilla plant or bush and these bright yellow flowers are much bigger, about like a 50 cent piece. If you can remember what size they are, you rarely see the half dollar anymore.

The Lettuce spinner

Have you ever seen or used a lettuce spinner? I hadn't even heard of one until I saw my daughter use hers. It worked great. To be honest with you, I was not even aware they made such a thing.

Well, this is what it looks like. Now I have my own.

I received it as a gift from my daughter.

The inside comes out so you can easily wash the lettuce, then you put it in the outside container.
Make sure the cover is on right, lining up the holes that you see by my hand. Hang on tight by the finger marks and turn the crank with the right hand.
Wallah! The lettuce is spun dry, fluffed up and ready to eat or bag for friends. This year has been such a good year for lettuce, I have certainly used this kitchen tool and don't know what I would do without it. I have given several bags of fresh lettuce to friends and neighbors. If you notice below, you can see this has been a good year for radish. Most years are too hot and dry. This year has been cool and lots of needed moisture.

I like to pick some of the onions while they are young and tender. Even the greens are great cut up in the lettuce salad. My favorite dressing for fresh leaf lettuce is one my grandmother and mom used to make. It is very simple and also good on cucumbers.

1/2 cup of cream

3 table spoons vinegar

3 table spoons sugar

You can also add a bit of salt & pepper to taste or I like Dill weed

Flowers, Flowers And More Flowers!

I will start with a few of my mothers flowers. My mother has many african violets on a coffee table in her livingroom. She has had these for some 25 years or more. As you can see from the picture below, they bloom absolutly beutiful and almost year round. This is one of her outdoor petunias and I thought the red edged in white was very unique.

Below is her flower garden that has various flowers blooming all summer long. This was over a week ago and now she tells me that the bright orange oriental poppies and peonies are open.

One of her big columbines, sorry, a little out of focus!
This is a big spirea bush that has been there since I was a little girl. It was just hanging full of blossoms. My mother dose a very good job with her flowers and she is 87 yr's old!

Now to my sister-in-laws flowers!

I could not believe how big and brilient blue these petunias were.

I love the way she uses the old cut down tree as a hanger and the other neet decorations, the old radio flyer wagon, the lantern and the old broiler tub!

These colorfull panzies really cought my eye!

These are the brilient pink/purple petunias also hanging on a tree stump.

These hangers were just loaded with flowers. It was like they just couldn't bloom enough!

This unusual rock also adorns her rock flower garden. I believe my brother found it when he was fixing fense. It is especially heavy.

Now to my flowers!

With all the moisture this spring and cool weather, the roses are

bigger and fuller then I have ever seen them. This is the white bush on south side of our house.

These two pictures were also taken on South side of house.

Now to the East side. I liked the shaddow on this picture.

My very tall snap draggon.
This is a balloon flower and grows like a weed. It spreads and spreads.
My miniture roses, about the size of a 50 cent piece.
Violet blue salvia the peranial.
Notice the out of focus bee enjoying the sweet pollin or nectar.

I just had to include my snow ball bush with the very large flowers this year. They are just finished now but I sure enjoyed them when they were open.


These are my big orange lillies that just opened yesterday. They have so many blossoms this year and each flower ishuge! I love all the rain that is a wonderfull blessing only God our creator can provide.