August Sees The Closing Of Summer

Never Give Up Your Dreams

Metal art in my garden made by my husband Dick, never give up on a dream
no matter how hard life might get.  Today only lasts for a little while.

     This summer we have had excess of rainy days.  I had hoped to get a lot of weeding and thinning of plants this summer.  Much to my dismay I had to spend many a day inside keeping busy with my pictures, household jobs, and my favorite inside thing to do is reading, which is what I did when I got in just before the deluge of rain came down.
     The book I picked up was my new Lauraine Snelling titled:  "The Promise of Dawn".  It is about the logging days in the early historical times in Minnesota.       Excellent reading!  I have most of her 80 or more books she has written and I am never disappointed.  The only trouble is that I cannot stop because it is so good!  Read this last one in two days.
      The picture above is dark clouds rolling in warning me that I had better hop on my gulf cart and fly up to the house.  I was weeding here in the Birdhouse garden trying to get a nice edge on the path that winds through it.  Dick keeps the path cut with the lawnmower and I am in charge of my gardens.
    The photo is dark, it was getting late afternoon when I snapped this picture.

Gulf cart I use to get around all my gardens.  We have paths running through
the whole 27 acres we own.  At least 2 acres are in flowers.
Dick attached white plastic pipes he painted black.  They
hold my garden tools for the day.  In the back of cart, the seat
pulls down flat so I can put my pails of tools,
containers for holding the weeds, fertilizer,
and watering can.

     My days are filled with the silence of the birds song.  There young ones have flown from the many birdhouses to their new life of almost a grown up.  I can still hear them in the morning but it seems during the day they are busy looking for their meals of bugs and seeds.  Our bird feeders are seldom used during this time because of the plentiful harvest surrounding them.

Chickens are more quiet too.  They often rest in the compost pile where
they dust themselves by rolling around in the new soil they helped
make.  Breaking up the lumps into fine dust.

     My kitty Christal hops up on this bench she shares with the angle statue and doses off too.  She follows me to where I am working in the gardens and meows until I stop to rub her and do a little kitty talking to her.  She hunts for mice most days of the summer and even winter but when August comes along she chooses to find me instead and take a nap.  

Lilies are almost all done blooming.  They smell so good.  

White Lillie's with a splash of rosy pink blend nicely with the purple Phlox.

Zinnias grace my August days.

Zinnias come in all different colors and size.

Balloon flowers blend in to my  late summer day.

Phlox come in all kinds of colors too.  Here is is
white with little pink eyes

This is the back side of the Birdhouse garden.  Another peace of Dick's
Garden art is used like a trellis for my new rose Chicago Peace.  After
the day lilies and the cone flowers are done blooming they will
be moved to give the new rose more room and show.

This is the side of the Birdhouse garden.  It is overflowing with flowers.
Some of them are Day lilies, Ornamental Lilies, Phlox of many colors, gay feather
Rudbeckias, roses, Balloon flowers, Sweet William, Capenella, Purple and Blue Sage,
Black Eyed Susies, Queen Ann's lace, Joe Pie weed, Fevor Few, Golden Rod, Culvers root,
Red Monarda, White Monarda, Ligularia and Giant Lobela, Blue Globe Thistle, Pink Cone flowers is
the list of flowers I have in this garden.  There is an abundance of bees, Yellow Swallow Tail butterfly and
Black Swallow Tail butterfly's.  A few Monarch, and one I am not familiar with.  Numerous little butterfly's too.

I plant very close and in no hurry to thin out clumps because they will grow together amongst the other plants.
I call my garden a Gramma Garden.  I try to dead head (take off spent flowers) or deliberately leave them go to seed to
be dispersed later in fall to other gardens I want to bloom in the wild.
     I love my nearly wild look in my gardens.  A reporter was here taking pictures and asking me lots of questions for an article she wrote for local paper.  She declared this is "almost wild look" and said she loved it.  I do too.
     I leave most of the dead growth from our first frost we get in September for the birds to feed on in the winter.  A little
messy come spring but that is the way I garden.

What ever you do in your gardens

Remember God created the Earth

He is

He was

He shall be

with us always.

Kate