Happy Saturday morning, I hope all is well in your neck of the woods. We’ve had a few storms blow through the last few days, but upon checking in the fields, it all looks like it’s okay so far. It is supposed to warm back up for one last round of Summer – back up into the 80’s next week! That would be interesting for sure! It’s not totally uncommon for it to do that sort of thing here in North West Washington. Spring time will do that also….show up for a bit, then Winter will be back, then a very hot freak short summer kind of type thing, then Spring time again – it’s like Mother Nature isn’t 100% sure she wants to be when she grows up, she likes to keep things interesting! It works out well for growing, if it is all timed correctly, but if it isn’t, it can be devastating too. Have things pop up all ready and eager to grow because Mother Nature gave the green light, then to have her jerk back the covers and put a layer of ice or snow down….that is always the tricky part about growing – NO BODY knows what it’s going to do…..you kind of hope and pray, toss a few seeds in here and there and hope for the best!

Indian Summers are always a special treat, just when you think it’s all over, there’s a nice heat wave. We certainly didn’t get super cold, but the heater kicked on, the cute autumn boots came out for a few days, and there were sweaters in the morning…and I even bought Pumpkin old fashioned doughnuts at Costco the other day. At least I held off on the Egg Nog!!

All of my seeds have arrived (at least the one’s I’ve ordered so far) – I’ve sorted them by alphabetic order, I’ll start to work on the timing spreadsheet and put things in order. I’m not liking the anxiety I had last year – fretting about if I had enough greens or enough color at the right time. I’m not sure how to get around that anxiety, I’m hoping I can let it go – either in the form of — not doing subscriptions – or just letting things be what they are. I love sharing my flowers, I love putting them together, they always go together so nicely in the end, but the anxiety getting to that point just might give me a heart attack. I’ve discovered that – being in control is just a facade – being in control is really letting go of control and letting things glide and slide with gentle nudges here and there. The gentle nudges can be a bit bumpy at times and leave some bruises, but indeed letting go can be very helpful.

It’s time to get the milk house in order. It certainly is a mess in there, all the trimmings of the 170’ish bouquets I made over the last few months, the dried flowers I’ve hung up in there and all sort of jars and vases laying about. At least I did a decent job of putting all of my flats and seed cells in order at the end of Spring, so they are at least in some what of an order in there. I still have a few things to plant out – yup my damn Lavendar plants still have yet to make it in the ground. Being back at work full time has left me with not much time – then there’s the grown up stuff to do like grocery shop, crochet & sew for the new baby arriving in March, deal with a few things for mom, have a social life and be a productive human being.

Speaking of the milk house- while I was out at the milk house the other day I had a visitor from a sly, slinky, stealthy SNAKE!! Scared the bageebers right out of me…not enough so to make me leave the milk house but enough to squeal & jump out of my shoes!! Then I went looking for him, but didn’t find him YET!

I’m hoping to take one of the sweet pea beds apart and get some Iceland Poppies planted before things get too wild and crazy out there. This will be the first time that I plant something this early, I see there are a few other things that I can fall plant, but I need row covers to protect it, I’m not interested in doing battle with a 25 foot long row cover in 35 mile hour winds with sideways winds. If that is what it takes to have spring color, than I guess there will be no spring color for this girl…or I will have to figure out different ways, but no fighting Mother Nature, she is fierce!

The pumpkin harvest was dismal this year….I can’t be 100% for sure why either because my brother-in-law and sister-in-laws gourds just across the road, did really well; they are much better at weeding than we are, but I did weed twice, but apparently it needed that third one really badly. It’s just really odd, the first year I planted here, the gourds went crazy – and I did a horrible job at weeding, we had gourds for dayz! But it was much hotter that year, this year was much cooler and wetter, the right combination just wasn’t there for what I planted. They had quiet the haul on the other side of the road! I think even their white pumpkins they got from me did better than mine. Guess I will have to try a bit harder next year, those white pumpkins were very popular this year – I knew they would be, that’s why I grew them, but mine didn’t do well over here. Next year….we will see what next year holds – try them again and do better on the weeding situation.

I’ve been having some success with my dried flower arrangements. That’s always encouraging and exciting when something works out well. Making them is a bit easier than a normal bouquet – short stems are good, no vase to wash and put food in is nice, wrapping them in tissue paper and a bow is always easy! If I had to choose something to highlight this year as one of my goals met is that I was successful in growing, harvesting, and processing more dried flowers this year. They are so much fun and have made so many people happy-but so have my fresh flowers – let’s not get silly about this!

While out and about doing some grown up things the other day, I splurged a bit and bought flowers from Costco. I don’t typically buy myself flowers, but I figured maybe I could make a few arrangements and just play a bit – because you know, I have a ton of extra time and energy… but the roses really spoke to me, and then you have to buy the stuff to accompany it…so it happened – pink, purple & white bouquets….when I got home I kind of regretted it because it’s fall time, I should have gone for the other color pallet of the reds and oranges, but I just can’t get over the soft colors of the pinks and purples so they won this time. I put a few bouquets together and delivered them to people to make them happy. My sister-in-law texted that morning and invited us for scones – so that was an easy choice of someone to bring flowers to, and of course my mom. I made bouquets for our new dressers, then put a few tiny ones in the stand and a few for the center of the island in the kitchen. There were a few red roses in the mix, which I put into a bouquet for a center piece for the dinner table with red and green Zinna’s and white roses, white carnations and baby’s breath — talk about a mix of things, but it was fun to put together – breaking all the rules I’m sure and gave that one to my daughter at the end of our spaghetti squash dinner last night.

Thanks for stopping in this weekend, hopefully things are well. Enjoy your day where ever it might lead you. We are heading south to celebrate some birthdays with extended family – shopping for the perfect gift first of course. Tomorrow is a visit to the pumpkin patch with my cousin and her two kids – that was an unexpected invite, but very much appreciated! And maybe a few thing popped into the ground before it’s all said and done? Until next time – hugs – chat soon!