Happy Wednesday my friends! My first three days of summer vacation has been action packed! With the weather being so nice, I wanted to be sure to get things on the calendar before (if it ever does) turns to cold and rainy again.

The luncheon on Monday with my friends from work in the yard was very delightful. Yummy food & great laughs to celebrate the end of a crazy year!

Wednesday clay day in the yard, was enjoyable! Everyone made some fun things to fire in the kiln, I hope we can keep them in one piece….such pressure to be in charge of lovely creations everyone worked so hard on!

I’m looking forward to learning more about kilns, pottery and glazes over the next couple of weeks at Burnish Clay studio in Bellingham.

I’ll include pictures of what everyone has made so far.

My garden is popping with color – I’m so happy to report I picked my first Lily yesterday – I’m so happy I waited until the 28th to start subscriptions-things are starting to come together nicely. The Lily’s are doing very well, they are one of my favorites, so there might be more….but why would I do that if I’m not doing flowers next year? Well, it’s nice to have Lily’s and I can always sell to my flower friends if need be!

My strawflowers are taking off like wild fire! I really like how I have long stems and short stems, it makes it nice to have options for vases, market bouquets and even have super tiny ones that will be perfect for the boutonnieres and flower crowns I’m doing this year.

My Sweet Peas are still cranking out stems, but they will most likely slow down with this heat wave we are expecting – 101 degrees on Saturday?? That’s just crazy talk! We rarely have days over 90-and those are usually in August, so this will be interesting.

I do have some Sunflowers getting ready to pop. I think I have 10 bouquets to do on Monday, I’m crossing my fingers I have enough of everything.

The Asters are starting to open, I love the Apricot color!

I have a ton of self seeded Apple of Peru all over the garden-talk about invasive! Holy smokes!

I was also very happy to find some self seeded Penny Cress in the back. Perfect timing really!

The Yarrow is ready to pick also.

The cosmos are starting to crank up with lots of colors!

I only have a few Zinnias so far, but it will be okay, they will fill in as time goes by. I have several plantings of each, so they will come on at different times. I’m happy that I did better at succession planting this year.

Since I have 10 bouquets, I will need 10 focal points, 20 stems of cress, 30 snap dragons, 20 honey wart, 20 strawflowers, 10 amaranth, 10 yarrow, 20 feverfew, and 40 cosmos. We shall see how I do! I”m not sure there will be tall enough Asters, but we shall see. I also have really tall Marigolds, Calendula, and Blue Monday Sage Salvia that is ready, in addition to statice, so those numbers will most likely change as I put things together Monday morning! I usually start with a plan, and that changes as things end up in buckets and I start to put my hands on flowers.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you are having a great week so far. Be sure to get outside and enjoy the weather, the moon was spectacular last night! The grands stayed the night last night and will be here again tonight. I would have them longer, but I have a silly ear doctor appointment to take care of on Friday, I’m hoping for good news from him, but the fact I have to go back might be an indicator that there will be a surgery in the near future. We will see what the man has to say for himself and go from there.

I best get a move on for the day, it’s going to be busy keeping up with the kids, Joe will be at work, so it’s just me chasing them around. Thankfully Joe set up the little pool we have, so that should keep them plenty busy!

Until next time my friends, hugs to you!