Miscellaneous Weekend Musings

It was a beautiful summer weekend with temps in the mid 80's.  We spent a lot of time outside. My ditch lily garden is in full bloom.

This is just the spot over the rock wall where I toss all the ditch lilies I remove from my gardens.  I don't even plant them--just throw them over and let nature take its course.  We had a few guests coming over to tour the garden Sunday afternoon, so I made a quick bouquet for the front porch.

I have a gazillon of these lilies, so I can just go out and cut them by the armful.

Earlier this spring we removed two large areas of ditch lilies from the main gardens, causing a big bare area in front of this burning bush, so I added a bench.

DH and I worked together on  a most delicious dinner of grilled chicken breasts with a mango/blueberry chutney and grilled sweet potato spears.

Liberty, Freedom and Justice are growing fast. They are a week and a half old and just began climbing out of the nest. 

Patti, The rain lilies you sent me overwintered just fine and the first one bloomed today.

Such a pretty pink color!

 

That's about it for my nice quiet weekend at home. Hope you all had an enjoyable weekend, too.

 

While I was Visiting the Island, my Garden was coming into Full Bloom

During the past week I have had many plants come into bloom.  Here is a long shot of one side:

Among the hosta along this path, I have mostly yellow-gold daylilies and red carpet Asiatic lilies....

I really enjoy the one clump of Elijah Blue Fescue grass that I have in this garden:

I have had it for about three years and it has never bloomed. Maybe the third year will be the charm.


As you pass through the arbor, I have some pink Manhattan Asiatic lilies and white Feverfew:

 

If you continue down the walking path, you will come to a nice big clump of Manhattan lilies:


There is also a nice clump of Sweet William on the opposite side of this path:

On the opposite side of the Arbor Gardens, I have some 

Astilbe blooming.

 

This is the best my garden will look for the whole summer.  It is sad that it only lasts about 10 days.

Mackinac Island (part 2)

Do you see the yellow umbrellas in front of the white building way up on the hill?

That is Fort Mackinac. 

You get there by walking up this hill:

Once you get there you can explore a number of old military buildings, like this one

or you can just go the Tea Room for lunch as we did. 

I have not eaten at the Tea Room since 1973 when I went with two high school friends.  I took a picture from my scrapbook to show you.

 I am in the backless shirt.  Now that's a 1973 design! It reminds me of the wallboard my mom had in our kitchen at that time. :)

Enough reminiscing....Back to the current trip....

The Tea Room has the best views of any of the island restaurants.  We sat on the balcony above these yellow umbrellas.

 
I wanted to be as high up as possible to take in the gorgeous views.


This time I am dining with my wonderful husband.  This time I am also old enough to have an alcoholic drink with my lunch. :)

Lunch was a roasted turkey breast and Havarti cheese sandwich which was delicious (and much healthier than that huge sundae I had in 1973)

 See the church steeple way to the left at the top of this picture?

 After we finished eating, we walked back down that hill to the main street, took a left and walked at least another mile to get to the church.

 Look at this row of smoke trees along the white picket fence. Amazing specimens. This is the first time I have seen them used as a hedge.  I wonder how old they are?

While walking by one of the inns, I snapped a picture of this man carting laundry back to the inn.

I don't know how far away he has to take it to get washed.  Work life is very different on Mackinac Island.

It also appeared to be garbage pick up day on the island.

If all the garbage is as neatly put out as this, the island must have a good recycling program.

 I like how the Lilac Hotel had flowers to  match their awnings:

They were almost the exact shade of purple.

All in all we had a great time on Makinac Island. The last time we were on the island was in 2011.  I did a post at that time about the Grand Hotel, carriage ride, etc.  If you want to see that one,

just click here.

 

Until next time.............

I hope I don't have to wait another 40 years to eat here again! 

Mackinac Island on July 5

We decided to go to Mackinac Island the day after our country celebrates Independence Day.  I expected it to be busy on that day and it was...Busy and HOT!

It was so busy at the island docks ( 9:30 am) that our ferry needed to kill a quarter hour before the docks were available, so we got a little extra ride under the Mackinac Bridge.

It was a gorgeous morning for a boat ride.  The ferry ride is usually 16 minutes--ours was doubled due to the congestion on the island as everyone was trying to leave after the July 4 festivities.

We did not mind.  In fact I loved it! I have only been under the bridge once before and it was at night during the fireworks so I have never really seen this underside view.

 

For those who have never heard of Mackinac Island, it is an historic island in Michigan with a population of less than 500 full-time residents. During the summer tourist season there could be up to 15,000 people per day.  I think there were at least that many last Friday!

For well over 100 years, the island has had an ordinance banning automobiles. There are three ways to get around the island – bicycle, horse or your own two feet.

Most tourists choose bikes--they can bring their own over on the ferry or rent a bicycle when they arrive.  There are bikes EVERYWHERE on the island.

 

I hate to ride a bike, so we chose a combination of walking and a two-hour  tour in a horse-drawn carriage.

 

 

 

  I wanted to peek into some backyard gardens of the local residents, so we bypassed the downtown area and walked down some residential streets where I snapped a few garden photos.  The peonies were huge! This one must have supports hidden among the massive amount of flowers.

 

 

 

Look way to the back.  See the old trunk planted with yellow begonias?

 

Here are a couple of the huge planters hanging all over the island.  I like the purple, pink with a pop of orange color combination.

Here is a more subdued color scheme.

 

I thought the two big rocks were a nice focal point for this small border.

 

A couple of sidewalk borders:

Oh, by the way, Mackinac Island is a very pricey place to live. It would be rare to find anything for under 1 million dollars.  Amazing, considering these are only summer vacation homes!

 

 

I do love the island colors on some of the old houses on Mackinac Island--like these two on the main road:

 

A bed and breakfast garden:

 

Nice allium in this garden!

 

 

 

This old home has some very tall white Valerian....my mother-in-law gave me some Valerian from her mother's garden. We call it "Sweet Annie".  It is a very old fragrant herb.

 

 

Nice foxglove. I wish I could grow it like that!

Did you notice how the color of the flowers match the bicycle color?  I wonder if it was planned.

 

This post is getting quite long.  I will stop here and continue on my next post.

 

  I have a lot of new flowers blooming in my own garden. I will show you those later in the week.

 

I hope your holiday weekend was wonderful!

 

 

 

Decorating the Wreath Worked

I finally have my robin family.

Have you ever seen a more adorable baby?

The birds will only make a nest at the top of this wreath if it is decorated.  I guess they want to feel hidden & protected. 

 

 

Hope you all have a fun July 4.  I am off to work. We are putting an entry in the parade. It is our first time doing so.  I hope it turns out to be fun. I will be walking and tossing 75 lbs. of Twizzler sticks to the kids along the route. I hope it is not too hot!