happy father’s day!

Today we went to my Dad’s house to celebrate Father’s Day with the entire family. Dad was in the hospital a few weeks ago with chest pain and ended up getting a stent before he went home. It makes today all the more special, as we thank God for Dad’s recovery.

Any time we visit Great-Pa, the first order of business is to feed the fish, of course.

feeding the fish

The kids enjoyed making sidewalk art.

sidewalk art

Chris grilled the hamburgers and the chicken.

grilling dinner

She ate the whole thing!

time for dinner!

Great-Pa gave the grands and the great-grands rides in the golf cart. Rose Red said, “WoooHoooo!!” when they went down the hill.

golf cart rides with Great-Pa

golf cart rides with Great-Pa

Thanks, Dad, for all you’ve done for us over the years. We’re glad we were able to spend the day with you!

Love, ~~Rhonda

daylily gardens

The daylilies are at peak right now. Everything looks beautiful. We are grateful for the rain the garden received on Monday. It made a huge difference in the size and vigor of the flowers. And the grass looks better, too. It was beginning to brown and looked ragged. I don’t know how many inches of rain we are behind the normal average, but we do need more, I can tell that.

The rain came at a good time for the daylilies, though. They were beautiful when I went out yesterday to take some pictures.

daylilies

‘Dragon King’

'Dragon King'

daylilies

‘Mokan Butterfly’

'Mokan Butterfly'

‘African Mahogany’

'African Mahogany'

‘Tuscawilla Tigress’

'Tuscawilla Tigress'

‘Kindly Light’

'Kindly Light'

daylilies

‘Green Flutter’

'Green Flutter'

daylily bed

‘Monterrey Jack’

'Monterrey Jack'

daylilies

‘Shadyside’

'Shadyside'

‘Frances Watkins’

'Frances Watkins'

I hope you enjoyed the garden walk. I could go on and on…but I’ll stop here and share more next time.

~~Rhonda

menu plan monday ~ june 11, 2012

More and more daylilies are blooming each day. We plan to have another plant sale this Wednesday from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Stop by if you’re in the neighborhood. Or check out the available daylilies at this link ahead of time and send a list of ones you’d like. We’ll dig and have them ready for you on Wednesday. Just ask if you have questions about prices.

daylily beds

The menu for the week is as follows…

Monday
Fridge Food

Tuesday
Chef Salad

Wednesday
Crock Pot Turkey
Rice
Steamed Sugar Snap Peas
Garden Salad

Thursday
Baked Chicken Parmesan
Corn on the Cob
Steamed Green Beans
Garden salad

Friday
Hamburgers
Homemade Buns
Fruit Salad

Saturday
Marinated Pork Tenderloin
Green Beans with Mushroom Sauce
Corn on the Cob
Pear-Walnut Salad

Sunday
Family Dinner ~ I’m providing Father’s Day pie.

You’ll find more menu and recipe ideas at Menu Plan Monday.

~~Rhonda

out the door and into the garden

It’s early summer and the daylilies are blooming, with more opening every day. We have about 400 daylily cultivars in the garden, so it’s exciting to see what has opened in the past 24 hours. But that’s not all that’s going on out there.

The hostas are beginning to bloom. You can see the lavender blooms of ‘Blue Cadet’ to the right of the birdbath in this picture.

back yard birdbath

In the front yard, these hostas are under the shade of a redbud tree, with a daylily bed extending into the sun.

daylily bed with hostas

hostas

‘Squash Casserole’ is sending up its first flower scapes.

hosta 'Squash Casserole'

The ‘Royal Standard’ hosta will send up its pure white flowers later in the season. Right now, we enjoy the hydrangeas that back them at the front porch.

front porch

I don’t know the name of these white lilies, but they look just as beautiful without a name as they would with one.

white lilies

The same thing holds true for the pink ones. These are wonderful in a vase, lasting for a few weeks as new buds open at the top.

lilies

Of course, the daylilies are the star attraction this time of year.

june 2012 190

east front yard

east front yard

west front yard

‘Spider Man’…a beautiful red one.

'Spider Man'

Did I mention the raspberries are ripe? 🙂

red raspberries

You can visit other gardens at Jean’s Bloomin’ Tuesday.

~~Rhonda

picking raspberries

The twins and their daddy stopped by this morning. The girls heard Pa say something about the raspberries being ripe and they were off like a shot. Time to pick!

picking raspberries

picking raspberries

picking raspberries

june 2012 08picking raspberries5

picking raspberries

picking raspberries

Wearing Ma’s garden hat…

wearing ma's garden hat

We’re looking forward to a good crop. And lots of help picking. 🙂

~~Rhonda

trip to the memphis children’s museum and zoo

Wondering why we went to Memphis to go to a zoo instead of to St. Louis? Much as we love the St. Louis zoo, they don’t have pandas. And the girls wanted to see pandas. When we looked up the nearest panda place, it turned out to be Memphis. Four hours away isn’t too bad. So we decided to go. Of course, with twins in tow, it was more like five hours, but still doable.

Tuesday afternoon, we visited the Children’s Museum of Memphis.

Snow White piloted a plane…

cockpit

…and drove a fire truck…

fire engine

Rose Red thought the motorcycle was pretty great.

Memphis Children's museum

And flying a model plane in the wind tunnel was fun, too.

flying a model plane

the pilot!

An entire village with shops? FUN!

Memphis Children's museum

Fishing with Aunty was good, too.

fishing

For supper we tried A&R BBQ. I should have taken pictures of the ribs…DEE-licious!

Then it was off to the pool for the girls.

swim time swim time

The next morning, we hit the Memphis Zoo about 9:00 a.m. It was a pretty day, not too hot, and the zoo was very quiet. Not a lot of people there. Nice! The zoo has a lot of shade, too, so it was very enjoyable walking from exhibit to exhibit.

Memphis zoo

The stray ducks and the chipmunks were as fascinating to the twins as the gorillas, lizards, and pandas were.

Memphis zoo

Memphis zoo

Memphis zoo

I was surprised that the pandas were much smaller than I expected. One was busy eating. We couldn’t talk Snow White into “petting” the panda through the glass. …I’m coming no closer, thank you, very much…

Memphis zoo pandas

we went to Memphis to see the pandas

The other was busy sleeping.

Memphis zoo pandas

The exhibit is very pretty. Inside a Chinese style building, with the exhibit behind glass so you can get right up to the pandas. But as much as we enjoyed seeing pandas, the girls seemed to enjoy the feed-the-birds exhibit most of all.

feeding the birds

feeding the birds

feeding the birds

feeding the birds

It was a lot of fun to take a family trip like that, even if it was a short two day one. And it’s always fun to see things through the eyes of a four year old. Even more so when there are two of them. 🙂

~~Rhonda

menu plan monday ~ june 4, 2012

Last week we spent a couple of days in Memphis, Tennessee, visiting the Children’s Museum of Memphis and the Memphis Zoo. Our older son and the twins came with us, as well as all three of our daughters.

feeding the birds

fire enginebubbles!

We decided to hold another plant sale on Wednesday, as the weather looks nice for that day. Other than that, we don’t have much planned until the weekend, when we will enjoy a family reunion. Here’s the menu:

Monday
Fridge Food ~ Tomorrow is clean-out-the-fridge day, so we’re starting with Monday supper.

Tuesday
Spaghetti
Homemade Sauce
Toasted Garlic Bread
Steamed Sugar Snap Peas
Garden Salad

Wednesday
Homemade Pizza with Portobello and Pepperoni

Thursday
Bacon-Provolone Chicken Sandwiches
Homemade Buns
Garden Salad
Corn on the Cob

Friday
Crock Pot Rotisserie-Style Chicken
Rice
Peas
Steamed Carrots
Garden Salad

Saturday
Family Reunion…I’m making:
Cowboy Beans
Peanut Butter Bars
Seedless Grapes

Sunday
Baked Chicken
Corn on the Cob
Steamed Green Beans
Garden Salad
Homemade Rolls

You’ll find more menu and recipe ideas at Menu Plan Monday.

~~Rhonda

end of may…and the garden is changing again

The garden continues to surprise us with the earlier than usual bloom times. The daylilies are beginning to bloom, with more open each day. They are running two to three weeks earlier than the earliest dates we’ve recorded in the past. Here are a few pretty ones.

‘Jason Salter’

Hemerocallois 'Jason Salter'

‘Tiger Track’

'Tiger Track'

‘New Journey’

Hemerocallis 'New Journey'

‘Sorrento Song’

Hemerocallis 'Sorrento Song'

‘Thy True Love’

Hemerocallis 'Thy True Love'

In the front yard, the few Asiatic lilies we have are in full bloom. I don’t know their names, but they are beautiful.

lilies

lilies

lilies

I wish you could see the hydrangeas in person. Pictures don’t do them justice. So pretty this year!

hydrangea

hydrangea

hydrangea

hydrangea

front porch

hydrangea

DH has had to move five or six hostas this spring. That’s the way of a garden, though. Always shifting, always changing. Never static.

my gardener...

moving 'American Dream' to it's new home

mulching the hosta bed

moving a hosta

If you’re in the area, stop by Saturday for the plant sale. All the proceeds go to our church’s mission fund. We hope to see you there.

Check out other gardens at Jean’s Bloomin’ Tuesday!

~~Rhonda

menu plan monday ~ may 28, 2012

There are so many things going on in the garden right now. We make the rounds every day to see how many daylilies have opened their first flowers of the season. They are blooming about three weeks earlier than they every have before. We’re planning a plant sale for Saturday, so we’re taking a mental inventory of what will be available as we walk the yard.

The hydrangeas have been especially pretty this year. This particular shrub has a wide variety of color on it, from pale pink through deep pinky-red to blue and on to purple. All on the same bush. Just beautiful.

hydrangea

With a lot going on, I’m posting a quick menu for the week.

Monday
Sunday Leftovers

Tuesday
Memphis BBQ and all the fixin’s

Wednesday
Hamburgers
Garden Salad
Grapes

Thursday
Tortellini Alfredo ~ I’ll use milk instead of cream and thicken it with some flour. Might add a dash of Tabasco sauce and a little lemon juice, as well.
Garden Salad
Homemade Rolls

Friday
Spicy Shredded Pork ~ I make it in the crock pot. Put the meat in and dump everything in on top. No need to mix. Easy and delicious.
Homemade Buns
Garden Salad
Fruit Salad

Saturday
Leftovers for lunch
Homemade pizza for supper

Sunday
Baked Chicken
Oven Fried Potato Wedges
Garden Salad
Steamed Sugar Snap Peas

You’ll find more menu and recipe ideas at Menu Plan Monday.

~~Rhonda

moving a large hosta

Do you remember how beautiful the hosta ‘Sagae’ looked this spring?

Hosta 'Sagae'

'Sagae' and 'Guacamole'

Well, the redbud tree it was under was dying and had to be cut down a week ago. Our many grateful thanks to our friend Paul and the crew members he sent over to help us out with that tree and several other projects!

tree trimmers

We watched from the east porch.

we watched the tree trimmers from the east porch

The girls were really happy to see the chip pile being replaced. They had accused Pa of “melting the mountain” when he used the last of the old chips. The truck was loud, though…

listening to a very loud truck

Once the tree was gone, the hostas were in need of a new home. We worked on moving ‘Sagae’ this evening. DH began by digging around it. It was tangled with the redbud roots.

moving a large hosta

moving a large hosta

“Give me a place to stand and a lever long enough…”

moving a large hosta

moving a large hosta

It came up in one large piece and one small piece. The small piece was planted under the redbud tree east of the kitchen.

moving a large hosta

The larger piece was planted in the long bed under the Southern Red Oak.

moving a large hosta

moving a large hosta

Done!

moving a large hosta

Tomorrow, we’ll work on moving the other hostas that had been under the redbud tree. With a good soaking drink and the shade returned to them, they should be fine.

~~Rhonda