Saturday, June 11, 2022

Another beautiful Saturday

A beautiful sunny day today and 14 degrees celsius - pretty much usual June weather and great grass growing season. Hopefully more of the grass seed will sprout and fill in the bare spots here and there but I am liking the look of the yard. Edward liked to have the grass all uniform and worked diligently to make it so. I like the patches of clover here and there and the dandelions mostly at the back of the yard so one moves from the lovely manicured lawn just behind the house to the garden (restorative gardening so extra green in there) to the area behind the garden which has become somewhat untamed but gradually the grass seed is taking hold but I haven't pulled the wild flowers so there will be competition there. Then we have the elderberry bushes which are in a recuperative state after the old plants died out from drought last year probably and replaced by so many new plants that were squeezed out in the past by the old plants. Then there is all the clover and at the back that huge maple tree. The raspberry canes continue to thrive and we will have raspberries everywhere at the back eventually but they do make a good hedge supporter as they can grow with the cedars. 

The garden is growing - the green onions have really grown the last week of rain. The romaine, spinach and leaf lettuce are all up and growing steadily. The lack of sun though will restrict everything. The tomato plants are growing quickly and the peppers less quickly but time will tell on the peppers. They really like sun though so will probably have to move them back where we had them a couple of years ago. We haven't put in any bedding annuals yet. We have a tray (72 peat pots) with 52 sunflowers growing steadily and will be transplanted this week coming. Then there are parsley, dill and basil plants to also transfer to the garden. Probably mid week we will do that. Probably will have some green onions by the end of June which will be a nice treat. 

A little work on the Blake newsletter but mostly thinking rather than writing but it is not yet the middle of the month so plenty of time for that. I am not sure if I can actually find the parents of Humphrey Blake but will look at all the material. Already though the Pedigree Chart has been debunked for listing John as the progenitor of the Somerset Blake family and hence one step forward but in genealogy there are many steps to look at. People have been wondering about Humphrey's parents for over one hundred and fifty years but there are more records on line every day and perhaps one of these days something will surface to help in that cause but in the meantime I will continue to read what is there. 

The lawns are all cut once again and look amazing to my perhaps less cultivated eye. I do like the look of a meadow and some parts of the lawn now resemble a meadow rather than a cultivated lawn but in the foreground we do have that lovely cultivated lawn which Edward loved. All of his perennials have had a good spring and are flowering beautifully. The front yard is pretty much as he always wanted it to look although I do want to add another piece of fencing to help protect the hosta that is out front. The hosta is over fourty years old now.  It is a beautiful plant and one wonders if it will just keep on blooming for ever. No ideas on that; my knowledge of hostas is very limited. But it is a beautiful plant. The rhododendrons are quite beautiful this year as well - red plants and white plants. The purple iris that Ed planted the summer before COVID has done amazingly well. The flowers this year were quite huge. The bleeding hearts always do well. The small globe cedar that we planted fourty four years ago is now taller than me and very good looking this year. I did a little trimming and probably it needs more and will work away at that as summer passes. I doubt that I can manage the trimmer that Edward used on it. I will always remember him asking me to put a chair beside the globe that last summer before he passed away so that he could work his way around the globe and trim it. That trimming still looks good with me cutting away any spots that spoil the symmetry. Then there is Starry Solomon's Seal which is a large collection of plants about half a metre to a metre across now in a circle which is absolutely gorgeous in the spring and continues to grow healthily and it too was planted fourty four years ago. The daisy plants that we put in about ten years ago have taken hold now and filled an area that was bleeding heart but looked very large so we made that plant area smaller and added the daisies. They are quite lovely in July. The primrose area is very protected by all these plants and there are five different coloured plants which are also quite wonderful in the spring and then just greenery for awhile before the light diminishes once again and they bloom in late summer into fall. Sometimes we have had blooms into late November. 

The day begins and breakfast is next. There is a little wind in the trees to remind us that God is in our world watching and listening to how we humans are progressing. He doesn't interfere but we are perhaps one of his great creations along with everything else. We just need to follow the new commandment that Jesus gave to us - to love God with all of our heart and soul and to love our neighbours as ourselves. Then our world can continue to prosper and do well with all the goodness that He has given to us.

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