Just sharing a few photos of things that are done blooming until next spring.

Take Time to Smell the Roses

This has been an emotional roller coaster for me and I am not an emotional person, I feel so guilty for feeling badly about the things I have lost when so many others have lost everything! The devastation that Mother Nature can do is incredible. This is the first day that we have not worked like crazy, we decided we needed a down day. It almost seemed normal. They picked up all the trash up and down our street on Friday, I was so glad to see it gone when I turned the corner after work, it was a depressing sight seeing every one's belongings piled in the street. We have the basement down to bare bones and are waiting for it to dry completely so we can start the rebuilding. I even picked up paint chips, that is a good sign, right?

Sunday Blooming Sunday

I survived the 2008 Flood

This has been a whirlwind two weeks. I have lived in my house for over 30 years and never even had a drop of water in the basement. We had water in the basement plus water on all the streets around us. We spent 4 solid days pumping water out trying to save our appliances, the water finally stopped running this past Friday, it was ground water, not flood water at least. I guess there was no place for it to go except our basements, most everyone in our neighborhood lost all their furnaces, washers, dryers, hot water heaters and freezers. We only lost our hot water heater. It is an experience that I will never forget. At one point they wanted to shut our power off and evacuate us. After the water quit running we spent two days tearing out dry wall and insulation, now the it is drying out. I have muscles that are aching that I never knew I had :). The folks south of here had it even worse. The second photo is of the nature trail bridge that we walked on all the time. It was an old railroad bridge and line turned into a nature trail. My husband's Dad worked construction on this bridge before he enlisted in the Army to serve in WWI.

Sunday Rainy Sunday

Everyone have their Arks built???? We have over 3 inches in our rain gauge right now, that is since I went to bed last night, after the over 4 inches we had last week and the forecast is for more rain all week long, this is starting to look like 1993.

I had lots of plans for things I wanted to do today but I doubt that will happen. Yesterday I went to a garden craft sale at a local arboretum. It was fun, I don't feel too bad about my weeds any longer as I saw weeds 5 feet tall on their grounds. :). I bought a Sweet Autumn Clematis from a local perennial grower. It was in a large pot that weighed about 20 pounds so it was a long trip back to the car and I think it was a 20 mile walk uphill both ways. I wanted to buy a few herbs but had enough carrying the clematis. There was a vendor there selling the concrete leaves, I have always wanted to try doing that but have not had the time. She was also selling lots of garden word art stones, which I have made, but hers had a beautiful greenish/black patina on them, I am going to experiment to try to get that look. Maybe some day I will have time to do the concrete leaves.

New Garden Helper

This is Rosie, my new garden helper, isn't she just tooooooooooooooo cute. She is fitting in nicely, we are smitten with her.

On a gardening note, I have been so busy with my garden, working and Rosie that I have not been blog visiting for quite some time. I have to correct that soon! We have gotten lots of rain here. My roses are covered in small buds, my clematis are starting to bloom, the iris are in their full glory.