Homestead Tour

First!

Jacque!!!  Please email me with your mailing address and the item you want from my Give-away!

I can't send out your package without an address!
patandzip@hotmail.com

Summer is here!!!  I just love it!

This is my favorite time of year around the house and garden.  We are not great planters of flowers, there is just too much lawn to take care of without the added work of flower beds.  It's also very shady from all the huge trees around the house.

I love these trees because with an old uninsulated house they are the saving grace from the heat.  Our trees were large when we moved in 40 years ago, so I have no idea how old they may be but I would estimate from 100 to 150 years.

This huge catalpa is probably older because they are not fast growing trees.  The trunk is so big around that I don't think Zip and I could both encircle it with our arms.

About twenty years ago it was struck by lightning during a particularly wild thunderstorm.  What a horrendous crack that made!  Totally scary!!!  We thought the tree was a goner.  It lost about a quarter of the bark on the trunk, but over the years the tree recovered and the scar healed over.

Right now the blossoms are out and when they fall it looks like snow under the tree.  They have a delightful fragrance.

This is our one rose bush with one rose on it.  Just too much shade!

Our vegetable garden is doing well.   Because of the cool wet spring we have in this area, we are not early planters.  The plants do so much better if we wait till it warms up.  And now they are growing so fast you can almost see the daily changes.

We will soon be eating beans.  We've already had a few small tomatoes from the 'patio' tomato plant that we purchased from the greenhouse.  And these larger plants have blossoms on them.

And here is the old farmer in his Amish hat sitting on the antique 8N Ford tractor.  He's the guy who makes all this garden stuff happen.  Zip and his tractor were both born about the same year back in the 1940's!

And here is the beautiful rainbow that appeared after a sudden storm last evening.

As for me, I am rughooking.  Unfortunately it's for the Forest Secrets challenge on Rug Hooking Daily so I can't show it.  I'm finally having fun with it, after struggling with my confidence wondering if I could do this without messing it up.  It is being done in a #4 cut with more detail than I usually put into a design.  Darn, I hate not being able to show what I'm doing and get input from others! 

Maybe one little peek!

I am keeping photos of the work in progress and the areas I reverse hooked to put in something I thought looked better.

Hope all of you are enjoying sunny skies and warm breezes.

Happy and relaxing hooking!!!