There's a Lot Going On!

 

My head is spinning these days, juggling so many things. Meanwhile, the garden continues its regular parade of blooms. I cut a bouquet of peony buds that opened within a day or two and have lasted for a week. 

Our warm spring (so unlike last year's) has made the fig trees pop with fruit. Raspberry bushes are loaded and I look forward to an abundant harvest in a few weeks. I planted potatoes this year and they have begun to flower. It seems that there is always something new to see when I visit my garden. 

John Cabot (David Austin) is a climbing rosebush that produces hundreds of flowers throughout the summer. It's in a bed just beneath our patio and long branches often creep through the railing. They have vicious thorns and I am constantly training them to grow elsewhere, with little success. When we have guests coming (including the little grands), I simply cut them off to avoid scratches. 

Behind the roses you can see a portion of the outside painting I did on the house. The colour here is not accurate because the evening sun is shining strongly. As well as renovating the kitchen we've been upgrading the windows and adding seismic upgrades to the outside of the house. Everything has to happen in sequence and I'm glad that I'm not the one figuring that out. I'm thankful that Tim can do that. The vertical portions of the outside of the house are painted dark grey/blue and the horizontal siding is cream-coloured. It's a job that will happen over a couple of seasons. 

Here's a single John Cabot rose with more accurate colour in the background. 

I think we must be on about Phase 34 of the renovation. Now it's all about the flooring. Tim is installing a floating engineered oak hardwood floor in the kitchen, dining room, living room, and entrance hall. You know what that means! Lots of moving parts - especially the furniture. Currently, the dining room table is in front of the fireplace in the living room holding stacks of plates, serving dishes, teacups, and assorted dishes from the china cabinet which sits in another corner. 

But there is definite progress! Here is one section of the kitchen. To the left is the space for the fridge which had to be moved out for the flooring installation. We chose a dusty blue for the cabinets with brass hardware, and white marbled quartz for the countertops. I'm very happy with the decisions we made. It's difficult to actually envision what things will look like when done, so it's a great relief to feel that we made the correct choices. After the flooring we'll think about the tile backsplash. It will be mostly white, I think.

To add a little more to my day I'm going to be teaching Spanish for the next three weeks, until the end of school. Our eldest daughter is the regular teacher and she is going to be off for surgery. And we're having house guests this weekend. As I said, lots of balls to juggle these days, but taking things moment by moment is the way to manage. 

Evening garden visits help, too.