Weekend on Lake Erie

Sunset on Lake Erie

We went to visit my sister Linda and brother-in-law Rich in Cleveland this weekend and had a great time at their home on Lake Erie. It was an absolutely perfect weekend, sunny and warm, and the lake was clear and calm. The best part was seeing the whole family, all their kids and grandkids, and we had some wonderful meals, of course.  I think we ate every meal outside on the patio or deck. When we got there on Friday, Linda and Rich had clams and shrimp ready to grill, along with some delicious pasta. Yummo. Those clams were delicious! A few of the kids also stopped by that night to say hello.

So pretty

Clams on the grill

My great niece, Emily

On Saturday night, we had my Aunt Peggy and Uncle Tom over for dinner. My aunt Peggy is my mom's sister and we have always been close to their family. She just turned 92 and it was so great to see them both, and enjoy such a lovely evening on the lake.

Linda and me with Aunt Peggy

Rich and Aunt Peggy

Uncle Tom talking to Walt

Color in the garden--those hydrangeas are gorgeous

Coffee on the deck

Linda's pots

My sister is a gardener too and they have a really lovely yard. They have lots of shade so they grow a lot of hostas, hydrangeas, daylilies,  and use annuals to fill in with color.

Shady gardens

Morning on the beach

My sister Linda

On Sunday all my nieces and nephews and their kids came over for a beach day, apparently one of the best days they have had all summer. The kids got the boat out on the lake, the jet ski, kayaks, paddle boards, and rafts. We all just floated in the lake on rafts all afternoon, only getting out to have a beer and sit on the sand with our feet in the lake. Nice way to live. We had a summer turkey dinner with two turkeys roasted on the grill, fresh corn, Linda's purple coleslaw, broccoli rice, and rolls. My niece Kirsten is the dessert maker and she outdid herself with ice cream pies, with a rice crispie and peanut butter crust, a layer of hot fudge, then filled with toffee ice cream. A dollop of hot fudge on top.  Delish.  I think we finished up 3 pies--not hard to do with 25 people. It was so nice to have a summer weekend on Lake Erie.

Great day on the lake

A Beautiful Morning

My favorite kind of morning--a steady rain during the night, cooler temps this morning, and beautiful light,  a perfect time for a walkaround and a cup of tea in the garden. Things are starting to wind down in the garden, but the asters and sedums are starting to show color, letting me know that fall is on its way.

The View From Penthouse B

This latest book by Elinor Lipman is a great summer read--light and with just enough of a story to keep you interested. But it is the characters you will love in this book. Two New Yorkers,  sisters 'of a certain age,' are both faced with different kinds of loss and must deal with the many issues of loss, aging, forgiveness, change, and romance. Margot loses her husband to a scandal (her fertility doctor husband was a tad too helpful to his patients) and then loses her money to Bernie Madoff, and younger sister Gwen loses her husband to an early heart attack. Fortunately Margot owns  her Greenwich Village apartment and so she invites Gwen to move in with her to help pay the bills. They soon take in a boarder, Anthony,  an unemployed former financial analyst in his 20s who likes to bake cupcakes, along with a few other random people who move in and out. After Margot's paroled husband get outs of prison, he too moves into a basement apartment in the building, causing lots of angst. All push to get a reluctant Gwen back into the dating scene.  There is nothing deep here, just some quirky characters trying to cope with their changing lives amid a busy Manhattan setting. Very readable and humorous, I found myself laughing out loud at times.

Nitsa Time

Nitsa visited us this weekend on her way home from the beach. She stopped here last week on her way down to Nags Head, and then again on her way back,  and stayed an extra day to visit.  We have been friends since at least 1980 when she was working at the same place as Walt, and she and I became fast friends. We used to spend a lot of weekends together at a friend's cabin on the Shenandoah River back in the day.  We had our girls within a few months of each other and our families shared many dinners and holidays until she moved away to upstate New York. So I don't get to see her very much anymore, but when I do, we have the best time. We went out to dinner, had some delicious Nutella donuts for dessert, drank some wine, spent a good part of the day at IKEA, and on Sunday made a summer dinner of teriyaki pork chops,  along with Armenian Country Salad. Readers--Nitsa is the original maker of Armenian Country Salad! The first time I had that salad was at Nitsa's house back in the 1980s, and it has been a favorite of ours ever since. I can't even think how many times I have made it. The perfect summer salad.  So fun to be with my pal Nitsa again.

Nutella donut

And I can't forget to mention what Nitsa always brings me from upstate New York! My own box of black and white cookies--yummo.

Friday Fleurs

"The garden is where I go to for refuge and shelter. Not the house."

 ~ Elizabeth von Armin, English writer

Anemones

Anemones

'Black and Blue' Salvia

Anemones, Phlox, Zinnias, Coreopsis

'Limelight' Hydrangea

Platycodon

Happy Birthday Julia Child!

Bon Appetit!

Eileen, Prudy, and I celebrated Julia Child's 101st birthday last night on Eileen's deck with some French baguette sandwiches (sandwiches au jambon), some delicious French rosé,  and yummy French macarons. It wasn't exactly what we had planned, but hey, we roll with the punches. We have celebrated Julia's birthdays in the past with fancy French-themed dinner parties, lunches at French bistros, and a big week-long celebration at the Smithsonian last year for Julia's 100th birthday, complete with orchestra and birthday cake. Julia Child has been an inspiration to us all our adult lives, in her cooking and with her great spirit and big personality. We love our Julia Child.

"The Gardener"

The Gardener

by Ken Weisner


You get down on your knees in the dark earth--alone
for hours in hot sun, yanking weed roots, staking trellises,
burning your shoulders, swatting gnats; you strain your muscled
midwestern neck and back, callous your pianist's hands.

You cut roses back so they won't fruit, rip out and replace
spent annuals. You fill your garden dense with roots and vines.
And when a humble sprout climbs like a worm up out of death,
you are there to bless it, in your green patch, all spring and summer long.

hose like a scepter, a reliquary vessel; you hum
through the dreamy wilderness--no one to judge, absolve,
or be absolved--purified by labor, confessed by its whisperings, connected
to its innocence. So when you heft a woody, brushy tangle, or stumble

inside grimy, spent by earth, I see all the sacraments in place--
and the redeemed world never smelled so sweet.

Back in the Garden

I spent the weekend in the garden, getting things back in order after being away for awhile. Saturday was a cloudy day, raining lightly off and on, the perfect kind of day for puttering about in the garden. I alternated between the garden and the garage, organizing the garage when it rained and then back in the garden when it stopped. I cleaned up all my pots, cutting back the plants that were out of control, and even gave them all a good dose of MiracleGro to give them a boost for the rest of the summer. I find myself getting a little tired of some of my pots around this time, so sometimes it helps to just cut them way back and they will look great again in the fall.

I like to go around the garden from one end to the other, edging, weeding, deadheading, pulling down the vines that take over the backyard fence.  I have a love/hate relationship with my patch of daylilies--they are so pretty when they are  blooming but so ugly afterwards with the brown dying foliage. So now I cut them back totally--Walt uses a sickle and cuts them to the ground. In a few weeks they will all have nice new green growth and look so much better. The garden is looking good.

Friday Fleurs: Chanticleer Gardens

Teacup Garden

Last Saturday, while we were in Lancaster County, Prudy, Eileen, and I decided to take a road trip to Chanticleer Gardens in Wayne, PA,  about an hour's drive from the farm. Eileen and I had both been there before in the fall, but Prudy had never been and we were both excited to see it again in the summer. Chanticleer is a family estate on the Main Line of Philadelphia that dates to the early 20th century.  It was a family home until the 1980s and was opened to the public in 1993.  It is truly one of the loveliest gardens I have ever visited. It is the perfect size, too--not so big that you can't see everything. It took us about two hours to walk around the whole property.

We decided that what distinguishes Chanticleer from other gardens are the details. Everywhere you look there is an interesting container, ironwork gate, fanciful chair, unusual railing.

Gravel Garden

One of my favorite things at Chanticleer is all the stone furniture. Love these comfy armchairs!

Prudy relaxing in stone chair

Ruins Gardens

Cutting Garden

The porches of the houses are filled with interesting containers and we loved these little vignettes of mosses, ferns, sedums, and begonias.

I have to say, though, that visiting all these gardens lately makes me feel like I know nothing about plants. I saw so many plants that I don't know.

Serpentine border of two varieties of kale