- Hah, on February 24 I did snip off about 75 Daffodils to fill our unique CIRCLE Vase... Have you ever seen one? Wait and see your first one below!
- Bud vases that are ALL joined together as ONE CIRCLE VASE...
- Have you EVER seen one like that?
- From our entire estate I only got this total yield of daffodils for 2013...
- Using my Gardena Garden scissors.
- But I was very happy with them!
- Cutting them all short, I started arranging them inside these cute bud vases.
- They are in TWO layers...
- YES, TWO layers and all joined together... on top of my Le Jacquard Français tablecloth.
- Next you will get to see the full circle...
- There are 9 vases below and 9 vases above and it also has a separate circle of glass, for using with some displlay...
- THAT I will show you later!
- So what do you think?
- You like this idea of vases linked together?
- I've never ever seen anything like this and below I have only two links that I found with one layer circle vases.
- Found mine on eBay.
Related links:
Gardena 359 All Purpose Stainless Steel Garden Scissors | at Amazon.com
Circle Bud Vase | Circle with 9 bud vases, just scroll down and click on image
Glass Vases | Showing also round circle bud vases
- Maybe strange but I LOVE, really LOVE MOSSES! And Daffodils of course...!
- Am I crazy? Or are there others that are with me?...
- I know my youngest brother Jan is crazy about mosses as well; so it must be genetic!
- This is a photo from such mosses that I'd pampered for years, weeding them so they could grow FAT, be happy and STAY...
- BUT, they need lots of moisture and with two very hot summers with lots of drought; all my mosses have VANISHED! Yes, they're gone.
- How I treasure this photo from 1994. That combination of daffodils and mosses looks perfect to me; or not?
- This photo is also from 1994, just last week I did scan those old slides.
- Plenty of daffodils than. Now only the green showed but no buds, no blooms for 2013.
- Here our semi-evergreen oak is still skinny and in its early years.
- If you click on the link below this post you can see the giant that it is now.
- Sure, there's always access to water and this pond never ever gets dry, as we had it dug in a wet area, kind of like a marsh.
- A well from underground keeps it filled year-round!
Do you have a fondness of mosses as well?
Related link:
{Our Different Oaks}| Previous post by me, showing the oak where the daffodils used to be...
- Yep, yesterday I had a major haircut... much needed and I would like to hear what you think...
- Today we went to a special music program at our Christ Episcopal Church at noon.
- Since it is an official event of the Saint Patrick's Festival most people did wear some green.
- So out came our all cotton Irish Blarney Castle Sweaters that we bought during one of our consulting trips to Ireland.
- They just feel comfy to wear on a sunny, but windy day!
- That's me with short hair and our feline boy Bandido, on the steps of our gazebo...
- You can tell the pollen is starting to come, as seen by Dido's paw prints on my navy Escada jeans!
- That's the Blarney Castle, all cotton sweater from Ireland.
- Below I will show you a detail of it and also form the necklace and earrings.
- These Blarney Castle sweaters do have a shamrock knitted into the front!
- Quite appropriate for our City of Dublin, as it is the emblem here.
- Escada jeans in navy with old Salamander ballerina shoes with ankle strap.
- The yellow Carolina jasmine is budding out and will look pretty very soon.
- The sun is so harsh already that making photos is nearly impossible without shade marks.
- Yes, we both are dressed in partner look...
- Pieter is holding the chicken wire, on which our Carolina jasmine vine is climbing up as a support.
- Here it is with one Blarney Castle emblem up on the left sleeve and a larger one inside the neck.
- From Pieter I received once this cloisonné Hex sign that he got me in Pennsylvania in the early 80s.
- The Irish Shamrock Hex is a sign for good luck surrounded by smooth round lines for an easy life. The two distelfinks make for a double portion of good fortune while the heart suggests love.
- The silver earrings with green Malachite stone, we bought while doing consulting work in México, during a weekend sight seeing with our boss/friend Agustín.
- Fond memories and they play an annual role in our Dublin St. Patrick's Festival...
Are you celebrating St. Patrick's Festival in your City?
- Saint Patrick's Festival is a big event here in Dublin, Georgia and we have all month something going on and LOTS of green is being worn!
- Here I like to show you some OLD pictures from 1995 where we had plenty of narcissus blooming and also our fragrant Clematis Armandii vine was in full bloom.
- This year; none of these! Sad for having to miss them... Only the pictures of years where they were blooming can give us joy.
- Below you find a post about our fragrant 1916 heirloom Thalia narcissus as well as our Clematis Armandii vine with its Fragrant Blooms... It was a dream in 2011!
- Here I am wearing a Burda Pattern Jacket - My Sewing Creation.
- Skirt is Michael Kors
- Silk blouse is Michael Kors
- Shoes are patent leather from Bruno Magli from Saks Fifth Avenue OFF 5th Outlet.
- Seen are also our fragrant 1916 heirloom Thalia - latest of our Daffodils but this year NONE of them bloomed...
- We both are glad for having these photos with our favorite flowers!
How is your crop of spring flowers doing this year?
Related links:
{Burda Pattern Jacket - My Sewing Creation} | previous post by me
{Our Clematis Armandii - Fragrant Blooms on Evergreen Vine} | previous post by me
{Our fragrant 1916 heirloom Thalia - latest of our Daffodils} | previous post by me
{Heirloom 1916 Thalia Orchid Narcissus & Ipheion Star Flower in Our Garden} | previous post by me
- Probably not many readers from outside the USA do know the Mailbox system that we have here. Very convenient and with a red flag that we can raise for the mailman, to indicate that he has to take out some outgoing mail. He then will lower the raised flag and we know that the mail has been taken/delivered. No needless trips to be made to the road where the mailbox stands.
- Our German 'son' did take such a US Mailbox home for his Grandmother so she didn't have to walk through rain or snow in vain for checking the mail. That was a very thoughtful gift from him! They had to educate their rural mail carrier how it was supposed to be done and it worked fine ever since.
- So let's have a look at those mailboxes in rural Georgia/USA.
- When people do come home from work, from their car they can open up the lid and take their mail or parcel out. Those boxes do contain quite a lot of mail.
- Contrary to the narrow slit for pushing letter mail through mailboxes, mainly inside front doors, in The Netherlands. Anything that will not pass through the opening is considered parcel post and will be delivered at a higher rate and separately.
- The green box is provided by the local Newspaper The Courier Herald.
- How many miles a rural mail carrier must drive on any given day?
- And how about delivering mail on rainy days?
- Just like we had a couple of weeks ago with 18" or 45.7 cm rain?
- Hats off to those rural mail carriers or UPS delivery, FedEx etc.!
- But anyhow, I am glad that we live in a sub division with paved roads...
Bet in Canada, Australia and New Zealand it can be very rural too.
- This is the second year in a row that we missed out on our otherwise gorgeous Japanese Magnolia blossoms. We had some late frost and all the buds turned brown...
- Sad sight as this is such a show case for early spring; mostly on my Mom's Birthday which is February 12.
- In 2011 we had lovely blossoms on both of our magnolia trees and previous also in 2004. Below you see some photos of that lucky year... Also more links below post.
- Let me show you our 4 dreary looking, surviving blossoms that I photographed today. They were the late bloomers but still got some frost damage, as is shown below.
- Frost damage and also the color is not optimal. Their botanical name is Magnolia x soulangeana.
- This photo is taken on Sunday afternoon before we took a walk.
- Lovely weather.
- ONLY 4 made it somehow... This is our 2nd Magnolia tree.
- Our biggest Magnolia tree did not have a single blossom; all turned brown from late frost.
- This was quite a show case of blossoms in 2004... Magnolia x soulangeana
- Also in 2004, looking towards the gazebo.
- Closer towards the gazebo, showing the 2nd Magnolia tree in 2004.
- This Magnolia tree took quite a blow when a big tree fell into it and broke off a big branch.
Are you having more luck with your Japanese Magnolia or Magnolia x soulangeana trees this year?
Related links:
{SPRING 2011 IS GRADUATING!} | Previous post by me
{Sculptured Watercolors by Patsy Gullett since 1981} | Previous post by me, showing our Magnolias too
{MORE BLOSSOMS IN OUR BOTANICAL GARDEN} | Previous post by me
{Our Camellia Sinensis Tea Plant and Japanese Magnolia} | Previous post by me
When we came to the United States as immigrants, on August 29, of 1983 we of course started to explore the area in rural Georgia where we were living. Right here in Laurens County, Georgia we could still make some photos of former so called 'Slave Houses'. We were quite surprised to find them. I did come across these as I was scanning old slides during the heavy rains and the flooding in husband Pieter's work shop. February it was Black History Month so this is appropriate for showing them here today.
Husband Pieter took this photo in Laurens County, Georgia.
Probably in 1985 and yes, this was before the digital camera era...
Guess these are no longer around, which is a pity as it was part of history.
This one looks quite patched up...
It must have been raining a lot too, considering the water to the bottom right in this photo...
Do any of you recall those slave houses?
PS There are some comments on my
FB Page (just click this link) by local readers and they refer to them
as being also tenant houses. Sure, I did NOT grow up here in this State. Any info is welcome!
Just tried to archive some history by saving our initial photos.
- One of our most favorite spring bulbs have been the Double Peony Tulips Angelique & Mount Tacoma. The Angelique is a pink double peony tulip and the Mount Tacoma is a pure white double peony tulip.
- First we bought them at the tax free airport of Schiphol, Amsterdam in The Netherlands. So anxious to see those bloom and it was quite a show.
- Gorgeous display of Angelique in front and Mount Tacoma in the back with white creeping phlox.
- But over time, they did disappear... WHY? Read further below for finding out.
- Gorgeous double Angelique Peony Tulips with our Chinese redbud.
- View towards the gazebo...
- Me touching one of those fragrant Mount Tacoma Double Peony Tulips.
- We did learn that they are being eaten as gourmet food by e.g. VOLES.
- No, not moles, but voles.
- One day when husband Pieter went to fill the bird feeders with seeds, he stepped over those tulip beds and in doing so he just saw one tulip stem disappear into the ground.
- So after filling up those feeders, he investigated; with a shovel he dug up that particular tulip and he showed me a half eaten bulb and even the stem with the bloom had been nibbled off and that was the reason he saw it going into the ground.
- AHA; we learned that those critters eat all the tulip bulbs and other bulbs; but not daffodils as those are poisonous.
- SAD fact but we no longer have these beauties in our garden. As gourmet food they are too expensive for replacing them every couple of years.
- This single Mount Tacoma Double Peony Tulip was our ONLY one survivor for 2010...
- Those voles left us with ONE bulb; isn't that generous?!
- Does any of you have tulips in the garden?
- AND have voles to feed...?
Related link:
Vole | how this critter looks...
- While scanning old slides I came across this one from 1994, showing you Our Wood Trail.
- Husband Pieter had dug the ditches and build this wooden walk way, all the way from the gazebo to the greenhouse. That was our first water control project to rid the property of some wet spots.
- From here you are looking at the gazebo and the back of the house, towards the road.
- We only could start with our gardening after we came home from our 3 years of working and living in Indonesia.
- This was the beginning of our lush garden with cute wrens bird house on the tree.
Azalea Helen Curtis is blooming here
- Same Wood Trail, 17 years later... The wrens bird house still on the tree.
- This photo is taken in the opposite direction.
- The ditches have been filled up with the dirt that came out of the basement when Pieter dug it out for building the Rose Suite.
- That were 60 tons of dirt and it ended up on the side and in the ditches and on the back of our property near the creek. You can't even tell it was that much.
Do any of you have a walk way into the garden?
Related links:
- Wow, I'm finally FREE again... after 3 days in Superior Court as one of 12 Jurors for a Criminal Case. I'd been summoned several times before, once by the District Court in Augusta, Georgia which is a two hour drive away from where we live. That was on April 25, 2005 and luckily I got out of it. We had booked our 3 free nights at the Cypress Gardens Hyatt hotel in Orlando, Florida and we did not like to miss that! Previously to that, I'd been summoned a few times here in Laurens County but never had to actually serve; neither has Pieter.
- Monday it turned out that I was on, together with 11 others and 1 alternate. Very lengthy procedure and kind of hard to sit through without any window; neither in our juror room, nor the court room. But today we got to the deliberation of this criminal case and I performed as foreperson. We came to a unanimous decision for the verdict of the person being tried; being guilty on one of two counts. Glad it is over with!
- Knowing the language is one thing but it is very hard to listen to all evidence, witnesses, audio and video in a language other than your mother tongue. Especially on subjects that are not your daily routine. But I did it and gained some experience for maybe future jury duty.
- Certainly I will be catching up on blog reading but for now I'm really tired...
The pay for such Jury Duty is by law US $ 25.00 per day; that's IT.
- Many bloggers also do have a FB (Facebook) Fan Page. Ever noticed that long string of numbers in your URL? Mine looked like this before: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mariettes-Back-to-Basics-LLC/344099510841
- Let me show you how I did change it to: facebook.com/MariettesBacktoBasics
- Yes, if you click on it or copy and paste this into your browser it takes you straight to my FB Page.
- That would be very helpful in mentioning into an email or wherever you want to publish this. Looks neat and will be easy to remember and does not look spammy.
- At first I noticed this short FB Fan Page URL in Avril's Royal Ribbon FB Fan Page: facebook.com/RoyalRibbons. We communicated via our LinkedIn accounts.
- So I had to figure it out and like to share it here with you.
- Log in to your regular FB account NOT your FB Fan Page!
- In the browser put: facebook.com/username ←click it if you already are logged in.
Click on drop down box next to Pages...
Select the name of your Page or else type in your Page's name
Be careful as your username may be changed only once!
Click Confirm
From my previous posting I had the info below:
- A 'Enter Desired Username' will popup on the right - see where MariettesBacktoBasicsLLC is typed inside.
- Now very careful type inside THAT box the name YOU want to show directly behind facebook.com
- DOUBLE check as it cannot be changed! Make sure you capitalize words as they will appear exactly like that in your new URL.
Good luck! Let me know if you managed to change your Fan Page.
Related link:
- Just feel like showing you where we found this beaver.
- NOT on our property and as Fabby's Living wrote: 'I just love how the beaver just posed for your camera...so adorable!!' Sorry Fabby, but that beaver did no longer pose, it was dead.
- Guess that TexWisGirl and The Smart Cat were right about this beaver having been a flood casualty.
- It sure was not killed by car as Madelief suggested. As I already stated right at the top; it was dead but no wounds, nothing.
- Johanna from Silber-und-Rosen-Shop did mention that I'd never mentioned this beaver in our wood garden. At least we have NEVER EVER seen any beaver damage but it lived just around the corner from our street, near the big pond. Our creek runs through that pond, underneath the road.
- There is another creek a bit further and at its banks more or less we found this beaver on the side of the road. Probably got washed out of his house! We did have some 18" or 45.7 cm of rain in a couple of days!!!
- So please look at this Aerial photo that I took from bing.com
 |
| Bing.com aerial view |
- The blue dot is wrongly placed by Bing and by Google.
- But in red, at the top of this aerial view, I have marked and pointed at our home.
- Below the red words 'Our Home>', you find the BIG pond and a bit further where another creek runs, through a wooded area with a lot of trees, that's where we found this beaver! Where the arrow (chevron) points.
Hope this does clarify that it was NOT on our property. Thanks for your time and yes, nature is amazing, especially for both of us coming from such a densily populated country like The Kingdom of The Netherlands! We treasure this property and hope we can manage to stay here for a long time to come.
- With all the raging water through our creek and the big pond where the creek is feeding into, we did notice this beaver on the side of the road.
- Husband Pieter did take some photos of it.
- Quite impressive in size; over 35" or 89 cm!
- We learned that their weight is from 28 to 70 lb or 13 to 32 kg.
- Their tail alone measures over 10" or 25 cm.
- This one was dead, but I still love to show it; no wounds, nothing.
- It measures over 35" or 89 cm as that is the total length of this yard stick.
- You see husband Pieter's shoe, just for comparison...
- This one probably weighed around 30 lb or 13.6 kg.
- Check out the two links below this post for more info about their amazing consumption of 200 trees annually! They are HARD workers and also can do lots of damage.
- The tail alone is 10" or 25 cm long!
- Look at its feet...
- Great fur too...
- Would make a nice Russian Hat!
- Here you very clearly see its foot and the large 10"+ tail...
- Face is not really visible but it has tiny ears...
- Have you ever encountered a beaver in your area?
Related links:
