This has been such a lovely weekend full of family, friends, flowers, and sewing. Starting with the first item in that list, David's sister Alice visited. She arrived on Friday, and after catching up on some of her news, we went out for supper. We took her to an Italian restaurant nearby that we had been to once before, and on our way there we passed one of our favorite ice cream stands. We agreed that ice cream would be our dessert. However, we hadn't counted on the tasty bread (only one slice each), salad, and superb entrees. D and Alice even shared a mussels appetizer. Too full for ice cream, we headed home for a bit of TV and then bed.
Saturday brother and sister wended their way to Dad's via an artisan gift shop, garden shop, and at least two (or was it more?) cemeteries to put flowers on the graves of family and friends. They made it to their destination and spent some time with Dad before taking him to the town's cemetery to place his poppies on appropriate graves.
By the time they returned home, I had gone off with Mary Ellen to a quilting pajama party. That was a successful time for me (after last weekend's debacle, I'm glad to be able to announce that!) and for everyone else, also. Having been to quite a few of these "parties", Mary Ellen and I knew almost all of the participants. It was fun to catch up on their news and see their new projects. Some even brought completed projects they had worked on last time and showed them much to our delight. It's wonderful to see the progress people make - both in getting things finished and in becoming more competent and confident quilters. Home at around 2:00 AM, I fell into bed.
Sunday, D cooked up a great breakfast and then drove me over to Mary Ellen's for the monthly get-together of our small group. It was a good time with good friends. Everyone made progress on projects (these are projects that don't require sewing machines for those of us who are quilters). Two of us were working on counted cross stitch, and two had their applique projects with them. Unfortunately, two of our members weren't able to join us; it is Memorial Day weekend, after all!
Since today is also a good day, I wandered out with my camera to see what is blooming in my gardens. The iris and peonies are gorgeous and the roses have started. Even the wisteria had put forth additional blooms to be admired. I do have a few photos that turned out quite well so I will share them. The first is a fragrant and beautiful peony by the hedge at the back of our property.
Blanc Double du Courbet is my favorite white rose. In this photo of a not-quite-open flower, it looks like a hankie. It's also fragrant; another reason to celebrate its short bloom time.
In case you don't already know it, I love white flowers and have a white flower garden in the front of our house beside the driveway. These iris are just lovely now; I think they are "Anniversary".
And also in the front tucked in among the white-flowering hostas are my Japanese Painted Ferns (and other ferns as well, of course). When I went back outside, camera-less, to water a potted plant that had looked a bit droopy, I saw one of nature's silent dramas going on beneath this fern.
A garter snake had just caught a small frog and was making a meal of it. Realizing I couldn't save the frog, I decided to watch something I'd never seen in "real life" and then remove the snake. No, I had no plans to kill it, but D is slightly ophidiophobic (afraid of snakes) so I thought I'd remove the snake to the woods near us. I waited and when the time was right, I managed to grasp it behind its head. While I'm not afraid of snakes, I don't love them, but I figured I could do this with no problem. Wrong! Of course, the poor thing was scared (I wasn't exactly calm, either); it thrashed about and managed to bite me, the little rascal. You can imagine that that didn't make me any calmer, but I did manage to release it into what I thought was a more appropriate environment.
And I thought chipmunks were going to be my key problem!
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