Garden Excitement, Beware the Gnomewrecker.
Sunday morning on a casual stroll through the garden we discovered this little creature, kindly posing for a photograph.
On the Saturday afternoon previous we took a spur of the moment jaunt down to College Park to visit the great Swedish emporium of inexpensive home-related goods, and of course, the sole purpose of that trip was to buy this gnome. Isn’t he cute? As usual I somehow managed to spend a ridiculous bit of cash at the Ikea, they really do suck one in with the inexpensiveness, until you’ve spent a fortune.
Mr. Lincoln also gave us a perfectly formed bloom, thanks to the copious rain lately and the cooler weather.
The dahlias are beginning to bloom. I’m very much liking the ‘Mystery Day’ I bought rather on a whim, it’s actually turning out to be quite grande. The ‘Nuit de Ete’ is also very nice, so dark of a red that it appears black under most lighting. I haven’t been able to get that many great photos yet, so I’ll refrain from posting them here, but you can also take a look at garden.indiboi’s Dahlia album to see them all. :)
I’ve finally completed the pathway to the rose garden too. I’m very happy with the results of this spring’s labor.
I finally had to replace my little blue Colibri lighter. It was a very sad day last Friday when it finally ceased to function. I nearly destroyed it back in February when I was trying to burn down the lounge with candles for Valentine’s Day, but managed to keep it working for several months after that. I’ve replaced it with another Colibri, this one is black with chrome at the top and bottom. I’m not totally in love with it, but it certainly works well and I like it enough.
I’ve been much more interested in cooking again lately, as a result of someone demanding I cook; so I did — Thursday and Friday. Thursday’s dinner was a sauteed shrimp with tortellini and red sauce; Friday was again shrimp, but this time marinated with a soy, brown sugar, and hot pepper concoction and then sauteed. I then reduced the marinade to a sauce, and set the shrimp over a bed of coconut & lime jasmine rice; sided by basil mango salsa. It was truly delicious. Both evenings were finished off with a fruit tart, hehe, the first being peach and blackberry, the second being peach and blueberry.
The first evening’s little ‘dinner party’ was somewhat rained out. It began to sprinkle very soon after sitting down for the first course, the weather rapidly turned into a downright assult of rain… the umbrella just couldn’t handle it. Dinner then proceeded in the lounge for the main course, all of us sitting around the coffee table, with dessert held standing in the kitchen, lol.
Thankfully dinner Friday evening worked out a bit better in regards to the weather; we weren’t sent running into the house due to the rain. On the deck, surrounded by the trees and birds singing, it was wonderful.
