Late August blooms...

These first two photos are of my 'Lambert Closse' rose

and 'Limelight' hydrangea. This rose is a repeat bloomer

and is showing it's stuff again. Love it!

'Limelight' hydrangea, 'David' phlox, and 'John Cabot' rose.


A lovely little 'PeeGee' hydrangea.

'Limelight' hydrangea in foreground.

'David' phlox

A pretty daylily's last blooms.

The roses that are putting on a show now.

'Moxie' rose with blue scabiosa (pincushion flower)

Well the garden is still sending up blooms for me. I don't like to think of it being the end of summer and in a few short weeks I'll be cutting back all these lovely perennials to get them ready for winter. Right now however, I choose not to think about that. I choose to sit back and enjoy all the roses and hydrangeas and other blooms that will keep the garden colorful until the first hard frost.

I have much to be grateful for this summer. Grateful that I enjoyed good health so that I could keep this garden. Grateful that my family loves and appreciates it and enjoys spending time in it. Grateful that my grandchildren are able to play faeries and hide and seek in this garden. Grateful that my husband would rather be here in the hammock than any other place on the earth. Grateful that I could share this garden on this blog with all of you.

Sweet peas and Cath...can it get any better?

The only flower I plant from seed in my garden are my beloved sweet peas. Everything else are perennials that I have planted throughout the last few years from 4" cups and one gallon containers. I must have sweet peas. They are the most fragrant little things and make the garden come alive with scent long after the lilacs, crabapples, and mock orange have gone away.
I plant them kind of helter skelter, here and there, and let them clamor up trellises, taller shrubs, and fences. Right now the garden is alive with the yummiest smells. Sweet peas, roses, and lilies are all in bloom and trying to be scent-er stage.

I just love 'em.

Such delicate little blooms.

I'm thinking this must be what Heaven smells like.

Oh yes, and then there's Cath...I love the beautiful floral prints that are Cath Kidston.

I have a friend who loves her things like I do and orders now and then. She got these from Cath a few weeks ago. Well I loved them and she let me tag on to her last order for a set of my own.

I love tins and can find a million uses for them. These are going to be in the laundry room containing some clutter that seems to gather there, like all the spare change from my husband's jeans.

I wonder if he'll think of looking in one of these? I think I just figured out how to pay for my Cath habit.

On gardening...

My favorite view in the garden.


A pretty girl on the porch.





Wait, maybe this is my favorite view.

No, no, I'm sure this is the one.

Well, one thing I know for sure,

I love 'Casa Blanca' lilies.

And this rose, oh my!

This little beauty is a Romantica Rose

named 'Guy de Maupassant'.

This lily is a beautiful thing blooming now.

I love this combination.

A pink coneflower paired
with 'Bright Eyes' garden phlox.

One day last week I was thinking about things in my life that enrich it. I was thinking of the time it takes to tend this garden and why it is that I get so much joy from it, and whether or not I have let my life become too absorbed in the care of this little spot of earth. In the heat of summer it is hard to keep everything wet and weeded, pruned and fed, staked and deadheaded. The garden keeps me close to home most of the summer because of this. I don't make as many trips to see my daughters or mother or sister, because I'm worried that the garden will get too dry. (I'm going to type this really quietly so Hubs can't hear, but he doesn't have a clue when a plant is in distress, so I can't always count on him to tend to it while I'm gone). However this is my summer fun and I am willing to make that sacrifice. There are three other seasons of the year for me to get my traveling and visits in. When I run to the post office or C-store for my coke and someone stops me and tells me how lovely they think the garden looks this year or when an old farmer who goes by to check his water lets me know how much he enjoys the blooms, it makes it all worthwhile.

Hubs and I and Landon are breaking away again this week to go on another camping trip. The three of us had so much fun last time and saw such beautiful country that we are excited to do it again this week. I think Tuesday and Wednesday we are heading to the Idaho Nevada border to spend some time discovering this area of Idaho. We have never been there and are looking forward to it.
I think I will miss the white Wednesday post this week and I also need to post about my giveaway wins too! So I will get back to this blog of mine soon.

Festival Fun!!!

This is a pretty long post today. The longest one I have posted yet. It's difficult cramming 3 days worth of photos into one post. Actually 4 days because I am also posting about a festival our daughter's band performed in the weekend before this one.

We traveled to the heart of Idaho to 'The Braun Brother Reunion Music Festival' in Challis.

This is a tiny frontier mining town nestled in a beautiful valley. The population on a normal day is 900, but swells to about 5900 on this weekend that the Braun Brothers have their reunion. They are an Idaho family of great musicians and song writers. They bring in bands from Texas and other states for this festival. It's a three day line-up of great bands playing great music. It started on Thursday and ran through Saturday. Our daughter's band played on Friday afternoon. You can go to her website the (kimstockingband.com) if you would like to read a little more about them.

(I can't get the link to work, so you will have to type in the address.)

This is main street Challis,Idaho.

There are still working gold mines here in the mountains around this town that employs several of the residents here.

It seemed that every third or forth building was a saloon. Just what you would expect of an old mining town.


I loved this old house or business. In the upstairs window there is an old iron bed that I would have loved to see close up. Maybe next year I will get the nerve to find the owner and see how much they would sell it for.




Remnants of the old frontier.




My sweet girl Kimberlee





She was so excited to be included in this years line up of bands for this event. I hope they have her back again, because I would certainly love a repeat of this past weekend. Good music, good scenery, and good company.



There was a great crowd there and a lot of the people who love her music came the two and a half hours to listen to her. (Oh I think I'm bragging, aren't I ) (sorry, I'll probably do more of it as this goes on)








They next couple of pictures are her very talented musicians that play with her. I didn't get a good photo of the drummer at this festival.

These next photos are of the great campground we stayed at while there. 'The Challis Hot Springs' is up a beautiful canyon and sits right on the banks of the Salmon River. It was absolutely breathtakingly beautiful, and I never wanted to leave.

This barn sits right at the entrance of the bed and breakfast and campground.




You can see the B&B in the background. Of course it was full.

A front view of the B&B. I love the wrought iron work on the front and on the balcony.

This is the pool and access to the hot springs. It was a busy place all weekend and there were no vacancies and yet it was so quiet, We loved it!

I wanted to share with you another music festival that Kim's band performed at the weekend before in our own area. 'The Northern Rockies Folk Festival' is a huge event here in the summer
It is held in Hailey, Idaho. I read the paper this week and it said that there were 5000 attendees for this event this year. It didn't seem like that many people to me, but then I didn't stop to count. Kim has been performing at this festival for several years. My daughter Ember used to be in the band with Kim and sang back up vocals. They sounded so awesome together. Ember married and moved off to Boise and had a baby, so you know how that goes. I think this was Kim's second folk festival without her sister backing her up.

This venue is such a great place to have this event. It's right down next to the Bigwood River.

I think Kim is very comfortable performing here. It's her home and she loves it and the people.

Kim has sung her whole life. I used to sing when I was younger and was asked to sing for weddings, graduations and the like, and while practicing for them, I noticed that Kim at a very young age had an amazing voice and had perfect pitch.( oh no, there I go again, sorry for the bragging, but if I don't do it here, who will I get to listen to me) She always knew the songs as well as I did by the time she had heard me practicing for days on end. All of our daughters sing. I really encouraged them to take chorus and choir (actually insisted, really) in school. We love music in our home and did a lot of singing together as a family.

She really has the best guys in her band. So talented and just good men.

Hello...is anyone still there? If you are, thank you for listening to my tales of our great little road trip to Challis,Idaho and enjoying the peace and beauty there. It really was great to get away for awhile. Landon did well on this trip. It was our first time being away from home this long with him, but he did great. He doesn't always do well with routine changes, but he seemed to love this as much as we did. This little break was good for me and just reinforced how great my life is and how very lucky I am. I hope to take little breaks more often so I can keep reminding myself that life really is wonderful.

Lovelies in the garden...

I wanted to share some of the blooms that I'm enjoying in the garden right now. I love when the the monarda blooms and the butterflies are coming to the garden in droves. They love it, and the centranthus. I love the many roses blooming now and the lilies and daylilies. Everything smells so good. I enjoy being out working in the garden because the smells are intoxicating right now. Soon my allergies will make it uncomfortable to be out in the garden, but not so much that I would even consider giving it up. Right now the colors and textures in the garden are beautiful, so I thought I would share some with you today.

My husband and Landon and I finally got to go on our little vacation. It was postponed a while because the fuel pump went out on my truck (that is what we pull our camp trailer with). Then remember when I told you that my husband also does security for a celebrity family that have a home in Hailey? Well, they decided to make an unplanned trip home to enjoy some of the beauty their property in Idaho has to offer and so Dale was called in to work extra days of his vacation from the sheriff's office to work security for the family. We shortened our planned road trip to three days. (bummer) We just got home this afternoon. I'm so pooped I can hardly think to post this. I'm sure it is apparent in my uninspired writing tonight. It was a wonderful trip to a music festival at a town in the heart of Idaho. Our daughter was part of the line-up of bands playing in the festival and so we got to enjoy the beauty of this lovely part of Idaho and hear our girl sing. We never tire of hearing her perform. I think I'll post some pictures of the country we saw and some of her band at the festival in a couple of days if you'll indulge me.

It's always great to be home, I have a lot of catching up to do.