WILL SHE WIN OR WILL SHE LOSE? YOU BE THE JUDGE!

WEll, it's that time again! Time for the annual St. Joseph County Fair in Centreville, Michigan!

This year I decided to post a different way. You get to see at least one of my entries before the judging. You can decide if it's a winner or a loser!

This carnival glass dish was a wedding gift to Clint and I 31 years ago. Several years ago I started taking floral arrangements to the fair in this dish. The category is THE MORNING SERVICE-arrangement for a church.

My first attempt back then was GORGEOUS! However....I used the wrong floral foam and the water dried up within hours and it never made it to judging with a flower still alive! Some of the workers informed me of my mistake and thought it would have been a winner otherwise. The next year I tried very hard to get the right foam and re-create the piece. I failed again, with a second purchase of incorrect foam.

The other arrangements were basically the same as this one, only with lots more pink (zinnias). This year because of the late drought I was literally searching my flower beds for any available blossom (except the profuse marigolds) and picked the very last of any pink or purple flower on the property. Even those were shaggy and almost gone, but somehow, I made it work.--complete with the RIGHT FOAM!

When the people in the flower barn saw me coming today, they began recounting the story of those other arrangements and how they had been so pretty! So will we win this year????

RIGHT FLORAL FOAM--ALMOST NO FLOWERS

YOU BE THE JUDGE!

I used a profusion of sage leaves to fill in the holes. Do you think that little touch in lieu of flowers will put me over the top?

REPORT AT THE END OF THE WEEK! I also entered a crocheted shawl, a scarf, a jar of canned venison, black raspberry jelly, two pressed flower pictures, a card of antique buttons, and a box of tiny darning threads, also antiques.

WILL SHE WIN OR WILL SHE LOSE???

Blessings, Lori

FLOWERS

Here are a few older pictures from earlier in the summer before the worst of the drought set in. This drought and heat wave is the worst I ever remember in all my 51 years. People are saying it's the worst since some time in the 1950's. Even though I took this picture quite some time ago, you can see that my yard beyond the garden is brown already.

Even during the drought, my hollyhocks, favorites of mine--and Eileen's from my book, "A Sturdy Fence," grew and blossomed profusely. Eileen tells Luke that hollyhocks are not flowers you'd see alone in bouquets like roses or carnations, but they do best blooming where they're planted, against sturdy fences, or in my case, where they volunteer--against farm buildings. Our temperatures were in the upper 90's and low 100's for days on end. This hot trend continued for weeks and hasn't actually let up yet. We've had only the occasional cooler day. I am ready for fall after all this!

This is a picture of white sweet peas against an old bed frame at the back of the English garden. The drought had not taken its toll yet in this picture. I do have a soft spot for "garden junk!"

Daylilies in profusion surround my front porch, back deck, and some places in the English garden. Normally they bloom repeatedly all summer, but this year in the drought, they bloomed once and I am concerned that I may have lost many of them after that. I cut them back this evening and am hoping for a 'rebirth' of flowers now that we've had a little rain, but we are still way, way behind normal rainfall and the leaves on these pretty flowers are all yellow and brown. We'll see. I originally started all the many plants from one start given to me by a friend in Iowa. I hate to lose them after all that effort of splitting and waiting for another season!

One more random picture from the English Garden.

Hoping your area is experiencing good weather. Blessings, LORI

Weedin' With The Chickens!

The weather has been so warm! I took the opportunity after work tonight to do some more raking and weeding. Three hens joined me! My chickens are very personable. They are almost like pets!

Hoping to get a picture ready soon of my newest book--it is finally in print! THE CALL FROM A DISTANT FIELD is ready after a couple years of work. It is the third in my courtship fiction series. I wanted to get some copies in time for our church sale on March 25--a benefit sale for our missions in Uganda. It seemed an appropriate way to announce the book since the story takes place in Africa and the mission described in the book is involved in farming to feed the people. Our church has a similar mission in Uganda. I didn't know this when I wrote the book, since I was not attending this church at the time. It is such an amazing thing to me that I want to donate a book for the sale. The proof copy came through in an amazing 5 days--never before happened in my publisher's experience! It was a blessed effort, I am sure, since I found out about the benefit sale only days before the book was in the final stage of corrections. I am thanking the Lord for the results! Blessings, LORI

SOME REAL GOOD DIRT!

Well, it's that time of year again! Time to plant tulips! It's an act of faith in a way. You plant them in the fall and trust that they will come up exactly as planted in the spring. This is a picture of me showing off the prettiest (an appropriate description for dirt?) compost you ever saw. We made this mixture over a couple of years just by saving our kitchen scraps, cleaning the coop occasionally, and adding leaves and yard debris. Makes dirt all the more precious when you know you worked to reclaim it! These 50 bulbs of 5 different colors that we planted today were purchased during our trip to the Tulip Festival in Holland, Michigan earlier this spring. We've been waiting for a hard freeze before we planted. We were discussing today whether our great, great, however-many-greats-grandfather and his family were tulip farmers while living in the Netherlands. Just this week we uncovered a bit of information that indicated that the family originally fled from France to Switzerland to escape persecution. Later they moved to the Netherlands where this grandfather was born in the 1700's. Eventually some of them came to America. We are blessed because of their courage and determination. I am so thankful for the earlier generations that left us a legacy of faith.

As we delve into more family history my faith is strengthened in discovering such truths. Clint's family has long known their history of fleeing religious persecution, coming from Switzerland to America in the 1800's. And....just today we learned an amazing tidbit of information that I think is the most amazing yet! Care to guess what that might be? I will post on this in the near future!

Meanwhile we are enjoying the return of our grandchildren and daughter in law from Colorado Springs! Blessings, LORI

THE LAST ROSE OF SUMMER

If you have followed my blog for very long, you have seen this picture before...like last spring when it was taken! My camera card must be full and I wanted to do a post, so I had to delve back into the files to find a suitable photo.

Just this morning Rhiannon and I were noticing someone's lovely roses still blooming. She asked if we had a "last rose of summer" blooming anywhere on the property. I told her "no," that this year was kind of unusual. We most always have at least one hardy specimen that exerts itself in a last ditch effort this time of year, but I hadn't seen any yet.

Rhiannon wanted to put a rose on Clint's Grandma Sal's grave if we could--and she felt it should be our "last rose of summer," since this was a saying Grandma quoted alot. After a hard day's work in her garden or baking all day, her hair falling from the upswept style she always wore, she would often quote, "I'll bet I look like the last rose of summer." Grandma Sal was an important person in all our lives. We miss her greatly. She taught me so much about so many things. I got several of my best recipes for baked goods from her. She was an expert flower and vegetable gardener and I'll probably never come anywhere near being that good with plants. She was hands down the best cook I've ever known and that's not just my opinion. She was known far and wide for her spectacular baked goods and wonderful meals.

Well, lo and behold, after making a visit to the English garden to take in some of the ornaments for winter storage a little while ago, I saw that this same little rose has one bud on it. I hope within a few days we will have our "last rose of summer!"

I wanted to share some other pictures of what we did today, but as I said the camera wasn't cooperating. We worked really had today at various projects that have been left behind while we did all the traveling. We had to make a quick overnight trip to Iowa earlier in the week for a funeral. This, of course, was totally unexpected and came quite closely on the heels of returning from Colorado. I felt like I never got settled from that trip before it was time to take another. So I spent quite a bit of time today tying up loose ends as far as work around here goes.

Today we planted tulip bulbs that Rhi ordered back in May at the Holland Tulip Festival here in Michigan. They will be a spring treat in a few months! I finished digging all the potatoes, did 5 loads of laundry, mostly heavy bedding to catch what might be one of the last beautiful, windy days of fall, took a walk, did some cleaning, went to purchase a little gift to send to the granddaughters, and cleaned out some areas of my desk. Last but not least, and I wanted to show you a picture--I washed my 100% alpaca yarn that I spun. It's hanging out on the line to dry. I was pretty proud of it. Most of it is quite consistent and I'm happy with the finished product! I hope you enjoyed this fall day as much as I did. Blessings, LORI

A BUSY FALL DAY

We are having beautiful fall weather here in southern Michigan! These are a few of the last flowers abloom in my garden.

Today's To-Do List:

1. Read Bible and Pray
2. Finish and hang out one load of wash
3. Iron three of Clint's dress shirts
4. Make homemade beef barley soup
5. Bake bread
6. Do minor cleaning chores

Do church-related phone work

Attend funeral luncheon with Clint

Clean at the church for a short while

Thankfully, I finished it all!

I will be posting the recipe for the Amish Frosting that I used on the chocolate cake on the next post. Stay tuned! Blessings, LORI

MRS. WREN AND TRUE WORSHIP

"Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord!" Psalm 150:6

I've wanted to do another gardening post for some time, but to admit the truth, the gardens are not too exciting right now. Our weather has been very hot and dry until just a few days ago when we got some rain. It was miserable to work out there and so I let things go. I wouldn't want anyone to see close-ups of the condition of the English Garden especially, although from a distance the weeds don't show! I am kind of ready to give up on it for the year, believing it is too far gone to redeem at this time. Plus this last burst of color is about the last there is until next year!

On Wednesay I decided to defrost the freezer--a horrible job! I knew it had to be done as I missed doing it last year. It is a deep chest type freezer and I'm almost too short to reach to the bottom. It was very, very full of food and with corn coming on soon, the job could not be put off any longer. I worked very fast out in the hot garage unloading every bit of food and placing it in coolers and on the tractor and just about anywhere I could find. I had a regular obstacle course of frozen food sitting around the garage. I used a dustpan to scoop up the falling flakes of ice from the bottom of the freezer, then had to race outside (throught the obstacle course) to dump the ice. I was so hot and tired by the time I got done that I just wanted to crash. I got all the food put back and re-arranged then cleaned up the garage. I had already done two loads of laundry and hung them out, plus some other work. I was really tired.

On Wednesday evenings we have worship practice and I was almost late getting there from finishing up tasks. I was almost too tired to go, but practice is not exatly optional. While I was sitting there at the keyboard struggling with some chords in a new song, I was reminded of a little friend that lives in my garden. This year when we re-did the vegetable garden we put up a birdhouse which has been rented for the season by a wren. She is an awesome singer and we have become friends. I love birds anyway and I am noticing that as she gets used to me, she is so much less skittish. She lingers around longer when I am outside and sits on my clothesline or in my garden and sings. My aunt was staying here last week and she noticed her beautiful songs too. Mrs. Wren, as I call her, is just the best worshipper, the way I see it. She sings her heart out everyday, joyful about the simplest things like a house to live in. She doesn't struggle to hit the right notes. Her worship is spontaneous and comes very naturally to her. We humans often think we need some earth-shattering miracle event before we can break loose in praise. Not so with Mrs. Wren, she is just glad to have her needs met. It humbled me to think of this.

I noticed a similar phenomenon with some of the other garden birds the other day. I was sitting on the deck and had just started the sprinkler. Several birds, happy for the shower, kept flitting in and out of the water. They would linger just a bit, hovering in the air as the sprinkler hit them. It was the most interesting thing to watch. They were overjoyed at something as simple as a shower. It was an obvious event to them. I had to think about how many times I fail to praise the Lord for simple things like running water!

I learned a valuable lesson this week by watching the birds in my garden. I intend to try to imitate their spontaneous praise over life's simple blessings.

I hope you like the pictures of my hollyhocks. They are my favorite flowers. That is partly why I chose to work some of them into the moral of my story in "A Sturdy Fence." If you haven't seen the book, the front cover boasts a lovely picture of hollyhocks against a garden fence. In one of the other pictures, you will notice Mrs. Wren's house!

Homemaking tip: Use a dust pan to scoop up freezer defrost!
If you are like me and don't have a huge storage area for pots and pans forcing you to "nest" your items, try placing used ziploc or other plastic bags between the pans with coated finishes. It keeps them from bumping together and ruining the finishes and provides storage for plastic bags you intend to re-use!

Blessings, LORI

NATURE'S LACE--Part 1--FINE, FROTHY, FILIGREE

I thought it was high time to post some pictures of what some people consider "lowly" flowers--those roadside beauties that we all "ooh" and "ahhh" at this time of year, but wouldn't consider placing in our gardens--or would we? I wanted to get a picture of "cow parsely" in its glory--but I missed it's bloom time. It is one of my favorite of "nature's laces." I tried planting some this year from seed, but it didn't germinate. Will try that one again since I think it will add the perfect airy fill in that I need this time of year. The dusty millers below are the exception, not roadside flowers, they are a cultivated plant growing right outside our church. Also the mushrooms were ones I saw and insisted Rhiannon take a picture of them.

Being a lacemaker, I really appreciate the frothy whiteness of intricate flowers. One of my very favorites are the white spirea that we enjoy in abundance every spring. If you have read my Chrisitan love story, "The Fields of May," you will remember that the main character, Carrie, is fond of spirea and that flower figures into the story in a unique way. For a good picture of spirea check back on my May posts. There is a picture of me and the girls modeling our new dresses in front of my spirea. There is something about the combination of lace-like white and green that intrigues me. Whether it's fabric, dishes, or whatever, I LOVE IT!

God is the ultimate lacemaker! I might work for months on one project that I think is just the end in lacework, but then I realize that my Creator is the original lacemaker whose creations surpass anything I can do. After all, just look at a Queen Anne flower! So on this post, we feature His handiwork!

Each one of these pictures were taken by my daughter as we took a countryside journey one day last week. I included the mushrooms since their undersides are a complex network of lacy frills, and this is my "white post." I love that picture!

Today it is quite hot and humid here. We had a community church picnic and worship service to attend. It was wonderful, but I didn't want to be moving around too much! I should pick the wild black raspberries that are abundant in our fencerows, but I suspect it's a scorcher out there in the thicket as well as a mosquito haven with all the rain we've had. Maybe the black raspberry jelly will be more scarce around here this winter.....

Have a lovely Sunday and I hope you enjoy the roadside flowers this time of year! Stay tuned for more of Nature's Lace on another post. Blessings, LORI

WORK, WORK, WORK!

AS YOU PROBABLY NOTICED, I HAVE NOT POSTED IN A WHILE!

I have been working so hard lately there's been no time to sneak to the library where I can post pictures faster! The gardens are going ballistic with all this rain. I think the English garden is out of control--and that's sooner than usual! I think it's usually July when I get that feeling that it's beyond my fixing. The vegetable garden is still ok, largely because of the raised beds and small design.

Here is a picture of Sophie and Granny sitting in the barn on Sunday evening. We had the 20-something's group from church here for a really fun event. I suppose Kori or Rhi will beat me to it in posting pictures of the crazy time we had. Sophie is wearing the "Cute Chick" sundress that I made for Emma two years ago. It has a matching hat and an embroidered pocket with a little chick on it. I designed the details, though I used a pattern. I love this outfit and it's great on Sophie with her dark hair and eyes and it's lavender details.

These beautiful hollyhocks--one of my favorite flowers--volunteered right by the barn door this year. I begged Clint to let them bloom before we moved them. It was a very healthy looking plant and some of my hollyhocks are not. They get that 'lace leaf' thing where something eats the leaves completely away. This particular one looked great.

So what have I been doing? Well, lots and lots of garden work and landscaping maintenance. I had to trim the spent flowers off all the meadow sage and dianthus. Did that yesterday and today. I also have been weeding and spreading lime in the English garden. I potted some flowers today that I got from my friend that runs a great little greenhouse business. She is a fan of my books and wanted the newest one, so I dropped one off to her. When I got home I potted all the wonderful plants I got from her into the hanging baskets for the front porch.

This last weekend Kori came over and we spring cleaned Mom's part of the house. Kori organized and wiped down all the cupboards inside and out and washed walls and windows. I helped by cleaning screens and mini-blinds and washing ceiling fans and some walls. I also washed all the curios on top of the kitchen cupboards. I got so inspired that on Monday I washed three windows upstairs and did other miscellaneous cleaning in preparation for company that is coming in a few weeks. With the heat we've been experiencing, I've just been ready to sit down each evening and act like a couch potato!

I've been reading a book about Smith Wigglesworth's life. It has been so inspiring! I love to read about heroes of the faith who've gone on before us. This one is really special to me because Rhiannon and I stayed in the town where he was born and is buried on our trip to England two years ago. When the book mentions details of the area, I can relate! I was encouraged to want the kind of wonderful results in witnessing and seeing miracles that he and his wife had in their lives. If you want to get a glimpe of something inspiring, I encourage you to pick up a book that has life stories of famous Christians and read about what they went through. It will help you to reach to greater depths and heights in your relationship with the Lord. Hebrews lists many of the saints who've gone on before in the "Faith Hall of Fame" in chapter 11. Testimonies are an encouraging thing! Read some today and give some today! Blessings, LORI

MORE GARDEN PICTURES!

Here are a few more pictures of the garden in recent days!




I am keeping busy with weeding, though I never get ahead of it all! Still, things are really pretty right now. I hope you enjoy seeing the flowers.

We have been really busy around here with the care of the lawns and also just the extra activities of summer. Our big ladies' tea party, "Elegance on a Shoestring," will be held next week and that's keeping me hopping. I will be taking lots of dishes and food to the church about next Wednesday!

Ladies were asked to hostess a table, decorate it and invite guests. I will be making tea and we will have a chocolate fountain. We are also having a few special children's tables. The ladies from the church are bringing dishes to pass--light, fancy tea foods were suggested. Then we will go into the sanctuary for the "I got it at a garage sale fashion show." Several ladies, both young and old are planning to model outfits that they purchased from garage sales, thrift stores, or made themselves. The entire evening is designed to be an "economy beating," event, proving we can have fun and be elegant even in an economic downturn. All the food will be donated, costing the church $O. Mabye I'll be able to post some interesting pictures after the big event next Thursday. We even plan to have a clothing, purse, jewelry exchange. Ladies are asked to bring an unwanted item and then feel free to take one in exchange giving everyone a chance to get something new for nothing! Sound like fun? Details next week! Blessings, LORI