French Vanilla, Anyone?....

The Happy Couple....

...we didn't properly salute this handsome and lovely pair: aka Brown Eyes and his beautiful wife Amethyst.
This is a photo taken by Amethyst's Mom on her recent trip (along with her Fabulous Fiance) to visit the kids in Charlotte NC.  Adorable and once again, Happy Anniversary, Dears.

What the Camera Saw Today....

...the vegetable garden produces greens, beets, peas and snap peas at the moment. Edamames will be a while yet, but we love them and Hubs' planted a lot....

...today is the Gardener-Next-Door's Birthday. She and her Hubs are celebrating with her "near" daughter's family today--the twins will get chocolate cake again....also, just behind their picnic table, you can see that the new rain garden is doing very well. If we'd ever get any rain....

...Hubsy helped me finish my table restoration project by re-engineering the attachment of the holder for the detachable legs: he thinks the original fixture was not well done and the reason the table top split in the first place....

 ...so here it is. It's child-sized; it was likely used as a small coloring table in the 1920's or '30's.

 ...here's how it looks with the legs stowed in the holder. I love the robin's egg blue color of the original paint and the wear marks; I simply cleaned them, lightly rubbed them with fine steel wool, used the tack cloth and coated with clear polyurethane....

...here's the table top in all it's cute-ness. I bleached and after that tried TSP to remove stains. No luck. I had thought the stains were mold and mildew. My current theory is that some hapless little person, 75 years ago, may have upset a bottle of ink. The stain just beneath the medallion is rusty red--maybe the kid's blood after his mom murdered him! (lol, of course).

Chasing a Butterfly Around the Yard....

...a couple of days ago. It's a Spicebush Swallowtail and it was very fluttery; usually they will sit still for a moment to have their portrait taken. This one was having none of it--I have about 20 frames of blurry yellow spots.   Yesterday, without my camera, as I was surveying the progress of the flowers, a Red Admiral flew up and landed on me; it rode along for a while. Sweet.

As Promised, the Tour of the Faery Garden....

...a way to dress up the narrow vacant space between houses. We visited the Faery Garden a year ago with
Alice. That miniature fence is a family heirloom. Our Gardener friend lets her imagination run wild by finding pretty, whimsical toys, figurines and do-dads to arrange among tiny plants, like miniature hostas....

...here's the aerial view of the enclosed area. I started a Faery Garden among my hostas by my front door and the Gardener was kind enough to give me couple of extra things to start. At the end of that season, I carefully put everything away in a shoe box and then, hid the shoe box from myself!

 ...next to the fenced garden, the Faeries have a swimming beach made of sand, tiny toys and blue glass beads to represent water. Faeries are easily fooled, apparently. And you can see a couple of the small hostas, too...

...an Enchanted Hallow-- with one of the actual Faeries, caught in the act of enjoying the Garden! This is a great game for Ladies with Grandchildren! Somehow, Mom's seldom have time for stuff like this.

Lovely Photos of Wonderful Day Lilies to Enjoy....

 ...while I gripe about the latest power outage! As ferocious thunderstorm came thru the Chicago area yesterday morning. In about an hour, it caused record amounts of damage and perhaps 500,000 people were out of electric power. We are back on now, but some still don't have electricity.

...but, once again, I know others have lost so much this year. "Oh, my super-premium ice-cream got soft, wah-wah!"

...the home of the twins, Molly and Micah, was off-line for till this afternoon. Last night was hot; twin toddlers, no AC, no fans, worries about food spoilage. That might be stress!

Introducing A New Cast Member!

...while vacationing in Michigan last week, Flowergirl's Mommy fell in love with this sweet little dog. Edie was  living with a nice family who have a Bed & Breakfast (where they stayed) and an alpaca farm in the country....

...alas...Well, the dog is never still--a tiny bundle of jet propelled energy--imagine that in a Bed & Breakfast! And apparently, on the alpaca farm, the thimble-size powerhouse thought she should go out and "herd" the alpacas; they might have kicked her into the next township. So she came home to tranquil suburbia to live with the little girl, her hamster HerVhey, her cat Penny (who is mad about this, I hear) and Mom and Dad.