A Calm Day

Some days, a quietness falls over the house, and it is calm. That is when I take a rest and plan whatever I need to get busy with.

Peter and I think about the important tasks and the not-so-important tasks all the same. 

Sometimes you have to have your pleasures. You can't go forever without something you find joy in. 

Here at the cottage I have been planning much about the garden. Getting outside is a really enjoyable activity for me. So I am taking tea with Peter Rabbit and planning how I can add to the garden with things I already have in the shed. One of my newest creations was to take old garden fencing and turn it into a cloche to keep the animals off the plants. 

I have made three of these, and they are quite useful. A nice way to use up something I wasn't finding any other use for. Do you have things you reuse in your home instead of buying new?

In Victory,

Sherry

Early Spring Garden

The flowers are blooming fast now. It appears we are having an early spring. Maybe the groundhog was right in predicting the weather this year. 

I scored a French wire planter at the thrift shop. I loved it in this green color.

I am doing a huge amount of maintenance in the garden this year, and one of the jobs I tackled was dividing the chives. They had no problem with the division, and I now have twice the chives.

Trying some new plants in the shady spot in the garden. 

This is tansy. Once you grow it, it will come back every year. I love the foilage it has. 

In Victory,

Sherry

April Showers

 

Do you remember April showers bring May flowers? Well, we are having the showers today, but flowers are already here. Everything seems to be blooming all at once.

In between rain showers, you can find me darting out the back door and gathering rain-soaked blossoms. The scent of these lilacs is glorious! 

On a dry day, the lilacs always scent the whole corner of the garden, and today they are scenting my cottage corner.

So I made a cup of seven blossom tea; it seemed appropriate, and I enjoyed these flowers. 

I wait all winter to see the yard blossom out, and it couldn't be any more delightful than today, even in the rain.

Cut your tulips and enjoy them; it will make them blossom better next year.

In Victory,

Sherry

Peter Rabbit Mantel

There is enormous comfort in removing the chaos from your life and surrounding your self with things you love.

I believe Beatrix Potter might have know a thing or two about this when she moved to Hilltop Farm and created her endearing watercolors and wrote her charming books.

I have found some Peter Rabbit dishes and I have relished having them out on the mantel to enjoy.

I have long been a fan of Miss Potter. Here is my set of her storybooks from when I was young. The cottage style has my heart and no one exemplifies this more than Beatrix Potter's in the Peter Rabbit book series.

In Victory,

Sherry

In the Garden

 
Today the weather is nice, and I am in the garden. This time of year, the chores feel overwhelming, but soon they will transform the garden into a wonderous outdoor space.

I checked on the winter sowing. Out of five milk jugs, only one has come up. It was the lavender. I will baby it and see how it does.

I have some old garden fencing I am going to do a project with today, so I have it ready.

One of the first chores I tackle each spring is washing the outdoor furniture. This is a black steel painted furniture set, and it gets dull and dirty from being in the sun each year. 

So I am going to get out the turtle wax and fix that with a nice clean-up.

I add one ounce of the solution to a clean bucket of water, soap up a rag, and scrub the furniture all over. 

When rinsing the furniture, you can already see it has worked; the water is beading up just like it should.

While the furniture is drying, I am making something out of this old garden fencing.

The furniture is now dry, and you can see a sheen on the surface that not only looks better but also protects the paint.

My last job will be to thin and pinch these snapdragons. I love snapdragons. This year, I am growing the rocket variety.

I have made a rustic garden cloche out of the garden fencing. I saw this on YouTube. I really like how it turned out.

Time for a tea break. Have you gotten into the garden yet?

In Victory,

Sherry

Pressed Herbs and Flowers

I have been known to press plants for keeping. Some of the plants and leaves I have pressed over the years are pictured here. I love the romance and nostalgia of pressing a certain flower and keeping it as a memento.
 

In keeping with my goal of finishing a project each month from The Herbal Yearbook, for March I am pressing an herb and flowers.

The book suggests pressing the gathered herbs and flowers and pressing them for notecards, but I will just frame mine.

I have for years pressed leaves and flowers in a book, and it works just fine, but today I have a homemade flower press. My husband made it. 

These were the specimens I pressed: pansies and yarrow. The flower press does a really great job at getting the plants very flat, better than I was expecting.

Here I am layering the yarrow leaves on the paper I am mounting them to. 

Next, I mount the pansy. I decided it didn't look quite finished, so I foraged in the yard for a few more plants.

I added a wild violet from the yard that had started blooming. I also remade the tag with some scrapbooking papers. The yarrow is really delicate and beautiful when pressed. It makes a lacy compliment to the flowers. 

Do you press any flowers or herbs? It would be great to make a journal of the pressed specimens to note when they bloom and what they are used for. 

In Victory,

Sherry