A Garden Tour

Buddy and I take off for our morning walk around 9 a.m. The sun sparkles on the water like a field of diamonds. We start down our road and I can't keep my eyes off the house and garden on the right side of the road. The house is white with a two story natural wooden porch that has lavender colored wisteria growning up and around the porch. There is a new sign identifying this as the Wisteria Cottage.The little front yard is an array of color and soft cluttered beauty. There are Clematis climbing the side of the porch and the trellis. There are Delphinium and Foxglove and Snapdragons and Iris, and clumps of Astilby. There are Peonies with their heads flopping in the breeze. A pink and yellow honey suckle wraps itself tightly around the wooden fence bordering the tiny space. On the side of the house, through much planting of small shrubs and scads of lilies, they have managed to define their yard and give it a personel quality which it lacked when it ran into the open field beside it. I have watched this place for thirty five years be transformed into the enchanting cottage it is today. I don't know the young woman very well who lives there, but she is very pleasant and always says"Hello" She has a little girl, and they take off for school and work early in the morning. I do run into them sometimes. Admiring her garden most mornings makes me wish I knew her better. I'm sure she gives much in other parts of her life as well. Her garden certainly reflects this. On down the road and around the corner, we pass a cottage with a climbing coral colored rosebush on the side of the house. It is truly outstanding. It must be a combination of sun and soil. Our area has the best of each. Past the community house, and headed towards the playground, I stop and admire how our first cottage has developed from white, with red trim, ugh, to a much more attractive place with blue trim and a park like yard. Our niece bought this cottage around seventeen years ago. She has worked endlessly to upgrade the yard from a part of the playground to her own little personel park. Using rhododendron, lillies and varigated hasta everywhere, she has rounded the hard edges, and and created a feeling that you could follow a path right through the trees. A tiny bunny plops around a bush and climbs over a rock to do just that. How I admire her workmanship and imagination. I lived there many years, and could never see the possibility or envision what she has been able to do. Interestingly enough, the cottage is on Park Blvd. We head on down Park, and cross Central towards the ball field. On my left is another renovated cottage. It is blue with flower boxes in all the windows. The back of the cottage borders a thick woods. You can almost see Hansel and Gretel dropping their bread crumbs as they make their way into the shadows. A stone path leads from the road to the back of the house, and a small fishpond glimmers near it. Flowers sprout out of old tree trunks, and are sprinkled here and there.This place has been a work in process for many years, and I do enjoy watching it spring to life with the warm weather. We continue on past the ball field, and the tractor barn and follow the road that leads to the other side of the lake. We follow the road to where our old friends live in a rather large one story bungalow facing the water. It is has a wonderful size yard along the road. My friend has planted lillies and roses and peonies and many more varieties of perrenials around the cottage. She has placed hanging baskets of the most gorgeous annuals near the driveway, and other areas. Working and digging her heart out, she has developed several beautiful rock gardens that close in the rugged bluff facing the Lake. Though breathtaking, in the past this place had an abandoned and frightful appearance. The harsh ,steep, long drop down to the water could take your breath away. With all their work, and their new sea wall, and her beautiful gardens, it has become a welcoming show place. Buddy and I take a shortcut through the park to our side of the point. We pass the old Victorian cottage on the corner. It is very old and has been owned and kept up for many years by the same family. The front yard has often been the scene of volley ball games. It is a family residence combining an abundance of flowerbeds and areas for play. The old front porch with it's wicker furniture reminds us of a bygone time. We cross the road in front of our neighbor's Cotswald style cottage. This sweet lady works all the time, creating rockgardens, perrenial gardens, and filling her flower boxes. If she walked out the door with her slouched hat on you would think Miss Marple lived here. On to our own little utilitarian place with the large windows and flower boxes on the deck. I look out at the lake, and my bright impatiens stare back at me, making my day even brighter. God gives us the backdrop, and the setting, and we create our own little masterpiece. I think to myself, our community is a microcosm of the larger world we inhabit. Out there we have patients, clients, teach school, run businesses, and a lot of us have retired. Here we have the chance to use talents and abilities we often arn't able to use in our day to day world. Buddy and I love our walks so much, and the gardens give me such a sense of peace and beauty. We surely do live in a special place.

Thoughts from Lake Erie

Good morning from Lake Erie. I can write that, because I have two followers. How exciting! Jenny , my daughter, bless her heart. She has always been such an inspiration to me, and Rosemary and Thyme, the blog for which she is writing. I tried to explain to my grandaughter that I also wanted to be on Rosemary and Thyme, but she was in a hurry and she set this up for me in two minutes on her way out the door. I have to be very up front and tell you that I am the least computer savy person in my family, Even my husband that only follows the stockmarket is better at most computer tasks that I am. My daughter-in-law signed me up on Facebook, My grandaughter set up my blog, and my neice and grandaughter helped me to import pictures, and showed me how to print them out. I have now been struggling for several years, but I love it, and now I have a way to journal without writing things down. I am much happier typing than writing. I have my own blog! Our cottage is right on the banks of Lake Erie. When we refurbished this old place twenty years ago, we made sure we had large windows installed all around the lake side. This gives us a panoramic view of the lake on one side and our little bay on the other. We sit on a point of land that juts out , and we have a spectacular view of both the sunrise, and the sunset. The afterglow from our deck is awesome. When I learn to post pictures I will post some for you. I have spent many springs and summers, and a few falls, and also some winter time here. Mostly it has been a blessing to have this beautiful part of the world set aside for our tiny lake community, and our family in particular. There have been times however, I considered it somewhat of a deterrent to other aspects of life. The lake reflects life in many ways. It can be calm and serene. It can cause winds of hurricane proportions. Branches fall from the ancient oak trees. Lightening can slash across the sky so close to the water and the land I am sure I am headed for eternity. Thunder claps cause me to hide my head under the nearest pillow in the room with this smallest windows . Then the next morning the storm has passed, and the clarity of color and the beauty of a gorgeous sunrise is before us. I sit on my deck with a cup of coffee, and know there is not a place earth that I would rather be. Days later we have another episode, nothing so severe, just a rainy day when the mist and fog rise off the water. It is like a veil of gauze created in the atmosphere. I might find myself wandering around the cottage feeling out of sorts, muddled, aimless. I turn away and ingore the scene. There is nothing to see, nothing to inspire. It is bland. Sometimes in life conditions like this cause us to lose hope, and not wait for that beauty and clarity to return. We turn away. We lose patience and cannot wait. We look for another view.

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