Friday Freebies

Treats for my company coming?

What?? No flower photos to share??

Some of the weeds on my property...Queen Anne's Lace. I love to add some to bouquets from my flower gardens.

Scorching hot weather

Brown-eyed Susans are actually considered a wild flower, but I love to have them in my garden.

Getting things done

New kitchen window is framed in.

A Birthday week-end

Burgundy and green beans from my garden

Beautiful sunny Friday afternoon

Liatris or Gayfeather

Sea Lavender (Statice)

I have a few lilies too

I only grow Day lilies. Every Oriental lily I have ever planted, although gorgeous, has been destroyed by a red beetle. I don't know the name of these little critters, but they absolutely destroyed the lilies. And I had several different kinds. So now I stick with these hardy little souls. They are quite lovely too. 

More photos from this week-end

The Shriners'  Float

Saturday in Smith Falls

Solar array

Hot water

A Rainy Friday Afternoon

Remember when I first put in a few plants in my planter?

Well it has started to fill out some.

Lazy Thursday afternoon

Green bean plants

Take a look at my veggie garden

A row of corn with 2 rows of beans

The weather had a little bit of everything

Purple coneflower (Echinacea Purpurea)

It started out overcast today, then rained, then a mixed bag of sunny with cloudy periods. I am reminded of the saying, "If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes." It was still sticky outside, so I spent another day indoors. I'm getting so lazy. A cold front is moving in tonight, so tomorrow and Thursday will be much cooler and the humidity will be gone. The humidex will return for the week-end. 

Weigelia shrub

I reviewed my monthy budget and made a few tweaks. A few of my bills needed to be  adjusted and I want to open a couple more bank accounts.  I have decided to keep my household budget the same for a while. This will still include pet food and the cost of cleaning supplies and garbage tags. (the cost of one tag went up to $2.50 on July 1st) I will review the budget again in a few months time. 

Spirea shrub

We ate a picnic supper tonight with homemade baked beans, grilled sausage and potato salad. I printed out some more coupons and a couple of recipes I would like to try. 

Busy week-end

Red lettuce coming up in my deck planter

Sometimes grocery shopping is exciting!!!

Scabiosa or Pincushion flower

Indoors today...away from the mosquitoes

White hydrangea snowball bush

Beautiful summer weather

Lots of buds on my clematis plant. 

One of my front flower beds

Most of the spring flowers are finished blooming. Looking at this photo, I see my columbines, everlasting pea, aubrieta deltoids, forget me not, golden basket alyssum, bleeding hearts, snow in summer, iris, and perennial geranium....all finished for this year. There are some flowers that have yet to bloom, like my statice, echinacae, sedum, Globe thistle, hydrangea and Adam's needle (yucca). It is that  time of season when the garden is between blooms. So I picked up some cedar mulch this morning when I went out for groceries, and I have added it to my front flower beds to add interest. The bright dots of fuscia that you see by the planter (that is not doing as well as I would like) is Rose Campion. It is a prolific self-seeder, but can be kept under control and is a nice hit of colour for this in between stage. 

This plant is some kind of mallow, I believe. It  also spreads quickly by seed but can be very pretty for adding colour during this part of the summer. 

Monarda or bee balm

My Monarda is just beginning to bloom in the side yard. It is pretty but I love the crimson bee balm the best. When my local nursery has a sale on perennials this summer, I will try to buy some crimson. I had it once, but it disappeared over the years. I don't know where I picked up this purply pink colour. I have been trying to prune back my lupines and get some weeds pulled over the past couple of days, but my energy levels have not returned yet. 

I mentioned that I bought groceries this morning. I spent $100.82 and saved $68.00 with discounts, specials, coupons and price matching. One of my best buys was lean pork loin at $1.47 a pound. I sliced up 9 pork chops, two roasts and meat chunks for future stew/casserole/stir-fry.  I bought more frozen Oktoberfest sausage and beef steakettes for only $2 a package, and discounted split chicken breasts. I bought 4 more tins of "Flakes of chicken" and 2 tins of luncheon meat for long term storage in the pantry. With a coupon, I got a FREE box of All-Bran Cranberry clusters cereal. If I had only bought specials and discounts, I would have saved more than I spent; but; there were items on my shopping list that I paid full price for. Someday I may only need to buy the sale items, once I have built up my pantry some more. That is the way it should be. Have a great week-end everyone.