All Things Bright and Beautiful

I'll start with the painting Julia did for me for my birthday. She knows I love the ocean, so she painted me a WAVE!

It's hanging in the guest room where I see it easily as I walk through the house. It's a very splashy wave, with lots of color.

She put some flecks of orange in there too. I love it.

Speaking of orange, this brightness showed up at the farmers' market on Saturday:

The farm is bursting with blooms and growth. I'm selling well at the market each week. The weather is warming and the tourists are dribbling in. My favorite thing on the farm right now is my gardenia bush. It's bursting with bloom, much more than last year!

Isn't she gorgeous?

I do miss lilacs from when I lived up north, but I would not trade my gardenia for them.
The four big pots of flowers from the "big dig" have survived! Now I just need to decide where to put them.

We have lots of shade and limited full sun. It's always a quandary deciding where new plants must live.
On Memorial Day Adam grilled chicken thighs on our new "grill." The bricks are simply stacked there. He will eventually build something more permanent, probably in that spot. He was experimenting with the location.

I was worried that our fig tree, which bore so heavily last year, would take a break this year. But no! It's now loaded with small green figs, and it looks like I'll spend yet another June canning fig preserves and selling fresh figs at the market.

Oh, the herb garden! Here is my "patch" of cilantro. I think I went overboard in my desire not to run out of cilantro. It's all going to seed now, but it will reseed in mid summer and grow again. I'll save the seed and start some periodically over the coming months.

Elephant ears!

I do love hostas, and I want to divide and conquer my yard with them. I have seven of them here in the shade next to the house.

Here's a little hosta slip that's taking off -- I'm so thankful. I found it lying in the driveway at Chez Linnea, the home in Massachusetts we visited for the wedding. Some car had mangled it out of the edging.

It was really just a leaf and a bit of root.

My oregano, with the very old basil, now leafing out yet again, in front.

It's almost tomato time! Can you believe it? I took this photo this morning, May 31. I promptly ate the ripest one :)

Already I'm finding random red leaves on the ground. Which tree is doing this? Why does it tease me with autumn, when we all know there are many months of grueling heat to endure before we feel fall's blessed breezes?