My Garden in the Beginning of Fall

This is how my garden looks, most of the Summer plants are done blooming, and the mums are getting ready to bloom. When I see this many buds I wonder how many there are, I have tried to count them, but always stop around 5 or 6. Are you bored? Would you like to have something to do? maybe you can click on the picture to make it big and count them.
Here I have a red Dalia called Ready it has been faithful blooming since spring. I have many blue blooming plants. The one in the bottom is called Plumbago, to the left in the middle is the Monkey Grass, to the middle right is a type of yellow coreopsis, this one also is been blooming for a long time, and above it is the blue balloon plant .


Here is the Aster, I have 3 of them, this one looks very good, but the other 2 are not looking so good, I think the heat of the summer makes them look brownish, or maybe I had to do as the mums, keep cutting them until June.


and here is one of the mums half way blooming above it is another blue plant, this is salvia, I planted this one from seed last year. The brown looking plant on the right is the gaura, its all done blooming.

Tulips and the sailor that had onions for breakfast

I'm in disbelief that its the end of September and it is the fall already! We have been so focused on cleaning house and getting ready for the next school year. The following pictures belong to the spring time, but I want to show them to encourage you to plant bulbs. The fall is the time to plant them.

After the gardens get boring with the yellow from the daffodils, come the tulips.




There is history in this flower, that originated in Persia and Turkey.

It is believed that in this culture people wore it on one's turban and Europeans mistakenly gave tulips their name, which comes from the Persian word meaning turban.




The flower's popularity spread quickly, particularly in the Netherlands where a phenomenon dubbed tulip mania set in at one point during the 17th century. Tulips became so highly-prized that prices were sent soaring and markets crashing.







There is a story of a sailor who came to a rich merchant's home to announce the arrival of an important consignment of goods. To reward the sailor for bringing him the good news, the merchant offered him anything he wanted for breakfast. All the sailor wanted was this peculiar looking onion (a tulip bulb) that he unwittingly grabbed from the merchant's counter. As the sailor was cutting trough the last bit of the "onion," the panic stricken merchant fell upon him, screaming how the sailor ate his treasure, worth 3000 florins, or 280 pound sterling silver. The sailor was sent to many months of jail for having onions for breakfast and the merchant not only suffered the injury of losing an expensive piece of property, but also the insult of having his prized possession perish in such an undignified manner-through someones digestive system.




This make me think about all the time and money the we spend in things that some years later are not important. When I read about it, it reminded me about when the children of Israel complained to God. Some of the things they missed from Egypt were garlic and onions, I know, many people can't stand the smell of them, but in those times they were a cool thing to eat.
(Numbers 11:4-6 ...and the children of Israel also wept again and said, "Who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish which we ate in Egypt freely, the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic; but our soul is dried away. There is nothing at all besides this manna before our eyes.")






I was getting ready to post this back in the spring, I really wanted to show off my flowers, but there were some things not done around the house and with my children, The Lord showed me how I was wasting my time blogging instead of doing my motherly duties. So what if I not do the not important things, but I should try to do the things God has put in my heart, and it shall happen that some years later nobody will miss my blog of flowers, but the kids will remember that I took care of them. Of course, I only do what I can and there are things that are not done the way they are supposed be done, but for that there is always grace, and this time, it didn't feel right to not listen to Him.

Fort Story and the Lighthouses

We went to Fort Story to see the lighthouses, but when we got there we found out that there was more to learn. Fort Story was named for Major General John P. Story in 1916. The base includes 1,451 acres (5.9 km²) of sandy trails, cypress swamps, grassy dunes and soft and hard sand beaches. The beaches are wide, gently sloped and washed by the waters of the Chesapeake Bay on one side and get pounded by the surf of the Atlantic Ocean on the other. Fort Story has three historical sites which consist of the Cape Henry Memorial Cross marking, the location where the Jamestown Settlers first landed, The Old Cape Henry Lighthouse, the first lighthouse authorized and built by the Federal Government, and the Battle off the Virginia Capes monument, a statue of Admiral Francoise de Grasse, to commemorate the famous sea battle which prevented the British from reaching Yorktown during our War for Independence.





We only visited the Old Cape Henry Lighthouse and saw the New Cape Henry from there. Then we spent most of the time at the beach.


The Old Cape Henry Lighthouse, built in 1792, is the oldest lighthouse on the Chesapeake Bay and the third oldest still standing in the United States. The unpainted sandstone tower stands 90 feet tall and was reinforced with a brick lining. It serves as the official symbol for the City of Virginia Beach. During the Civil War, Confederate troops purposely damaged the light to make navigation of the Chesapeake Bay dangerous for Union troops invading the area. In 1870, large cracks appeared on six sides of the octagonal tower, and it was considered unsafe. Today, it still stands and is maintained by the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities. It is open year 'round except in December, when it is decorated like a giant Christmas tree by the U.S. Army. The new Cape Henry Lighthouse was built to replace the old one in 1881. It sits only 357 feet away from the original and is the tallest cast iron lighthouse in the United States. The 164-foot octagonal tower has been operated by the U.S. Coast Guard since 1939. During the early part of World War II, the top was used as a battery commander's station for Battery Walke, which contained two 16-inch howitzers. It is not open to the public.

Field Trip

We went for a field trip to Fort Story to see the Old Cape Henry Lighthouse . It was a adventure full of learning, we did Geography, Natural history and Virginia History.

We went to Mercury Boulevard and took I-64 to Virginia Beach

We pass the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel (HRBT)

and into the tunnel we went.

Then out the tunnel, we saw the Naval Station Norfolk . We were in exploring mode, but in another situation the HRBT can be a nightmare, most of the time is full of traffic.

And we knew we were at Fort Story because we were stoped by a Gate guard and because of this fire truck that said Fort Story, we took pictures of everthing.

Bad Kitty Gets a Bath

We cat owners want our little tiger to look his best, and we don't like him stinky, he has to take a bath once in awhile, but the fact is that CATS HATE BATHS!!




Bad Kitty Gets a Bath, by Nick Bruel


We came across this hilarious book of instructions of how to give your cat a bath.







Is illustrated, full of science facts and made us laugh in every page we read.










We learned that in order to be safely ready to give your kitty a bath you need a suit of armor, your doctor on speed dial, make your will, lots and lots of bandages,clean underwear (because stressful situations can cause "accidents"), plane tickets and a map to your aunt house were you can hide when this is over, a scratching post made to look like you that might (but probably won't) fool kitty and and ambulance in your driveway with the engine running.

With all this knowledge we went to bathe our cat.

Rest at ease friends, we are fine, we don't have a bad kitty!!

Interracial relationships

My neighbor works in a plant nursery were they have to get rid of caterpillars, from the parsley and dill, but she keeps them and brings them home were they turn into a cucoon and then into a butterfly, she releases butterflies everyday. and gave me one that had just hatched her wings were wetand I felt how it clunged to my fingers
here my daughter puts another one close to it
then I put it on the LantanaAnd like an hour later we found them like this, I called my neighbor to come and see her not so baby butterfly, she was really surprised and worried about this 2 different butterflies been together, I never seen this before, so I took pictures of them.

Window Screen

I remember the seasons because of what comes with them or what I do in them, go to the beach in the Summer, plant plants in the Spring, Thanksgiving in the Fall and so forth.

There are times that I'm not too happy about Summer, it gets to hot and humid, here in Virginia, it gives me a hard time to breathe when I go outside. But what really annoys me in the summer are the mosquitoes and the flies. I think flies are exceptionally annoying, and no matter how fast I close the door, flies make their way to my kitchen and all over the house. to make matters worst, some of my window screens have been ripped for the last 2 or 3 years. for some reason I thought it was a hard thing to fix, and I can't imaging how much a handy man would charge me to fix them. They have to be fixed if I want the flies out of my ice cream.

The kids and I got working on it, right there in the kitchen, and even with kitchen tools.




I had some window screen that someone had given me some years ago.

Not all of us were fixing the screens, some of us were creating, and experimenting. and we got some ideas of other uses for window screen like our caterpillar cage. (coming up in another post)

And here is our all fixed window screen. It is the easiest thing to do.

We run out of screen spline and had to go to Lowe's for more. There we found a this tool to put the spline into the channel of the screening, it works much better than the butter knife.

Also we got some tips from here