Summer Flowers

I take so many pictures of flowers.  Having nearly given up on blogging, I had no outlet for sharing the pictures. Having decided to try to get back to blogging, and believing that every blog post needs pictures, well, why not share some of my flower pictures?

An entire field of purple coneflower (echinacea) near my Dad's house.

A few new plants about to be purchased and planted...

..as an addition to this area.  At the beginning of the season this was nothing but weeds and landscape rock. My husband and I spent several weekends removing everything.  We picked all of the rock out by hand.  We've been relocating it to the back gardens because we have a dog who likes to dig. The rocks are helping put a stop to her digging. (The above picture was taken before I added the plants from my shopping cart.)

And finally, my own purple coneflower, which is in it's third year.

We have made great progress on our gardens this year. When we purchased this house 3-1/2 years ago everything was an overgrown, neglected mess. There is still much to do, but we feel like we turned a corner this year. Now there is more good than bad, so there is hope of taming the entire thing.

Tidbits (I'm Still Here!)

When I was growing up, my siblings and I were required to say "Excuse me please, thank you for the good breakfast" (lunch, dinner). My husband and I have required the same thing of our children. The funny thing is, while my husband and I are typical Americans in that our ancestors hailed from many different countries, each of our families primarily identify as Norwegian and secondarily German.  We were reading a bit about Norwegian customs and learned that a typical Norwegian family requires their children to say exactly what I was raised to say at the end of every meal.  I find it interesting to know that we have carried on customs from our ancestors without even knowing it.

I looked online for a piece of Norwegian folk art to include here.  I found some beautiful examples but was afraid they may be copyright protected. Suddenly I remembered that in March I visited my 97 year old Aunt and photographed some of the things she had hanging on her walls. Perfect!