Great Rewards After Hard Work

I can hardly believe it myself - the hours of hard work I have done in the yard for the last three weeks. 

 Most of the work was done in the back yard where, much of the summer was too wet to work in, or the mosquitoes were so bad I couldn't stand to be out, not to even mention the heat! Then it became such a jungle, just the thoughts of "taking it on" kept me from even starting. Oh, I was doing a lot of yard work but always choosing other, less challenging, areas. Yesterday, I was so happy with the progress I had finally made that I took my breakfast out..........

 

 

in the cool of early morning, to enjoy just surveying the neatness and change.  Nothing fancy on the table, just my usual cereal and a glass of juice.  This might be a good time to show what I mix together to put in my cereal bowl every morning.

 

 

I put all the contents of the two cereals, all the yogurt covered raisins, a few of the cranberries and an ample amount of the sliced almonds.

 

 

This adds up to my favorite cereal mix to date! Each of these cereals have quite a few good ingredients on their own so I am actually eating a lot of different things.  Recently adding the yogurt raisins really stepped up the taste!!!  Now, back to the garden..........

 

 

Until the day before, the rustic patio down here in this corner could not be seen.  The stepping stones making up the patio are in a low area and because of flooding and soil erosion, the stones had disappeared from sight with basket grass growing on them.  There is still what I call fine tuning work to be done but at least it is now usable!

 

 

 

This path had  been covered up with the Macho ferns. Thank heavens they are fairly easy to pull up. If you walk down the path it leads you to this area......

 

 

 

.....I wanted to show because of how it was highlighted by the sun. The little tea party fairies and ...... 

 

this angel occupy the area.  What you see on the ground here is the very low lying weed called basket grass I mentioned.  I love it for certain areas even though it is very invasive. It can be controlled and even edged.  It is better than having assorted other weeds or worse yet, just sand, where grass won't grow because of too much shade and occasional flooding.

 

 

 

 

 

I put a few sprigs of this Wandering Jew in the adjoining area and it has filled in another big area - also a good look back here.

 

 

 

 

 

And now you see the table in the distance looking back from the fairy and angel spot.

 

Along in the afternoon I took advantage of the little table again with a tea break and read a few pages in my book club selection for this month. I am enjoying this book and look forward to our lunch and discussion next week.

 

 

I even took a little time to do a few words in my crossword book. By now the "cool of the morning" has long disappeared and I am wringing wet!

 

 

 

There are always little rewards to be found as I put in the hard hours, here one bell-shaped blossom. I never can remember the name of this plant. The color is a vivid purple and the throat of the "bell" is very yellow.

 

 

A pretty collection of color here in an area that gets more sun.

 

 

 

At the end of the day as I was sitting at my computer in front of the window, trying to get my breath and wondering if I had "done myself in" working all day in the heat, I looked out and saw this swallowtail. It stayed still just long enough for me to get outside and take this one picture.  I felt so blessed to be able at my age (74) to put in day after day of hard work and reap such beautiful rewards!