Confucius say......

......"Woman who take camera outside, while cooking on stove......go hungry!"

Yeah......never do it!  I thought I was just going out for 1 minute to take one little pic of the Lily of the Valley garden, but I got sidetracked, and distracted, and started taking pics everywhere, and walked down the hill, and around the back of the barn, and when I finally came in, my oatmeal was fused to the bottom of the pot!  lol

But I did get some good shots of the plants around the yard.......but first.......I've been working on the back of my Jubilee quilt!  Woot!

And no......this doesn't spell anything yet......I'm just making letters at this point!  And after each letter, I'm getting more and more ideas about the back, and I'm getting more excited about it!  I can't wait to show you something that makes sense, but I'm no where near that point yet!  But getting there!  And with my hubby gone for 6 days, and I only have one more shift to work until I'm totally done......I have a feeling I'm going to be cranking out the letters pretty fast!  Woohoo!

So......the other pics I took are outside, around the house.  I'm just happy to have everything so green, and a few blossoms coming already.  I know a lot of you have had all sorts of prettiness in your gardens already, but here in Maine, we kindof have to wait!  And it seems like forever sometimes!  But when I was planting my seedlings for my veggie garden this morning, I was noticing all sorts of 'stuff' out there!  Yay!

My Lily of the Valley bed has really filled in nicely in the past 2 years.  It was so sparse and awful looking a while back, so I looked it up, and read that it really likes to have its roots 'messed with'......so I did!  I took a shovel and rake to it, and figured if it didn't come back, I'd have another bed to plant lilies in, but it came back beautifully!  And I took a bunch of cuttings of the flowers back in the house, and made 2 little bouquets with them.  I never thought to do that before, but I saw it on a blog (omg.....WHERE did I see that!?!).....and now I have that lovely aroma over my kitchen sink and in the living room!  I think I need to pick some more!

On the left is the Lily of the Valley bed, and it all overlooks the side yard and neighbor's pond.  I just love this view, and it's what we get to enjoy from our screen porch, on the right.

This is from that side yard from the last shot looking back at the big maple tree.   Several years ago we had a neighbor friend do some excavating on the front yard, and I asked, while he was at it, could he build me a planting area and retaining wall around the maple with the big rocks we had lying around.  I went to work, and I came home, and he had built this wonderful stone wall around my maple tree!  It is just as I had discribed it to him!  Love it!

And he's SO good, he even put a granite bench in it for me to sit and enjoy the view!  What a man!  It's taken a couple of years, but most of my plants have really filled in the bed around the bench and tree, and I put in a little stone path to get to the bench from around the back.  I just love this little area.

My peonies are really filling in this year, too!  I can't wait for the blooms!

And my Sum & Substance hosta is already over 3 feet across!  It will get to nearly 6 feet across by summer!  I just love it!

And my biggest 'happy thought' right now is that I am going to get to spend all the time I want in my gardens this year, and from now on!  Woohoo!  Life is good!

Hoping you are having a wonderful day!

regan