Yesterday . . .

. . . I got up way too early. I've now decided that 4:45 is NOT a good time to get up and make coffee, no matter how awake I feel at the time. I discovered that I did NOT get more done, simply because I got up earlier.

. . . I enjoyed some time downloading music for free though our local library. Our library participates in Freegal, a free music service available to library patrons, which allows 3 free downloads per week, and 3 hours of streaming per day. They have a pretty good selection of music, but not everything I might want. I am building a nice library of music for myself, though, and for free.

. . . I went blackberry picking again with my daughters after work. We picked 3 quarts of blackberries. We could have picked even more, but we were hungry for dinner, so will plan on coming back to that spot again another day.

. . . We used some of those blackberries for blackberry shortcake. Who says shortcake HAS to be made with strawberries?! This was yummy. I baked the shortcakes earlier in the day, using a sweet, rich biscuit dough. After spooning the fresh blackberries onto the shortcakes, I drizzled some runny blackberry syrup (from last year), then topped with whipped cream. Yum!

. . . I checked the pumpkin patch and it looks like I have a couple of pumpkins and spaghetti squash developing already. I'm making plans for some September meals.

. . . I found the last of a package of corn tortillas in the fridge, needing to be used up. So, I fried some chips for my daughters to take in with their lunches tomorrow. Home-fried tortilla chips are so delicious, and not overly salty, like a lot of commercial chips.

. . . Although I was tired all day, I did get a fair amount of housework done, laundry, vacuuming and  bathrooms cleaned for the week.


How was your day?

Garden accessories on the cheap

There's something about elevating an urn or a planter that gives that piece distinction in the garden. Like putting a piece on stage.

I've drooled over many lovely urns and pedestals in catalogs, over the years. What I'll usually do is find the planter/pot/urn that I like at a place like Home Depot, on clearance online, or if I'm lucky, at a yard sale, but make-do on the pedestals.

The rear planter in the above photo gets it's elevation from none other than an 8 X 16 concrete block, that we already had in the stack of leftover construction materials. I topped the concrete block with a ledge stone, leftover from some stonework on the front of the house a few years ago.

Here's an urn that I saw in a pricey catalog many years ago. They had it paired with a very nice pedestal. They wanted about $50 for the pedestal, alone. I found the urn, on clearance at another online catalog, minus the pedestal. I checked around with our extra supplies, and found that these small square pavers fit the base of the urn perfectly. I placed a stack of 2 pavers on top of some larger pavers, for a pedestal effect -- all from our stack of leftover construction materials.

Here's another, smaller urn, from Home Depot. While not a perfect fit, this 8 X 8 concrete block makes a good enough pedestal for this urn and it's mate, the two which are flanking the steps down into the sunken garden.