This weekend David, Julie and Ben drove to Hope for a visit. Since Julie had spent the entire summer in Seattle with grandson Dylan for his cancer treatment, this was the first time we have seen her since last winter. We were all very excited to finally get to spend some time together.
Most of these photos are ones that Julie took and shared with me. They were on the hunt for lobster mushrooms and found some really nice ones. It helped that we had a good rain on Thursday.
When they arrived they had anniversary gifts. Julie had baked a gluten-free cake to celebrate and also made this very delicious fruit bouquet.
She didn't stop there. She painted this beautiful mural for the back of my Hammond organ. A depiction of all of the flowers I grow in my garden, plus butterflies, a chickadee and a bumblebee. It is the music of the earth makes your garden grow.
As you can see the cake featured chocolate morel mushrooms. It is a pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting. Four layers! So yummy!
As a memento to celebrate our anniversary they sent us a beautiful sundial. We are still discussing where to place it in the yard.
It was simply a gorgeous fall day and one that was a lot of fun to share with them.
We've had a raccoon visiting us several nights, but our plums and grapes are not ripe. He must be really hungry if he's eating green plums and grapes. You can see in the photo of the grape arbor that he has torn up a lot of the leaves to get to the grapes. Willie barks at him but is not quite sure what to do about the problem.
Jon's dahlias are at their stunning best right now. Blossoms everywhere.
Later in the evening we taught Ben how to play one of our favorite card games, which is similar to Uno. The next day we went to the garden and picked fresh vegetables to send home with them. I am so happy to be able to share the produce. There are peppers and tomatoes in abundance along with carrots, beets and kale.
It is time though to begin to put the garden to bed. The green beans and zucchini are gone and I picked the last cabbage head a few days ago. It's so nice to have these beautiful days to finish up the project.
Today is also a special day as it's my sister Kathy's birthday! Happy Birthday sis!
Happy Monday!
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