gnome homes and star moss and august

Half way through this summer season. Our world so full of color, we can feel ourselves heading towards the golden time. I am embracing it. I am happy to be here right in the middle of summer.

I cannot believe though that here we are at the beginning of August and I have yet to do a real gardening post.

How grateful I am for our garden this year. As I am every year. We are grateful for the food of course, but also for the time spent among the beds, in the dirt, under the sun.

This is what dinner has looked like so many nights this summer. Thank goodness we were able to get through most of the hottest afternoons without cooking! Bread baked very early in the morning, beans in the crockpot, easy grains like quinoa, lots of cold grain/bean salads. And then a big bunch of these wonderful greens, chopped up and piled on top, almost always raw. Almost every night. Yummy. Thank you garden!

I am often enjoying the view of the garden from up above. Standing on the back deck that is off of our kitchen.

Giant hollyhock leaves down below! (That is a 10 inch pot beside it!) No blooming hollyhocks this year though. (Sad.) But new cosmos have been greeting us each morning and soon the calendula will be shining it's bright face up to the sun. Happy!

And the gnomes have been making us happy too.

Last weeks storytelling and gnome crafting was inspired by an exciting discovery in the forest.

A gnome cave. With star moss! (Some kind of special fairy/gnome moss perhaps? I'm not exactly sure, but Chloe was so excited to discover it!)

We discovered lots of other neat things that day out in the forest.

A tree trunk smashed up by a bear, to get at the ants inside. Look closely on the right and you can see scratch marks from it's paws! (You would have to click to make the picture bigger...)

Tall trees.

Little trees.

Aspen leaves singing in the treetops.

Thistle stalk for snack. Peeled of course! She harvested it herself.

Ripe service berries.

Isn't that neat! A bit of love in the stump of an old Ponderosa.

And the magical gnome talk continued all week long.


Oh my, blogger is being funky with pictures. Glad I got through that. There has been so much that I have been wanting to share here, wishing to write about, but goodness how quickly the time passes!

Speaking of which, I am coming very close to my 100th post! Perhaps later this week. And I have a nice little giveaway planned too!
So see you soon :)


...