Dear Reader:

Remember a couple of days ago…I mentioned that I was taking a hiatus from the garden while Mother Nature was cooperating so well with the balance of sun and rain to do something new…perhaps an adventure through a familiar terrain…but with a new perspective.

Vickie works part-time at Miler Country Club and said that she could borrow a golf cart any time we were interested in riding around and see our neighborhood(s) through the back paths and not just the main drives. Yesterday was our day to do just that!

It started off by finding an isolated area behind a dead end road where we found a beautiful but unusual tree…it was like someone got a blow dryer and swept the trees ‘hair’ (limbs) all over to one side…perhaps it happened last year during Hurricane Matthew.

Our adventures taking the back paths of the neighborhood gave us some of the most beautiful scenery around.

Besides the falling pine straw…we can tell fall is about to arrive by the lengthening shadows…I loved this path through the woods. The sun dappled through the old oak trees creating flickering lights that looked like fairies dancing. (Don’t you love the word “dappled” I do!)

I am always drawn to “Resurrection Ferns”  like the ones growing on this old oak… that is begging little children to come climb its branches.

It is only when we get off the beaten path…that we can see children’s secret tree houses, filled with imagination that lead to adult homes built back off the road like an adult tree house.

Tire swings, hand-built mailboxes, and horseshoes…just waiting for players.

We might not have “Three Pines” in Summerville but these two pine trees came mighty close to the picture in the Penny Louise books.

My favorite gardening areas were the sun flowers and  wildflowers home owners had planted…I really want to grow wildflowers in bulk for next season…they just can’t be beat for beauty. (I think I will need about a truck load of dirt to go over my sand.)

*I love these wooden blocks in Eva Cate’s room…”In a field of roses, she is a Wildflower!”

There were so many beautiful butterflies out and about…and I loved this butterfly chair too.

Here are our two favorite Tea Farm doors….I love that the new trend in housing right now is painting a front door color that “pops.”

…And speaking of the Tea Farm neighborhood…the original Tea Farm house is really getting a make-over with a new copper roof…it is going to be gorgeous when it is finished. I did have to chuckle however when Vickie and I rode past this sign on the dirt road where it is located. Not sure anyone can do too much about stirring up “DUST?” (Glad we have had a lot of rain and we were in a golf cart.)

We both thought this home looked like a French Chateaux.

The one observation that made us slightly sad, however, was the fact that we didn’t see anyone out and about around their homes for the whole hour we rode around Miler and Tea Farm…It was eerily quiet…a beautiful ghost neighborhood….a sign of society today…people work hard to live in some of these beautiful homes and sometimes I feel that this leaves little time to actually live in them…enjoy them…just a thought.

So until tomorrow…A Blessing for a New Home (favorite stanzas) by John O’Donohue

May this house shelter your life.
When you come in home here,
May all the weight of the world
Fall from your shoulders.

….

May this home be a place of discovery,
Where the possibilities that sleep
In the clay of your soul can emerge
To deepen and refine your vision
For all that is yet to come to birth.

….

May it be a house of courage,
Where healing and growth are loved,
Where dignity and forgiveness prevail;
A home where patience and spirit is prized,
And the sight of the destination is never lost

Though the journey be difficult and slow.
May there be great delight around this hearth.
May it be a house of welcome
For the broken and diminished.

….

May you have the eyes to see
That no visitor arrives without a gift
And no guest leaves without a blessing.

……………………….

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*If you order from the Emily McDowell studio today (24 hours) all her artistic  “wares” (cards, pins) are on sale to benefit Houston Texas.

*Happy “Lucky Rabbit” Day…it is the first day of September! Say “Rabbit” and have a wonderful Fall month!