Home Again Home Again

Just got back from Judson and Rachel's in their new hometown of Madisonville.  Going to see them now is like going home!  Thanks to Sharon, they have very very nice temporary housing while they are waiting to close on their new home.  We loved visiting with Laura, doughnuts on Sunday morning, and best of all--watching the BK big wheel speedway races :)

 Meanwhile, here in Central Illinois. . . Really nice volunteer combo of amaranthus and cleome.

Sunflowers and zinnias.  Most of the zinnias are being dried in silica for The Farm.  The sunflowers didn't dry very well--too big, too heavy, and they by the time they dried they had lost most of their color.   They do look cute with the zinnias though.  A second crop of sunflowers is in bud, so we'll see how they turn out.

 These are bright lights cosmos.  I've always loved these around the vegetable garden.  Back when the boys were little little and we lived in Nicholasville, we had orange cosmos growing around the whole garden.  Mark has been watering the garden, so it's doing pretty well.  And I've kept the containers pretty well watered, so they are okay too.

We cleaned out closets the other day and found a couple of bowling balls.  The cladium look happy here with the cyclamen.  The lakeside kaleidoscope hosta is not happy at all with the lack of rainfall.

This is little henry sweetspire, just one of the shrubs that is also unhappy in this blistering dry heat.

Mark cut these day lilies back the other day.  They had turned to straw. . .

Not sure the rhododendrons will make it. We lost one last year, and the remaining two are really stressed.  The big daddy hosta is giving up.  Lots of the beauty berries are drying up--so disappointing because the spring bloom was spectacular and it's loaded with little green berries that are turning brown instead of that pretty bright purple :(

We had a great weekend with everyone in Madisonville.  It's good to be back home safely in only four hours!  And so now it's back to watering what we can and waiting for the rain. . . Have a good week :)