A Little Vacation

We are taking a little vacation to the mountains

which means I will be taking a little blogging break for the next two weeks.

Happy Summer Everyone!

~Finding the amazing in the simple~

Thanks so much for stopping by

and I will be back soon!

Garden Tour Finale

This is the final garden on the garden tour.

If you missed the first two gardens you can see them here.

You can see the third garden here.

And the fourth garden here.

Actually, this garden wasn't part of the official garden tour

but I thought it definately should have been.

This garden belongs to my parents.

All of the flowers in the pots my dad grew himself in his greenhouse.

The chokecherry trees are full of berries

and I am dreaming of chokecherry syrup on my pancakes.

I can't wait until they are ripe!

I don't know the name of this plant

but it thrives in the hot sun and blooms forever.

The roses are beautiful.

The bachelor buttons are in full bloom.

Now I wonder why they are called bachelor buttons?

There is a whole row of these gorgeous pansies

along the north wall of the greenhouse.

These beautiful ruffled poppies grow along the end of their garden area.

They are absolutely stunning.

And you can't have a farm without a few kittens.

They posed so nicely for me!

~Finding the amazing in the simple~

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Chocolate Eclair Squares

I found this recipe in a little publication

put out by Jell-O and Cool Whip

called `Summer Desserts`.

It is pretty quick and easy to make.

Ingredients

1-3/4 cups cold milk

1 package (4-serving size) vanilla instant pudding

1 tub cool whip whipped topping, thawed

22 graham crackers

3 Tbsp butter or margarine

2 squares semi-sweet chocolate

2 Tbsp cold milk

1 cup sifted icing sugar

Pour 1-3/4 cups milk into large bowl.  Add dry pudding mix.

Beat with wire whisk 2 minutes.  Gently stir in whipped topping.

Layer one-third of the grahams and half of the whipped topping

mixture in a 13x9-inch baking pan,

breaking grahams as necessary to fit; repeat layers.

Top with remaining grahams.

Place butter, chocolate and 2 Tbsp milk in small saucepan;

cook on low heat until chocolate is completely melted and mixture is blended.

Gradually add sugar, stirring until well blended.  Spread over grahams.

Refrigerate several hours or overnight.

Store any leftover dessert in refrigerator.

This is such a nice, light flavored dessert,

everyone enjoyed it!

~Finding the amazing in the simple~

Thanks so much for stopping by!

I am joining...

Rattlebridge Farms for Foodie Friday

Five Little Chefs for Fantastic Thursday

Christmas in July Table

Since Christmas in July seems to be a theme lately

I thought I would reshare a previous Christmas table.

The santa and train set was given to us as a gift a few years ago.

I thought it was kind of cute.

These are views of either side of the train.

The snowman is part of my salt and pepper set

and I added some tealights and a few wooden ornaments.

The little candle tress were in a box of goodies I picked up at a garage sale.

Finally comes the dishes - simple white and green with a dash of gold.

The napkin rings were also in that box of goodies from the garage sale.

Each place setting had their own wooden ornament

(I had a basket of them kicking around)

 and the little pinecones I picked up at Pier 1 Imports.

The table is set and ready to go!

~Finding the amazing in the simple~

Thanks so much for stopping by!

I am joining...

Cuisine Kathleen for Let's Dish

Cutting Flower Basket

After our garden tour we had a presentation on

how to plan and grow a cutting garden.

This is something I had wanted to do for years

and this year I finally have my first one!

One of the recommendations was when going out

in the early morning or evening to collect your flowers

you should cut them and put them directly into cold water.

Now this makes perfect sense,

why didn't I think of it before?

So out I went with my ice cream bucket with some cold water in the bottom.

Unfortunatly, it just didn't work very well

as I had flowers with short stems and long stems.

I needed a better system.

So I went through my pantry and found this old basket.

It is sturdy with a good handle and a good size as well.

I then took three different sizes of canning jars.

The tall one for long stemmed flowers,

the medium for medium stemmed,

and the small for the short stemmed flowers.

There was also enough room for a pair of my gardening gloves

and a sharp knife, which was another recommendation.

She said, "no dull kitchen scissor." - lol.

I added an inch or two of water into each jar

and went to the garden to collect some flowers.

It worked amazingly well.

It was so easy to just put the flowers in the jars,

it looked pretty while you were collecting,

and it was so easy to carry around as I moved

from one section of flowers to the next.

I love it!!

I made three arrangements from this batch of flowers I collected

and when I was done I just set the basket in my back porch,

ready for the next day - and it looks cute sitting there as well :)

I am just so thrilled with this little basket!

It makes cutting and collecting flowers a breeze.

~Finding the amazing in the simple~

Thanks so much for stopping by!

I am joining...

Savvy Southern Style for Wow Us Wednesdays

Have a Daily Cup of Mrs. Olsen for Share Your Cup Thursday

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