The week prior to the 4th of July, Robert was off and every day we got up and ventured out finding places we had not been yet, but were close enough to do in a day. Robert found several different resale shops and he's always a happy man if he can find records and/or radios. He found a listing of some places around doing 3-day antique sales and we decided to check out Buffalo, MN. They had LOTS of shops open, in fact, we never made it to all of them, so decided we would have to make another trip again. Buffalo is a really pretty, quaint little town and it also has a big lake that is gorgeous. They had painted buffalo statues sporadically around town - I had to take a picture of this one because it was so unique. I guess because of the lake, it is a 'buffalo fish'?
When we moved to Minnesota about 5 1/2 years ago (YES, it has been that long), my Aunt Zoma had given me this cactus to bring along. It has survived not only the cold Minnesota winters, but also survived alot of negligence on my part. I'm always afraid that overwatering it will kill it, so I'm sure I go to the extreme the other direction. I'd told Zoma that I still had it, but that is was tall and skinny, unlike her's that are short, but big in circumference. She said she'd like to see it, so I really took this picture for her. I've recently repoted it and tried setting it outside this summer. Until now, it has been a houseplant, just hope it survives the summer outside and I'll bring it back in.
Robert and I love to work in the yard and keep our yard looking nice (as do all our neighbors) and so I just thought I'd post a few pics of some of our flowers we have around the house.
I have a big black witches pot in our driveway between the garages and I love to plant pansies in it - they always look so pretty.
After we moved in the guy that did our landscaping put three hydrangeas along the front of the house. We have replaced them every summer, because they don't seem to do very well there (they are on the north side of the house). Last year when we digging them up and putting new ones in AGAIN, Robert said we weren't doing it again. This is a picture of one of the three - the other two are green, but have no blooms on them. This one however, looks half-way decent, but still isn't very big.
This is a white hydrangea that we planted ourselves last year in the back of our house. Robert has always said he thought the white ones would do better and maybe he's right, because this is the first year we've had this one and the blooms are huge - the one is about as big as a basketball.
In the front back in the corner between the house and garage, we have a Dwarf Korean Lilac bush/tree. I love to open the window that is stands in front of in the spring when it's all bloomed out, because it smells so good. Every year we've had birds build their nest in that tree - not sure if they like it because of it's location or what, but this year we had a Robin build her nest there. Once she'd laid her eggs, we couldn't even go out front without her and the daddy getting nervous. IN fact, Robert was carrying water from the back to the front to water stuff, because the tree is right beside the faucet in the front and he didn't want to scare her away from her nest. Once they hatched we could watch them from the window by the tree and it was neat to see her feeding them and their little heads poking out, etc. We were outside when we noticed one of the babies pirched on the retaining wall along the side of the house and another one in the side yard. Robert also found one inside the garage and the other 'under' the next door neighbors truck! Robert got a towel and brought the one out of the garage and also retrieved the one under the neighbors truck. He tried to put them back in their nest, but only one stayed. I guess mom was trying to teach them to fly, but she and the dad we're flying around crazy the whole time we were outside. I wish she could have understood that we weren't trying to hurt them and we're only trying to help her gather her children back together.
This is either the mom or dad (you tell me?), but she/he was letting me know I was getting close enough to their baby! I could totally understand :o)
Next weekend is our trip to Chicago to meet the girls for Emily's birthday. We are both getting excited and I'm hoping the weather in Chicago is as nice as it has been here in Minnesota.