Redecorating the Nest

A few months ago my fabulous writer daughter, Jess asked me if I knew anyone who would like to contribute a monthly column in the Herald on being an empty nester. I thought about it for about a week and decided that I wanted to write it! I haven't published anything since high school and that was quite awhile ago and only in the Davis County Clipper. So go to the link on my current obsessions and click on Senior Spotlight (ouch). The column ran on November 16th and will run every 2nd Monday of the month. Wish me luck on coming up with more material...and here's to my two little birds, Taelor and Cass, who have flown in for awhile.

Confucious says... patience is a virtue

After three years of living in our house, I finally found the perfect entry piece. I have been searching for something with an Asian look but everything I found was too deep, too small, too expensive. I looked at all my favorite haunts...CG Sparks, various antique stores and of course waited anxiously for the new market introductions from High Point. I found this beautiful 8' long alter table at Home Again in the mysteriously "rarely opened basement". I didn't even have to re-hang my maps so it must be perfect and it was under $200.00.

Xeriscaping is beautiful

Yarrow and pentemon

I wish I could remember the name of this shrub.
It requires almost no water and the spring blooms look like tiny flames.

My Waterwise Garden
I am so excited about my plant choices in my new garden. Even though I have researched this type of gardening for years I thought that I would be giving up some of the color that I loved in my English garden but I was pleasantly surprised this spring. I couldn't believe how much growth came in just one year, especially the penstemon next to the three yarrow plants that have been there since we moved in 2 years ago. Even Mike's tiny rock rose doubled in size.
I was able to turn down the drip volume in late summer and really save a lot of water compared to my conventional sprinkler heads in Highland.

The lavender and pincushion flowers are next to bloom along with other Rocky Mountain wildflowers so I should have something all summer long.


I regretted not saving a place for tomatoes and peppers so I shoveled out bark and ripped out weed guard and Mike brought in some beautiful dirt full of organic matter so I now have a vegetable garden in the back flower bed. I wasn't very good at raising tomatoes in pots last year.

I do miss my 4th generation peonies but Mom had beautiful blooms for Memorial Day. I also bought some from Pam Ostermiller's florist shop Tri.Fec.Ta in Sugarhouse. The starts that I transplanted from Highland to Jessica's house finally bloomed this year...the pink ones survived!

Love is the air in the form of orbs

On Valentine's Day Denise's dad and friends from the Beehive Barbershop Quartet came in to The Black Goose Design. They sang Let Me Call You Sweetheart while I snapped this photo on my digital camera. We were all teary by the time they finished. Later I saw these glare spots and almost deleted them, but it was such a great moment I thought I had better print them anyway and gave them to Denise. A few days later our owner saw them sitting on her desk and commented on the orbs in the picture. We went on a website explaining orbs and saw that they looked exactly like the images on the website. You can google orbs to get alot of different explanations, but basically it is believed, by some, to be the energy of a spirit in the form of a sphere and they can be captured on film at random times. These men had such a positive energy about them I am sure many happy spirits followed them around the valley that day. For you skeptics out there, I took another picture in the entry of the store yesterday, alas, no orbs. I guess they only like four part harmony.

Denise's dad is 2nd from the right.