I'm very glad to see October -- how about you? Such a lovely month of changing foliage, early morning mists, blue skies, and beautiful sunsets. Today we've had Irish weather, as my husband says. It's been alternating rain and sunshine for most of the day, and the rain has been such a nice, gentle one.
Another week has begun, and our temperatures look to be cooling off this week. It was quite hot last week and over the weekend, too. Whew! I'm done with the heat, folks. 😳 Has it cooled off in your part of the world, yet? I have a trip to the garden shop planned for this week because I'm ready to get our front porch pots planted. We installed the new front porch lights over the weekend, and we're both very happy with them.
Hello Friends. Are you having a good week? Ours has been pretty good so far. Thank you for your comments on my previous post. We are still sad about Duncan; we do plan to get another dog, but not for a little while. We have a lot going on right now and more work to get done on the house. Speaking of that, we have gotten some things accomplished in the yard. Actually, I should say that the man we hired to clean up the yard for us has gotten some things (a lot) accomplished, and the yard already looks so much better. We are excited!
Hello everyone. Are you having a good month so far? We just returned on Saturday from six days at the beach; it was a much-needed break for us.
Hi everyone! Once again I've been away for a bit. Oh, I haven't actually been anywhere -- I've mostly been right here, but I realized I needed a little break from social media. It gets to be a downer after awhile; I'm sure you understand what I mean. But I've missed you all, because reading my favorite blogs is almost always a cheering prospect.
Hi all! I finally got a good opportunity to take some pictures this past Sunday afternoon. I don't think I've mentioned here that my husband gave me a new camera for my birthday back in 2018. It's a Sony ILCE-5100, and I absolutely love it. It's a compact camera with a lot of capability. I've used it so much more than I did the Canon Rebel, partly because it's much easier to carry around with me, but also because it takes terrific pictures. That means for the last three years, I've done my own photography for my tablescapes, my recipe posts, travel pictures, and decor pics around the house. When I first started writing House at Forest Manor, I made no secret of the fact that my husband did most of the photography for the blog. I'm still no great shakes as a photographer, but I do feel like I've learned a few things over the years I've been writing this blog. Sunday presented a good opportunity for me to take some pictures of one of our local historical areas, Reynolda Historic District. Today, I'm sharing some images of Reynolda Village, which is a collection of shops, restaurants, a greenhouse and gardens, and a wedding venue, as well. Come along and see what you think. Before I go further, I'd best explain that Reynolda Village is part of the original 1,087-acre estate belonging to Richard Joshua "R. J." Reynolds, founder of the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, and his wife, Katharine Smith Reynolds. source - Our State Magazine
Hi everyone! I hope you're having a good week, and I'm glad you're here. Today I'm sharing our major tree removal project with you; this work has been going on for a period of about three weeks (off and on). Next week, the stump grinder will be here to take care of all that remains of these monster trees. We put this project off for a long time because we knew the cost would be prohibitive, and it was. By the time the stumps have been ground, we will have spent about $20,000 and some change on this. For that kind of money, we could have had a sunroom added on to the back of our house, which I've wanted to do for years. But...then we would be constantly worrying that these trees would drop a massive limb on the sunroom, or worse, one of the trees would get struck by lightening and fall on the house. Among their many "endearing" qualities, poplars are also known to be lightening magnets. 😏
