When we first retired, I decided I could paint, so I tried my hand with Monet’s Water Lilies. Notice the newest plant addition, the Lemon Lime Maranta plant with it light and dark green leaves. The Aloe plants come from my mother’s original plant, God bless her Soul.
This is the corner of the side and front windows where my 7 books and John’s 15 books originated. We thank you for your interest in our books. Mine are at: https://LindaHourihan.com. John Hourihan’s books are available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Google Play Books. We are both award-winning writers.
This is the new shed which serves us as our library with comfortable couches. We needed more space than the 400 square foot house.
Mountain Laurel is all over the woodland paths and around our house and library.
You can see the Mountain Laurel blooming across the street in the background.
Eternal Universal Life Force Energy (Chi, Prana) manifests abundantly in nature, blooming all around the Buddha and the meditating Jesus in the background. Both the Buddha and Jesus taught about this.
Here the Buddha is a gentle reminder that focusing on empathy, compassion, peace and love are the paths forward that build better tomorrows in every situation in personal, social, civic, national, international, global, and cosmic realities.
As I was standing with my husband and some neighbors talking about how the weather was affecting the trees, which in our area seem to be dying due to the oppressive droughts and record heat this year, a massive dead tree that had been homes for the woodpeckers and other wildlife, came crashing down without any human effort. Notice that it neatly landed behind the fence with the meditating Jesus and directly in front of the tree with the birdhouse, behind the Mountain Laurel bushes and before the next tall tree. We were standing in the driveway next to the tree fall.
The Mountain Laurel Bushes are about twice as tall as I am. Some are higher than that.
I made paths between the Mountain Laurel bushes when we first move in years ago, making a quiet meditative time out of busy days. Eternal Universal Life Force Energy fully expresses Itself in all manifestations of life without prejudice.
Earlier this spring I took out the raspberry and remaining blueberry bushes we had bought and planted in previous years. Many grew here naturally. While we loved picking the berries, so did the visiting black bear.
My husband, John, took this picture from the living room window in our house at 2:30 p.m., about 20 minutes before I came home from shopping. John was waiting for me in the driveway greeting me when I came home to make sure I got in the house safely. No one should ever get between the mama bear and her cubs. Notice the umbilical cord on the baby black bear. In the previous fall, we heard a tremendous crash outside next to our rear living room window. We saw a huge black bear with its head and one paw inside the large mental trash can that held black-oiled sunflower seeds. Only its head and one paw could fit inside the large opening of this over-sized trash can. I had also previously placed a brick on the cover. Evidently it was no match for a hungry, black bear, pregnant with two baby cubs inside!
Two baby black bears and their mama visited our library space also. When they first came into our yard, John said the mama bear raised up on her hind legs and stretched up on the blue back shed door. We used to keep black-oiled sunflower seeds in the back shed. We no longer keep sunflower seeds on the property anymore. John watched a baby bear take a break, sitting in a generous clump of abundantly filled blueberry bushes, next to the library.
Friends were visiting one day when I heard them call me outside to see a big black bear that had walked by all their parked cars near our driveway. At that time, I was filling the bird feeders with sunflower seeds. That is now a thing of the past.
I didn’t get a picture of the last and biggest black bear that visited us. He came from the nearby corner leading to deeper woods and sat in the middle of the road directly in front of our huge picture window that faces the street. It got up, walked past our driveway, stopped, and came back into our yard. When the bear was next to our car evidently heading for our heavily laden blueberry bushes, John clicked the car alarm a few times and the bear bolted directly into the woods across the street. That did it. No more blueberry bushes here for me!
This is the back shed where the large mama bear stood on her hind legs and pushed with her large paws to hopefully get that sunflower seed.
When we retired in the western Massachusetts woods, my neighbor in the back yard had Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and was depressed in the winter, so I painted the back of our shed with the sun in a blue sky, a red Cardinal in a white birch tree and very tall flowers that would show even if a lot of snow covered the ground, to make her smile.
When two grandsons came to visit, they saw the back of the painted shed and asked to paint the shed also. Today one grandson is in college and the other one graduated from high school. Where does the time go?
The evergreen tree grew but you can still see their rainbow, flowers, and butterflies on the shed through the Mountain Laurel.
I went to a baby shower once and received a thank you gift of a baby evergreen treeling in a dixie cup. I nurtured it into to this baby tree.
This picture is from the back trails. There’s nothing quite like a hot cup of coffee in the morning and walking the trails with the chorus of birds singing in the morning.
New Mountain Laurel is growing after I pruned it.
This is a beautiful Mountain Laurel Garden, which grows wild all over these woods.
I waited patiently for 5 years after planting a Rose of Sharon Tree. For the past 4 years, it showed no life, but I never gave up on it. This year I noticed little green buds, then for the first time ever, it grew leaves. It is that little stick looking tree with little leaves. I am so proud it decided to grow here. I’ll keep you posted.
I was given this Rhododendron as a small plant about three years ago. Now it is huge. It was created by an older gentleman who started this new variety. I was told it will bloom with white flowers. He named the Rhododendron “Catherine,” for his wife.
This is the back of our writing window.
I put out Beanie Babies on the Mountain Laural bushes and other trees with low branches for the young children who come by at Halloween. We are a stop on the neighborhood old-fashioned trick or treating route planned by the parents, so the children get to experience an old-fashioned trick or treating safely.
Our library features queen-sized futons on each side of the building with the same sized back window as the house has, allowing us to overlook the Mountain Laurel gardens.
You see the front window where we enjoy the Mountain Laurel bushes in the front of the house. There is a big Fire Bush that will turn bright red in the fall, and Day and Tiger Lilies soon to bloom. I have some of my mother’s Myrtle, as she called it. It is also known as Periwinkle. It thrives in this woodland yard. It makes a lush green ground cover.
After failing at growing vegetables in the growing boxes, I had much better results with flowers and bulbs. These boxes feature Daffodils, Iris, and Tulip bulbs, purple and white Violets, Red Sedum, Orange Day and Tiger Lilies and soon to be tall yellow flowers. It is sweet that they all take turns blooming so that I don’t have to wait long for the next blossoms.
This is the other side of the driveway. This is where I was standing with my husband and neighbors when that tree fell behind the fence behind the library.
The trails I created also go in front of the house, between the Mountain Laurel and our front porch where I grow our herbs.