I know it’s time to do the fall clean-up in the garden, but it’s so hard to cut back or pull up plants that are still blooming, even if the last rain storm beat them down and tipped them over.

Yesterday was an absolutely glorious fall day.

After taking full advantage of the extra hour we got from “falling back,” I headed right out to the garden.

Well, after I checked with my neighbor and expert gardner, Melinda.

She grows the most beautiful dahlias, and I wanted to know if it was okay to cut mine back now.

But how can you cut back things that are still blooming???

And even things that aren’t still blooming are still beautiful.

This sunflower head is 20 inches across!

And my little sunflowers are still showing some color.

What’s prettier than yellow and blue?

And what’s fresher than daisies?

These line the whole west side of my vegetable garden.

I remember sitting on the lawn at my grade school during lunch and making daisy chains from the daisies that grew wild in the grass.

And later, when I was in high school, daisies were a favorite of the flower child generation.

I still love them.

On the north side of my parents home was quite a patch of big daisies that seemed to thrive on neglect.

When they sold that house a few years ago, I dug up a few and they haven’t disappointed me a bit!

Even my hollyhocks aren’t ready to say good-bye to summer.

And this feverfew grows wild next to my compost pile.  It got started when I tossed a commercial bouquet of flowers onto the pile last year.  Instead of composting, it decided to sprout!

Very high up on my favorites list are nasturtiums.

Could it be because they are so easy to grow?

Or because they cover so much ground?

Or because they’re ORANGE–the most popular color in Anna Lena Land?

Maybe.  But, the long and short of it is, I didn’t cut back or pull up any of the flowers.  I know with the next storm they’ll probably be goners, but until then, if they want to bloom, who am I to stop them?

Our two oldest grandkids, McKenna and Justin, have been here visiting for a week.  Little brother, Jason, wasn’t very happy about being left home!

On our way home, we stopped in Seaside to break up the trip, and took time for a ride on the carousel.

I just love this photo.  We had to stop to watch the Young’s Bay Bridge be raised for a fishing boat to pass under.  Must be a guy thing!  McKenna and I waited in the car.

The favorite and most requested activity during the week was Gator driving.  I use it to water and fertilize around the yard.  As you can see, Justin liked being in charge of the spray nozzle!

While McKenna and I did a lot of Gator driving, Bob and Justin spent a lot of time on the John Deere A, now named Henry.  Bob was trying to fire it up one day and said, “Come on, Henry,” and after that, Justin called it Henry!

We baked Snickerdoodles, Papa’s favorite.  Okay, so I had a few, too!

McKenna made an apron from my Daisy A Day apron panel.

Here she is modeling the finished product.  I was so proud of her.  She did all of the sewing except attaching the waist band.  Her top stitching was lovely!

She chose this fabric for the reverse side, and we added the ric rack.  How fun!

We spent one whole day at Vista Park on the Columbia River.

It’s amazing how kids can spend hours at the water’s edge.  And grandparents can spend hours watching them and enjoying every minute of it!

We had a picnic and used the same plastic picnic plates that I ate off of as a child when we’d go to Chinook Park.

Now this was a bit of a stretch.  I had to put curlers in McKenna’s American Girl Doll’s hair.  Heck, I don’t even put curlers in my hair!  If it takes more than four minutes, then it’s not the hairdo for me!  But, it was in preparation for a very important party.  We invited the dolls and Great Grandma Bette for a tea party in the log cabin.

We spent the morning cleaning the cabin and picking flowers.  Of course picking flowers involved Gator driving.

Melissa and Kerstin wore matching dresses.

We had tea sandwiches and scones.  Our table had a daisy theme–daisy fabric in the table cloth, daisies on our bouquet, and daisies on my 1974 wedding china.

When Grandma Bette arrived, she was chauffeured to the cabin in –what else– the Gator!

She brought hostess gifts for both McKenna and me.  McKenna got a piece of cut glass that Grandma Bette has had for over 40 years.  What a treasure!

We didn’t forget dessert.  We had a strawberry whipped cream cake!

Yesterday, before heading out, we took one last Gator ride.  We went to the neighboring cranberry bog.

We took a little trip down a grassy road into the woods, and guess what we saw–a black bear!  It might have been this one, that son Doug snapped a  phone photo of in our yard last spring!  The bear ran off into the woods, and we turned around real quick!

We met their parents in Portland yesterday for the exchange.  Looks like Jason is happy to have his siblings back!

The program at Pomeroy Farms this year was Rebecca Anderson of Rebecca Ruth Designs.  She has an extensive knowledge of this history of aprons and an extensive collection of aprons–which she shared!  I hope you enjoy these photos.

Here’s Rebecca with two of her models, showing of pretty petal aprons.

More pretty hemlines.

Some full, circle aprons.

An interesting use of ric rack!  It’s used here to attach the panels of the apron skirt.

And here ric rack is used to join the top to the bottom.

This style really reminds me of my grandma.

And these terry cloth aprons are what my mom always wore!

My Grandma Ikey used a lot of bias tape–and so did the maker of this apron.

The woman who made this one took something as simple as bias tape and made it artistic.

But nothing beats ric rack for embellishment!

And have you heard of a technique called Chicken Scratch?  It was done on gingham, like these aprons.  My Grandma Kennedy did it on pillows.

Some pretty aprons from the 1920′s.  Tea, anyone?

Organza aprons were all the rage for hostesses in the 1950′s and 60′s.

These aprons are made from handkerchiefs.

And these are crocheted!

It was a wonderful day, and I loved seeing all the aprons.  Thank you!

Princess Cake

If you go to the web and google photos of Princess Cakes you’ll find a lot of cakes with dolls sticking out of them.  But if you persevere, you’ll find a few photos of a Swedish Princess Cake, like this one.

I wanted to try my hand at a Princess Cake, a special holiday cake popular in Sweden.  I’d never worked with marzipan before, but I wanted to give it a try.  I must admit that I almost took my sister up on her offer to buy one at a specialty bakery in Seattle (she offered numerous times!) but I bit the bullet and did it!  

So, the day before the party, I made my own marzipan and tinted it the traditional green.  Amazing how it matches my bowl and rolling pin!  

The trick with the marzipan is to drape it over the rounded cake and not have pleats in the side.  One recipe suggested practicing on an inverted bowl, so that’s what I did.  I discovered it wasn’t that hard to smooth the sides–of course there was a bowl under there, not a sponge cake and cream!

Then I took a little of the marzipan that I had set aside, tinted it red, and made the rose for the top.

When it was time to do the cake, I was prepared.  The cake is a sponge cake layered with raspberry jam, pastry cream and whipped cream!  It wasn’t perfectly symmetrical, but for a first attempt, I was satisfied!

I tinted some trimmed away marzipan a deeper green for leaves and added the rose.

I felt like a proud mama!

But the cake I always love best when I’m in Sweden is the Strawberry Whipped Cream Cake, so I whipped up one of those, too.

Here’s my brother, Sid, eyeing the Princess Cake.

It’s even pretty on the inside!

Needless to say, none of us left the table hungry!

Ah, the traditional midsummer meal!

First things first.  It’s time to set the table.  Way back in 1974 I chose a daisy motif china for my wedding dishes.  I must confess I have lots of dishes, and don’t use these much anymore, but I thought they were perfect for the Midsummer celebration.

The table looked quite festive decked out in blue and yellow, the Swedish colors.

The little Swedish candelabra and wild flowers made a perfect centerpiece.

But let’s talk about the food!  Of course it starts with Swedish meatballs, browned in butter and oil.  I figured four pounds of meat for nine people should be enough!

Swedish dilled potatoes are the best!  

We had pickled salmon and pickled herring.  Luckily we live at the coast and the local fish markets make it fresh here

My mom brought a cucumber salad and the meal was rounded out with white and rye bread, butter and two types of cheese, lingonberries and a cream sauce for the meatballs.  

Next time – dessert!

Disclaimer:  I didn’t get photos of my meatballs and potatoes, so I borrowed the images here from Google Images.

Swedish Decoration

Besides the maypole, there were a few other Swedish traditions that I observed for our Midsummer celebration.  The first it to have birch branches decorating the front of your home.  Alas, we have no birch in our woods, but I hit on a great idea.  I went to the local nursery and bought two birch trees!  They got to do the honors for the holiday, and afterwards we planted them near the cabin.  I figure I’ll buy two trees a year, use them for decorations, then plant them in the woods.  In, say, 80 years, we should have a whole birch forest!

Of course we flew the Swedish flag along with our American flag.  Pennants like this are very popular in Sweden.

And speaking of flags, the Swedes often decorate with small flags.  This is a souvenir from our trip last summer.

And check out this adorable candle holder.  These little gals are dressed in their Swedish national costumes.  So cute!

I got up at the crack of dawn on the morning of the party and went out to pick wild flowers for my bouquets.  There aren’t as many blooming here as there are in Sweden, but it was fun nonetheless.  This is one of six bouquets.

This candle stick is very special.  It’s a replica of one made in the 1500′s in the province of Dalarna, the prettiest part of Sweden and the area Anna Lena came from.

Swedish Cabin

It’s always nice to have a little piece of Sweden nearby.  For me, it’s this cabin in the woods–a gift from my parents.

It represents the little stuga in the woods where the young Swedish women would spent their summers.  You see, in the summer the cows were taken into the forest to forage.  That meant that the fields near the farm could grow up and hay could be cut for the long winters.  Each Swedish farm had grazing rights in the surrounding forest, and each farmer built a small cabin like this,  They were usually grouped together for camaraderie and protection.  The girls would have to milk the cows and make cheese and butter all summer long.  Today these little cabins are summer cottages!

Just like Swedish log cabins, I wanted mine to be built of square logs.

And I love the doors in Sweden! Our builder Steve built this one for me.

Sweden at midsummer means wild flowers–lots of wild flowers.

From my trip to Sweden last year I brought home this candle holder.

And this door stop.

There’s a special Swedish style sofa/bed.  I didn’t know how I was going to get one of those home from Sweden.  Amazingly, this was in the Pottery Barn catalog!

Enjoying a moment with my mom.

Shhhh.  In an effort to keep the trolls out, we’ve given them their own house!

The roof is tall and pointy like that so they can stand up inside with their hats on.  Bad manners–wearing a hat in the house, but don’t tell a troll I said so!

The Maypole!

There’s a little part of me that lives in Sweden all the time.  When I can’t be there in person, though, I try to bring Sweden here to me!  For the first time we celebrated Midsummer in Long Beach.  My family was here to celebrate with me and even though the weather wasn’t the best, we had a wonderful time.  I thought I’d share some of the midsummer traditions with you!

First, we needed a maypole.  I kept assuring Bob it would be a simple thing–cut a tree, stick a couple of supports in the ground and you’re good to go.  Bob must really love me because he uncomplainingly tackled this task!

He got to use his chain saw!

Of course he also had to use a post hole digger.

Then he cut down a big alder tree and brought me all the branches.  In Sweden it would have been a birch tree, but, alas, no birch here.  I made yards and yards of garland.

Bob helped me attach it to the pole.

I used wild Scotch Broom for the wreaths.

Cole says it passes inspection.

With Swedish music playing, we raise the maypole!

Can we do it?

Almost there!

Now it’s in place and time to dance around the pole–which we did, but there are no photos because EVERYONE was dancing!

I love this view of the maypole from the cabin in the woods.

I’ve been unfaithful to Poppy!

Yes, dear, sweet Poppy, shown here in happier times.

Today Bob and I were in Astoria and something very bright and shiny caught my eye.  Yes, another Airstream.  It beckoned to me, like a siren.  I thought, “What could a little closer look hurt,” so Bob turned the truck in the direction of this seductress.  

I wasn’t going to get out of the truck at first, but what could one little peek hurt?  I peered through the window in the door, and what should I see–and orange dinette!  Oh, you temptress!

Well, the next thing you know, the salesman was there with key in hand.  “Just have a look,” he said, as the sunlight glinted off his toothy smile and sparkled back in that shiny aluminum skin.  “The kitchen has all new appliances….”

And did I mention the Vista View Windows and no fake brown wood grain?  

Oh, Poppy, forgive me!

Wild things are blooming!

I don’t want to sound all cliche` about Spring Has Sprung or Enjoy The Wonders Around You, but I do like to see things coming to life this time of year.  I took a little nature walk around my house yesterday, and these pretty things were there to greet me.  Thank you, Mother Earth.

Just across the road from the end of our driveway there are some trillium blooming.  These are clinging to the edge of the ditch.  They must really understand that whole bloom-where-you-are-planted thing.

Cowslips.  These are growing in the wetlands near my cabin.  I love the yellow and the way the sun shines through them, making them glow.  They are mostly known as skunk cabbage around these parts, but I prefer the English name–Cowslips.  

Across the road in the Crowleys’ fields there hundreds of them.

I even found this Oregon Grape blooming.  It’s the Oregon State Flower.  I wonder who let it north of the border!

And even a few domestic flowers are blooming to brighten the landscape.  These little primroses are always a welcome sight.

And by the back door the white camillas are showing their pretty faces.

Happy Earth Day!