Filed under: Family time, Food, General Blog Entry's, God Bless America, Love, music, Sunday Reflections, Sunrises, Sunsets, Waterfalls | Tags: Breakfast, Candy, Day Off, Good Morning, Good Times, Great Food, Grilling, I Love ❤️ My Job!, I Love My Family, Looking Back, Love, Memories, Piñata, Sunday, Sunday Inspiration, Sunday Mornings, Sunday Reflections, Sunday with Family
What a beautiful, cold morning! I was going to do this blog on the porch with my morning coffee, but I didn’t make it 😊 A little too cold 🥶 … Yesterday was our Annual Fall Fest, and it was a Great one! Lots of family’s came out to take part in the festivities & Eat lunch with us. Kids fell in love with the animals, all the pumpkins were carved, the piñata was busted by a determined group of kids 😊 And Adam led a great class on seasonal pond maintenance.
I made a collage out of the 200 pictures I had to choose from 😊 Lots of Fun yesterday!
This was the last event of the season for the Nursery, which is always bittersweet… We have had some really high notes this year at our events & as always, I can’t wait till next year! ❤️
Halloween, Thanksgiving & Christmas are coming fast now. I hope we can all enjoy every minute!
Have a Great Sunday!
~ Mark Carter
Filed under: Family time, General Blog Entry's, God Bless America, Hummingbirds, Lake and Pond, Love, Outdoor Lifestyles, Sunday Reflections, Sunrises, Sunsets, Waterfalls | Tags: Butterflies, Cooling Down, Fall Foliage, Fall is Here, Fall Morning, fall poem, Hot Fall Weather, Sunday, Sunday Inspiration, Sunday Mornings, Sunday Naps, Sunday on the River, Sunday Reflections, Sunday with Family, Sundays
We spent yesterday on the boat with the dogs enjoying what was maybe the last Hot day of the season… It got up to 89 degrees, the sky was strikingly blue & the river was smooth and so nice 😊 We have had quite a few unseasonably Hot days this Fall! It’s like Summer wasn’t giving up without a fight…
Nature Knows! The Monarch butterflies were moving south in #’s Saturday! They were following the river and were hard to photograph because they were mostly 50’-100’ high… look hard and enlarge to see in this picture.
This last Howrah of Summer has been nice, but it hasn’t felt like Fall yet… That all changes this week. Cooler temps and rain are in the forecast. I am ready to burn a few marshmallows on a fire 🔥 personally 😊
Have a Great Sunday! Here’s to Fall 🍁
Mark C.
Filed under: Family time, Food, Fountains, General Blog Entry's, God Bless America, Love, music, Outdoor Lifestyles, Sunday Reflections, Sunrises, Sunsets, Waterfalls | Tags: Autumn Color, Changing Seasons, Enjoy The Day, Enjoy The Morning, Fall, Fall Color, Fall Morning, Family time, Leaves, Morning Coffee, Sunday, Sunday in the Garden, Sunday Inspiration, Sunday Mornings, Sunday Naps, Sunday Poem, Sunday Reflections, Sunday with Family, Sundays, Sunrises, Sunsets, Time flies
I was sipping my coffee waiting and watching the sun come up 🌞 when I thought ‘tomorrow is the last day of September’… Wow! I don’t know if it’s just me, but this entire year has just flown by! And it always seems to speed up more when we get to the holidays!
The Fall Color is Coming! 🍁 Taking a ride or walk to enjoy the Fall is one of the joys of the season.
I always try to really enjoy each season as they come, I just feel like there’s a need to slow this train down a bit 😊 I am ready for the color show that is to come 🍁 And looking around the last couple days, it’s already started… I’m gonna go for a ride in the country today for a prequel and take note of what’s happening. Fall is such a beautiful season!
“Spring comes with flowers, autumn with the moon, summer with the breeze, winter with snow. When idle concerns don’t fill your thoughts, that’s your best season.”
~ Wu-Men
Have a great Sunday,
~ Mark C.
Filed under: Family time, Food, General Blog Entry's, God Bless America, Landscaping & Gardening, Love, Outdoor Lifestyles, Sunday Reflections, Sunrises, Waterfalls | Tags: Autumn Color, Autumnal Equinox, Cooler Weather is Coming, Fall, Fall Color, Fall is Coming, Fall is Here, Fire pits, Football, I ❤️ Summer, Last Day Of Summer, Sunday in the Garden, Sunday Inspiration, Sunday Mornings, Sunday Naps, Sunday Poem, Sunday Reflections, Sunday with Family, Sundays
I got up early and came out to get a good view of the last Sunrise 🌞of Summer. Yes, today is the last official day of Summer 😮 Tomorrow is the Autumnal Equinox, the 1st official day of Fall…
It’s been a HOT summer! Cooler weather sounds great!
I Love Summer! I always mourn its passing… But, it’s been so Hot this year, the cooler weather is a welcome thing. Football, cookouts, fire pits, Fall color, frost on the pumpkin 🎃 Bring It On!
Here’s a link to more info on the 1st day of Fall 👇🏻
“Our fear of death is like our fear that summer will be short, but when we have had our swing of pleasure, our fill of fruit, and our swelter of heat, we say we have had our day.”
~ John Donne, 1620
Have a great ‘Last day of Summer Sunday’!
~ Mark Carter
Filed under: Family time, Food, Fountains, General Blog Entry's, God Bless America, Koi, Koi Ponds, Lake and Pond, Landscaping & Gardening, Love, music, Nursery, Outdoor Lifestyles, Pondless Waterfalls, Sunday Reflections, Sunrises, water garden, Waterfalls | Tags: Date Night, Deep Thoughts, Full Harvest Moon, Full Moon, I Love Animals, Love, Moondance, Moonlight Pond Tour, Morning Coffee, Old Friends, Pond Tour, Sunday in the Garden, Sunday Inspiration, Sunday Mornings, Sunday Poem, Sunday Reflections, Sunday with Family
I was up early to drink coffee and enjoy these wonderful morning temperatures 😊 We were up late last night seeing over the latest Moonlight Pond Tour event. What a wonderful, beautiful night! The weather was perfect & so many people came through to look at the Gardens & Ponds.
It was such a perfect night for a Pond Tour! I just Love this Waterfall! ❤️
Jo and I spent the majority of the night at the nursery selling tickets and visiting with friends new and old. We saw lots of family’s young and old alike, just enjoying being outside in the garden, under the Harvest Moon 🌝 It made me think of this poem by Carl Sandburg-
Thanks to everyone who participated and donated to the Jackson Animal Care Center! And a very special Thank You to the wonderful Homeowners who allowed us all to stroll through their Gardens in the Moonlight 🌕❤️
Have a Wonderful Sunday!
~ Mark Carter
Filed under: Family time, General Blog Entry's, God Bless America, Landscaping & Gardening, Love, Outdoor Lifestyles, Sunday Reflections, Sunrises, Sunsets | Tags: Bemis Cotton Mill, Bemis Tennessee, Chopping Cotton, Company Town, Cotton Sack, Cotton Scales, High Cotton, History, Memories, Old Ways, Picking Cotton, Sunday in the Garden, Sunday Inspiration, Sunday Mornings, Sunday Poem, Sunday Reflections, Sunday with Family
I spent the evening rigging this little wall hanging display of history in my living room. My fathers side of the family goes back to the beginning with the old company town of Bemis. LOTS of history here. My dads side of the family processed and spun the cotton into thread. My mother’s side grew, chopped and picked the cotton.
This is an old Bemis cotton sack and an old scale. My grandma & great grandma we’re both original Bemis Cotton Mill families. Something about seeing the name gives me a feeling of history.
Now machines do everything that was once done by hand… Prep, plant, spray, pick, gin, spin, sew & go – All by machine now. We have come a long way in a short time! 🙏🏻
“When I was a little bitty baby
My mama would rock me in the cradle,
In them old cotton fields back home;
It was down in Louisiana,
Just about a mile from Texarkana,
In them old cotton fields back home.
Oh, when them cotton bolls get rotten
You can’t pick very much cotton,
In them old cotton fields back home.”
~ Credence Clearwater Revival
Have a Great Sunday!
~ Mark Carter
Filed under: Family time, General Blog Entry's, God Bless America, Hummingbirds, Landscaping & Gardening, Love, Nursery, Outdoor Lifestyles, Sunday Reflections, Sunrises | Tags: Feeding Hummingbirds, Flowers, Gardening for Hummingbirds, God Bless, God Bless America, Hummingbird Feeding, Hummingbird Nectar, Hummingbirds, I ❤️ Hummingbirds, Nectar Plants, Sunday in the Garden, Sunday Inspiration, Sunday Mornings, Sunday Poem, Sunday Reflections, Sunday with Family, The Presence of God
Sitting here watching the first hummingbirds of the day starting to feed, I realize that I’m a lucky man… Many don’t get to see them up close and personal like this. Some fly in and out of the feeders quickly for just a sip. A few stick more to the flowers 🌺 I have planted for them, and a few, that are regulars aren’t scared at all and will sit on a feeder and drink till they have had their fill! They trust that I won’t hurt or bother them. These are my favorites and the ones I call ‘my babies’ 😊
This is one of my ‘Babies’. If I am outside by myself, they act is if I’m not there at all. I ❤️ Hummingbirds 😊
I have feeders in several spots around the gardens, but my porch is their favorite. Maybe because there are also flowers 🌺 that they enjoy too? A ‘Plethora’ of feeding options if you will …
Plant flowers with tubular blossoms and the hummingbirds will come to feed. Butterflies 🦋 too 😊
…when you are convinced that all the exits are blocked, either you take to believing in miracles or you stand still like the hummingbird. The miracle is that the honey is always there, right under your nose, only you were too busy searching elsewhere to realize it. The worst is not death but being blind, blind to the fact that everything about life is in the nature of the miraculous.
~ Henry Miller
Have a blessed Sunday!
~ Mark Carter
