Home » June 2023 Favorites!

June 2023 Favorites!

When I quite belatedly posted my May Favorites, I believe I wrote that I would be back in a few days to post my June Favorites.  Do 13 days qualify as “a few” days?  I guess they’ll HAVE to!  Let’s look back at June!

FAVORITE #1

I want to start with something that I meant to include in my May Favorites.  There is a 5-episode docuseries out that shows the ship my son Danny works on during a trip from Mexico down to Antarctica.  The ship is the Scenic Eclipse, and the docuseries is called Maritime Masters.

It’s airing right now on Discovery +.  Danny appears a few times in the first episode.  He was working on the ship as it sailed from San Diego to Central America, and then he went home.  That’s why he’s only in the first episode.  He does makes a very brief appearance in the second episode just as he’s leaving the ship.  I hope you have a chance to watch the series.  Big Eagle and I traveled to Antarctica on the Scenic Eclipse in February of last year.  I blogged about it here as part 1 of our trip and then in 4 more posts.

 

FAVORITE #2

Big Eagle started in January removing the old fencing around our back yard in order to build a new one.  He took out the old, bought materials for the new, cut the materials to fit, assembled, and finally stained.  It was a lot of work, and he was outside making progress whenever he had the chance.  When the weather got hot, it was harder to stay out as long as he wanted.  BUT…at the beginning of June, he was completely finished!

Before pic of the old fence

 

New fence before staining

The inspiration for the tops all angled in the same direction came from a fence we saw in Vilnius, Lithuania when we were visiting Danny and Erin.

After staining

 

Another view

I’m so proud of his work!  I think he did an amazing job!

 

FAVORITE #3

Many favorite things happening in the garden in June and in the house with the harvest!

Many flowers and many baby green beans!

 

Wow! The dill really took off in June! Yay!

 

Bringing in a beautiful bouquet of dill!

 

Let the canning season begin!

 

First up…dill pickles! And we like ours spicy. Hence, the jalapenos!

 

Best green bean season in a few years! All of these went to Cara’s house. When we got home, there was this much and more to be harvested!

 

Found a copycat recipe of PF Chang’s spicy green beans and cooked up a batch. Yummy! Only thing I would do differently is parboil the beans longer before stir frying and a little less red pepper flakes.

 

The hosta I featured in my April Favorites did some amazing blooming in June!

 

The daylily shoots I showed in my May Favorites were now blossoming in June!

 

They looked even better from the back bedroom window, although this picture is not quite as clear.

 

Love how the Thumbelina Zinnias performed in the front flower bed! All planted from seed!

 

FAVORITE #4

On the 9th of June, Big Eagle and I drove to Louisiana to visit our daughter Cara and her family again.  I say again, because I also posted about visiting them in my May Favorites.  This time the highlight of our visit would be seeing Helen perform in a production of The Lion King!  The group putting on the play did 5 performances from Thursday through Sunday.  Our tickets were for the Saturday matinee.

On Saturday morning, we all loaded up in the car and went to the local farmer’s market.  It wasn’t just fruits and vegetables.  There were lots of different booths with a wide variety of items.  A lot of interesting things to see!

Taking a little break after walking around all of the market.

At home after the farmer’s market, Helen had to get ready for the matinee and evening performances.  Cara left with her, while the rest of us had lunch.  Then we, too, left for the theater.  No pictures were allowed during the performance, but afterwards the actors were outside the theater for the audience to engage with them.

Helen played one of three hyenas.  I wasn’t sure how much she would appear on stage, and I was pleasantly surprised at how often the hyenas were featured and by how many lines they had!

Helen with one of the other “hyenas”

 

Helen with I think one of the “lions”

It was a miracle they were able to smile.  It was SO HOT in the parking lot, and Helen was wearing a long-sleeved black leather jacket!  They did a GREAT job, and we thoroughly enjoyed the play!

We also had fun swimming and goofing around in the pool with Edie and Paul on Friday and Saturday afternoon.  I don’t have any pictures of that, though.

We left for home early Sunday morning.

 

FAVORITE #5

I have a fairly new Instagram favorite!  It’s Tanner the Planter!  He and his wife own a store called Famous in Oregon, which I also follow on Instagram.  If you love houseplants, and would like to be better educated on how to care for them, I think you would love this account!  He does care videos that are super interesting to watch and are easy to understand.  You don’t have to follow him on Instagram.  He has tons of YouTube videos you can watch.

Because of the name of their store, for the longest time I thought they were located in Oregon.  Then I found out through one of their posts that they are here in Texas in the town of Prosper!  I hope to visit their store one day.  It’s a bit of a drive from where we are located.  However, in June I found out he and Erica (his wife) had a live plant sale on Wednesday nights.  It could be viewed on Instagram live or Facebook live.  I watched, and I ended up ordering two plants!

They were delivered to my house two days later on Friday, and they arrived in great condition!  The one on the left is a Miltonia Hawaiian Orchid, and the one on the right is an Aglaonema Maria.  There are care videos on YouTube for pretty much all of the plants they sell.  They ship to every state in the U.S., including Alaska and Hawaii.  I think the only state they may not ship to is California.

The blooms on the orchid are so pretty!

And here 5 weeks later it still has blooms on it!

Since I bought my plants, they have switched to having TWO live plant sales per week:  one on Sunday night at 6:30 CT, and one on Monday night at 6:30 CT.  If you purchase a plant from them, you qualify to join their Facebook customer group, where you can ask specific questions about your plants and get answers.  Gosh, I sound like I’m gushing about this business!  Uhh…that’s because I am! 😁

 

FAVORITE #6

This is a little bit of a weird favorite, but it happened, and it intrigued me, so yes…it IS a favorite from the month of June for me!

So here’s the story:  Big Eagle and I were on our way to church on the third Sunday of the month, and we were sitting at a stop light when this moth attached itself to the truck antenna.  We still had about a mile to go before we got to church, so I was curious about how long he would be able to hang on.  Y’all!  We took that moth all the way to church!  I was just amazed that he was able to hold on that long at speeds up to probably 35 miles/hour!

 

FAVORITE #7

Leo in June

This boy has my heart, and I haven’t even met him in person yet!  Our beautiful new grandson!

 

 

 

 

 

 

That’s it for my June Favorites!  I hope you’ll forgive me for getting so behind!  Need to make sure I get July’s favorites posted in a more timely manner.  Hope you’ll be able to check out Maritime Masters and give Tanner the Planter a look see.  I always love hearing from y’all, so feel free to comment below!  And have a great rest of the weekend!

5 comments

  1. Karen says:

    Great pictures !! Love it all. Fence is cool top, love new things. Alan did a great job. Helen was so cute , little actress , she is !!! Baby looks so much older than he is. He’s adorable !! Flowers I will check out. Yours also around the house is so pretty !!

  2. Leo couldn’t be cuter. What a little doll. I think he has your smile and favors your family for sure. Cannot wait for you to get over there to meet that angel.

    Big Eagle did a fabulous job on the fence. I wondered about the inspiration for the pickets. Very cool that you saw some similar in Lithuania. Charming.

    And your garden. I am so impressed. And I impressed myself by knowing what each of your plants was. My poor little raised gardens just burned up. I have one plant still hanging in there but I am not sure what it is. I probably overplanted in each box and then put the boxes too close to the wall so the heat is just radiating off the wall onto the plants. And then there’s the 37 days of 100+ heat. But you guys have had a hot summer, too. Let’s face it, I don’t have a green thumb!! Would love a mess of your green beans. Delish.

  3. Twyla Harwood says:

    I can’t wait to see pictures of you with your new grandson. Enjoyed you favorites as usual. Our green beans are doing great this year. We always have an abundance of cukes. We never learn.

  4. Kim Betts says:

    What a nice set of favorites! I have added Maritime Masters to my Discovery + watch list. I sent the suggestion to a friend who took an Antarctic trip recently. Good job on the fence. The angled top is attractive, would shed water. Nice touch. Love the baby pics. The girls are getting so big. Nice that they are within driving distance to visit. I’ve been busing canning too. Love how the jars look on the shelves. Looks like your “moth” is a butterfly (but what do I know). Funny it hitched a ride. Sometimes when you are visited by birds or butterflies, it is your relatives visiting from heaven and checking up on you! You are so good with plants. You are so busy!

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