Some Summer Flowers and Harvest

Summer Flowers and Fruit! I thought I'd share some pictures of some pretty things that grew in our yard this summer. I'm personally not a very big gardening person. To put it short, I touch it, it dies. :( Fortunately both my mother and sister love to garden so I still get to enjoy pretty flowers and plants along with home grown fruits and vegetables! Enjoy the pictures!

I had to put the roses first. Roses are definitely one of my favorite flowers of all time. There are so many songs about roses and their beauty. I remember in middle school, our choir performed the song "O Lovely Rose" by Mark Patterson which was a beautiful piece. The first line of the choral piece just repeated itself in my head the whole time while I was picturing these roses. This line just suits so well.

"O lovely rose, lovely rose, where does your beauty begin?"

And then, of course, is my all time favorite song for Roses, and one of my favorite songs of all time, based off a poem by the Irish poet Thomas Moore, The Last Rose of Summer. The message in the poem and the melancholy tone to it is wonderful, along with the fact that it's melody is gorgeous too. Search it up if you haven't heard it before. It's worth it.

The Last Rose of Summer ~ Thomas Moore

'Tis the last rose of summer,

Left blooming alone;

All her lovely companions

Are faded and gone;

No flower of her kindred,

No rosebud is nigh,

To reflect back her blushes,

Or give sigh for sigh.

I'll not leave thee, thou lone one!

To pine on the stem;

Since the lovely are sleeping,

Go, sleep thou with them.

Thus kindly I scatter,

Thy leaves o'er the bed,

Where thy mates of the garden

Lie scentless and dead.

So soon may I follow,

When friendships decay,

And from Love's shining circle

The gems drop away.

When true hearts lie withered,

And fond ones are flown,

Oh! who would inhabit

This bleak world alone?

I don't know what these flowers are called but they are so pretty. They remind of fairy dresses.

Close up picture. It looks so delicate and could be used as great inspiration for a lamp....
I'd make a great fairy lamp. Just imagine it hanging from a ceiling.

Pumpkins! They are a Japanese Pumpkins so they are ripe even though they are green. These taste amazing anyway you cook them. Personal favorite is to slice them into pieces (skin stilled attached but scrubbed clean), wrap them in aluminum foil,and throw them onto the grill or in the oven till done. They taste like roasted chestnuts! They are also good for diabetes I think.

Something about this little red flower standing out among it's dead companions is just so pretty. 

It looks so cheerful and smiley to the sun!

Figs! They taste really good but unfortunately the birds and squirrels usually get to them before I can. :(

The sudden gray sky... Dun Dun Dun!

A Brief Recap of Summer before School

Joys! Just one more day and I will be once again stuck in a hard plastic seat behind a desk. I remember those day when I was in elementary school or even middle school when I thought summer was just the most dreadful thing ever. Sure, I enjoyed the first few weeks of freedom and sleeping till its half-past noon, but after a while I would always grow bored. None of my friends lived close by enough for me to bike or walk over and so the rest of those two months of summer would be filled with boredom, and no other social contact with the outside world. (This hasn't changed by much. I'm pretty much still antisocial during the summer.)

Now, though, what would I give to go back to those days summers which I considered boring. In high school, these lovely 2.5 months of nothing to do was filled with something to do and just flew by and were not all that relaxing either. Most of my summer was spent behind a desk. What! That's preposterous! The pains! Well yes. I spent 8 weeks of my precious summer "training" for the SATs at Elite Educational Institute in their boot camp program. I wouldn't say it was horrid, cause it was definitely worth it and my score really increased but it was high stress and tedious. A test every Monday, along with quizzes in writing, critical reading, and math spread throughout the rest of the days. (There were quizzes everyday) Also there were those lovely vocab quizzes of 50 vocab words that practically ruled my life. I would walk around with my current 50 vocab word flashcards tucked in my pocket everywhere I went. I was a walking, talking SAT robot.

Now those other two weeks of summer that I had to relax and spend to my own accord. I shut myself in my house and became a vampire that slept till noon. What a summer life. So now I wave farewell and adieu to summer. Sleepless nights and high stress days here I come!