Monsella Tulips

 This is my cluster of Monsella Tulips.  You know how we always suspect the nurseries of photoshopping  their pictures in the catalogs?  The one below is from White Flower Farm's website. 

Mine are every bit as pretty with no touch up.  These tulips bloom early.  They are one of the peony tulips, which I like, and they seem to last longer than most of the others.  This one also lasts longer than the May Wonder peonies, maybe because they bloom earlier and it is cool for them.

I hope your tulips are beautiful at your house.  Love from Michigan.

New to me flowers

Grape Punch superbells, 2.79 at Dearborn Farm Market.

Chalk sticks from Lowes.  Neen gave me this cup, it says Plant Manager.

Are you planting???  Happy Thursday.

Walker

I found this little picture somewhere online, and  for those of you who know Walker personally, you will see it could very well be his baby picture.

He and I have been putting in lots of garden time lately!  Love to all!

for breakfast on Neen's birthday, we had.......

CORNMEAL FRIED EGGS!

I got an early start this morning and the sun was shining! Over to my friend's house and it is her birthday!!  She was getting phone calls and Facebook likes and cards everywhere.  Daughter Julie made us cornmeal fried eggs and were they ever good.  I will tell you how she did it in a minute, but first want to pass along her birthday wish to her Mom that she posted on Facebook...

Celebrating my wonderful Mom's 84 years on this earth! She has raised
7 incredible people (she's still raising me) she is Granny to 17...a
beloved sister to 6....favored Aunt to ALOT...and a great friend to so
many!! I am so thankful for the role model she is to me and my wish is
that my daughter will some day admire me as I do her!!

I had to read it out loud to Neen because Julie was tearing up, but isn't it sweet.

Now for the eggs,  she covered the bottom of the skillet with olive oil, tossed in cornmeal mix just enough to mix, let it brown just a bit and then broke the eggs into it.  Turn the eggs over, they have a nice brown cornmeal crust.  Neen only recently told us about cornmeal eggs.  She has been keeping them a secret from us for years, the very idea!

I hope you are having a good day and that you have good friends like Neen and Julie.

Kale

We've been making Kale chips.  I don't think I will get tired of them, because I never get that many to eat.  Rebecca eats them all.  She will injure you if you get too close to the pan.


 Wash and strip the green parts from the stems.  I tear them a little.  Put them on aluminum foil drizzle with olive oil (kinda massage it in)  and sea salt.  Bake 350 for 15 minutes.  Never mind the smell, you will not care, they are so good. 

Thanks everyone for your comments on the pins.  This last one is my favorite of all because I love the story that goes with it.

It has been a long and emotional week .  We need those followers called mercy and goodness.

Shoulder pins and the glass ceiling pin.

The pins were a lot larger than they look in the pictures.  I wonder if anyone ever said "hey, Maddie, there's a big bug on you."

Have one more post to make of my favorites, Bosnia, Katrina, a clock pin. There were also birds, turtles, frogs, snakes, fruits, vegetables, monkeys.