Celebrating my Birthday in the Beauty of Nature

Sorry for my blogging hiatus. Motivation has been sorely lacking as I continue to ride the waves of grief, loss, and coping with a very painful hip and knee. The medication for the pain makes my, already taxed, thought process arduous. The pain is most likely caused by bursitis in my right hip. X-rays done yesterday will clarify matters and then I will, hopefully, be able to begin PT for some more relief and get off the medication.
Last Saturday was my birthday, and I was really happy to have my brother, Ev and his son, Martin come to visit from Baltimore. They stayed at my house and Ms G and I moved over to LM's. Another terribly traumatic car ride for my poor baby girl. She hates the car and carrier even more. Once she got there, all was well, and she is still there even though I came home on Sunday. Once again, we have the daily promise from LM that he will return my dear furry friend. We know how that goes. He loves her more each time.

Anyway, we all celebrated my day by visiting Haskell Nursery in New Bedford; a place I have wanted to see for many years after Martha Stewart televised a visit there back in the 90's. They have an amazing collection of beautiful and unusual trees and plants, most especially dawn redwoods in all their lacy glory, hostas - from the tiniest of plants to the HUGE specimens. The day was very lovely and below are some photos:
This beautiful baby boy, AKA Teddy, came along and slept through a lot of our tour.

These beautiful lillies announced their presence with their fragrance long before we saw them

This little garden greeted us as we got out of the car. I was fascinated by the green petaled cone flowers

There were amazing hydrangeas and this one was pure shell pink; a color I have not previously encountered

These succulents were all in bloom and so sweet

Martin and Ev near an interesting pine (Martin was not too thrilled by idea of the tour but he managed to have a good time and find things to point out).

A lovely Japanese garden lantern

A lovely espaliered pear with nearly ripe fruit.

Martin found this welcoming shade garden and several old shops which housed beautiful planters. The Japanese maples were so lush and many had the most amazingly pointed leaves

More maples

A very pretty pathway

Alison takes a break in the shade to feed Teddy a bottle.

A just-fed Teddy with "Nana"

There was a long row of towering and very fragrant magnolias

There were handsomely crafted stonewalls throughout the nursery.....it is a very old property right in the middle of a busy city

After the tour, we drove barely a mile to an interesting Portuguese restaurant, Antonio's, and these very appropriate and lovely plates were on the wall above our table. The food was delicious but I think we all agreed that the portion sizes were obscenely large.

After that we battled the Saturday on-Cape traffic to get back to Jason and Alison's and enjoy a visit on their lovely deck.

I missed Dad to a depth I had not felt in awhile. How much he would have enjoyed this day with his family. Milestones!

I'll be back soon with updates on fighting back vines and trees at LM's.