Beth Trissel's Blog, page 121

Bee Balm Attracts Hummingbirds

If you delight in fruity minty fragrance and the sight of hummingbirds hovering above brilliant tubular blossoms, try your hand at growing bee balm.  This Native American herb, also called wild bergamot and Monarda, is available in crimson, pink, and purple flowers.  My favorite varieties are the red ones.  They also seem to attract more hummers, at least in my yard, but the other colors are lovely too.

As its name suggests, bee balm is attractive to honey bees. Butterflies also favor...

For Those Who Live In Or Long For The Country~

Gardening requires lots of water – most of it in the form of perspiration.  ~Lou Erickson

Weather means more when you have a garden.  There's nothing like listening to a shower and thinking how it is soaking in around your green beans.  ~Marcelene Cox

There can be no other occupation like gardening in which, if you were to creep up behind someone at their work, you would find them smiling.  ~Mirabel Osler

Gardening is a matter of your enthusiasm holding up until your back gets used to it. ...

Love and Romance

"Other men said they have seen angels, But I have seen thee And thou art enough." ~  G. Moore

"I love you – those three words have my life in them." ~ Alexandra to Nicholas III

"I'd like to run away

From you,

But if you didn't come

And find me …

I would die. "

~ Shirley Bassey

"When you love someone, all your saved-up wishes start coming out. "

~ by Elizabeth Bowen (1899-1973)

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn
Is to love and be loved in return. "
~ From "Unforgettable with Love" ~ by Natalie C...

One Fine Day

These pics are a photographic collage my daughter Elise took (and some by my husband) of her and my jaunt around the garden, across the meadow, past the pond, and up through the fields to the woods above our farm.

Such an exquisitely beautiful spring day.  Pristine perfection.  Many colored tulips glow like jewels.  Virginia bluebells cover the ground in the dappled shade of the enormous maple tree.  The original plants were a gift from my late grandmother.

Lilacs and flowering crab...

Spotlight On Daughter of the Wind~

Autumn, 1784: A tragic secret from Karin McNeal's past haunts the young Scots-Irish woman who longs to know more of her mother's death and the mysterious father no one will name. The elusive voices she hears in the wind hint at the dramatic changes soon to unfold in her life among the Scot's settled in the mist-shrouded Alleghenies. Jack McCray, a wounded stranger who staggers through the door on the eve of her twentieth birthday and anniversary of her mother's death, holds the key to...

HOPE~

"Hope" is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul

And sings the tune without the words

And never stops—at all" ~ Emily Dickinson

"Everything that is done in the world is done by hope." ~ Martin Luther

"There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something better tomorrow." ~Orison Marden

"Hope is passion for what is possible." ~Soren Kierkegaard

"All human wisdom is summed up in two words: wait and hope." ~Alexandre Dumas

"Don't lose ...

Super Review Of Somewhere My Love By Dawn Hullender

Timeless and romantic

Title: SOMEWHERE MY LOVE

Author: Beth Trissel

Publisher: Wild Rose Press 2008

ISBN: 1-60154-322-0

250 pages

"Star-crossed lovers have a rare chance to reclaim the love cruelly denied them in the past, but can they grasp this brief window in time before it is too late?

Newly arrived at Foxleigh, the gracious old Wentworth home in Virginia, British born Julia Morrow is excited at the prospect of a summer working as a guide in the stately house and herb garden. She...

The Renewal of Life

"I love spring anywhere, but if I could choose I would always greet it in a garden."  ~Ruth Stout

When I was 6 yrs old, our family had recently returned from Taiwan where my parents taught English for 3 yrs. One of my earliest Easter memories is of finding wonderful colored eggs hidden in a yard filled with crocus and daffodils.  Magical.

Is there anything at Easter quite like your first egg hunt or  basket full of brightly dyed eggs? I love all the new life in spring and the message of...

A Host of Golden Daffodils

A wonderful childhood memory of mine is arriving home after church one Sunday to find a clump of yellow daffodils, beaded with rain,  blooming beside the back door.  New flowers to me because I'd spent my early years in Taiwan where my parents both taught English.  We had a banana tree there, but no daffodils.   Rushing to the flowers in delight, I buried my face in the moist petals and breathed in the essence of spring.  To this day, nothing says spring to me like the fragrance of a simple  ...

"Once in awhile, right in the middle of an ordinary life, love gives us a fairy tale."

"This was love at first sight, love everlasting: a feeling unknown, unhoped for, unexpected-in so far as it could be a matter of conscious awareness: it took entire possession of  him, and he understood, with joyous amazement, that this was for life." ~ Thomas Mann, on Romance

"I think we dream so we don't have to be away from one another.  If we're each other's dreams, we'll always be together." ~ Hobbes, on Romance, as in Calvin and Hobbes.

"Love won't be tampered with, love won't go...