Welcome to the Weekend Coffee Share! What can I get you? There’s hot coffee in the French press, and ice tea in the fridge. Or I’d be happy to make a smoothie for you, with the ingredients of your choice. We have orange, pear, apple, ginger, red currants, strawberries, and raspberries that would make an excellent smoothie. The featured image is a photo from a lovely visit that my daughter and I made to our library yesterday, there’s an organic, fair-trade cafe at the library. We love to go there when we visit the library. I am especially found of their vegan lasagna, but yesterday we had coffee and a rocky-road cake (I mean, I had coffee, my daughter had juice.) How are you doing?
I’ve definitely entered vacation-mode now, two weeks into my vacation. Five lovely weeks left. I feel great about choosing to start my first week of vacation with a trip, now I feel super happy about doing the things I love locally. This week I’ve had many great bike rides, spent time working in my container garden, played numerous card games with my daughter, read books (both work related and fiction,) and went on walks in the rain. It’s been more humid than usual, still warm, some sun, some rain, and even some thunder this week. It’s definitely summer, with temperatures between 70-75F. It does feel warmer due to the humidity. What’s the weather like in your neck of the woods?
I took this photo during a magical bike ride around Lake Varpan on Thursday. It’s one of my favourite bike rides, and I’ve posted photos from this ride several times before (this is what it looks like in the winter at Lake Varpan.)
Speaking of summer temperatures and gardening, early this spring I tried to get extra gardening space, and this week I was offered a small piece of land for gardening purposes only. I’m going to look at it today. I am very excited about that. I’ll tell you more next week when I know more. It’s in the middle of our gardening season here, but there is still a lot of things I could do this season; plant some of the plants from my container garden in the ground for a bigger harvest, start a fall garden with cool season crops, and prepare for a killer gardening season next year. If you have a garden I’d love to know what’s growing in your garden at the moment?
Overall it’s been a great week! Thank you Natalie for hosting the Weekend Coffee Share. Tell me what’s going on in your neck of the woods. I’m going to try to visit everyone’s coffee share this weekend.
Love,
Maria
GreenDreams 
Hi Maria! What a wonderful post with such beautiful photos! Thank you for the coffee and your summer break sounds fabulous so far. How exciting to get some land to plant and harvest your fruits and veggies!! I can’t wait to hear more. I did not plant anything this year as I’ve just been so busy with the horses and I could not decide what to plant and grow. I know I can grow things all year here where I live so I haven’t given up completely (but have lost my motivation.) Reading your lovely blog is so inspiring!! I haven’t been writing as often too, it’s hard to explain but I feel kinda stuck. Since this is a long weekend here with 4th of July landing on a Monday, I’m hoping to write a post to share some coffee with everyone. 🤠 I hope you have a wonderful weekend! I just Love lake Varpan both in the summer and the winter!! 💞
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Thank you kindly my friend. Your comments always makes me smile. I’m sorry to hear you feel stuck. I would have imagine you being very busy, that clinic you went to recently looked seem very inspiring.
I actually looked at two garden plots today. They were both lovely. I choose one of them, haven’t signed the contract yet. I will share more details as soon as I have. It does look very promising!! I have high hopes 🙂
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That’s so great you can lease or rent a piece of land, I’m so excited. 🍓🥕🥦🥬 I think you’ll reach your high hopes and you always make me smile too!
The clinic was very inspiring and as I read your response and you mentioned that I was very busy, oh my, I think that’s my biggest issue!! I’ll have to write about it this weekend! Thank you for the inspiration and your wonderful inspiring spirit! Warm hugs!! 💞
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Yes, it is awesome! I am super excited! ❤
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I am always chuffed if I can get a great cloud reflections shot with water. You so nailed that! Glad you are enjoying your holidays. Denyse
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Thank you so much!
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Great photos, Maria, you look lovely! I would like to ride around the lake, it’s beautiful there. I hope you can get that extra garden space. Temps in the 70s sound very nice Maria, Vegas has 104 today, the next several days will be in the low 100s. Happy weekend! ❤️🇸🇪
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Thank you so much! It is beautiful, it is beautiful everywhere right now 🙂 I looked at two garden plots and choose one of them yesterday. I am very excited! Have a wonderful rest of your weekend!
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And you too. 😎
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How wonderful for you to get some extra gardening space! Is it what we call kolonilott in Swedish? I hope all goes well! Here the weather was fantastic when I came home from Sweden and also the day after but then it’s been very unstable. Today we’ve had all from lovely sun and 20 degrees to rain and dark clouds and 14 degrees… but I haven’t really cared about it because when I came home, my husband had caught Covid and I became sick two days later and only felt somewhat normal about a week later. I’m still a bit sniffly in my nose so I still stay away from people. Boring life! But it’ll soon be better.
How nice for you to spend some time to explore the local places. The rocky road cake looks lovely.
I haven’t taken the time to grow a lot in the garden this year because I was so busy preparing for our gig and for my trip. But we have 6 tomato plants, rocket salad, parsley, coriander, chives, and I’ll plant some leaf salad seeds tomorrow. The state of the tomatoes is very unclear because of the unstable weather but most finally begin to flower, and I’ve seen the beginning of fruit on one.
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I am so sorry you got sick after your trip. Great that you are feeling better now.
And yes, I was looking at a “kolonilott” yesterday. I actually looked at two, and choose one of them. I am very excited about that. We are going to wrote the papers next weekend, and after that I can start transforming it. It is going to need work, but it had great potential.
It sounds like you have a little garden 🙂 I love the fact that salad greens grow so fast, and you only get more and more and more.
I hope this weekend offers you good rest and happiness.
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Summer days and the living is easy… 🙂 That photo of the lake is esp. beautiful!
Pretty exciting about the garden possibility … I know how much you miss your garden, I hope it works out. Plenty of time for fall crops, for sure.
We got some much needed rain today, things were looking stressed and the stream and river are low. The amount we got won’t change the water levels, but at least the leaves will drink in the rain. June had a lot of 70s days, which is fine with me, but the annuals prefer 80s, so they have been sluggish. The onions are still small (I started them late), the beets are finally greening up and the lima beans are taking off. A self-sown sunflower is about 3′ tall and the zinnias, calendulas, dahlias and the rest are showing progress. This month will be great, I’m sure. We had to secure the bottom of the deer fence as a bunny was stealing in and eating the morning glories and verbena. 😦 Fixed now! And as you know, my poppies have been AMAZING! 😀
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Ooo yes summer days 🙂 I actually cannot remember when I’ve been this relaxed. Things are falling into place and life is uncomplicated. I really like that. I looked at two garden lots yesterday and picked one of them. It is going to need some work, and I wish I had your expertise while starting to clear it. I recognise some unwanted plants that are banned, but its not bad. I’m going to keep some of the existing flowers, raspberry bushes, and lavender, but my plan is to clear out everything else. I’ll move some of my plants from the balcony there (mostly warm weather plants and the lot isn’t as protected as the balcony is), but I’ll probably focus on clearing up, planning the garden, making garden beds, and planting a fall garden this year. Perhaps I’ll have time to plant some berry bushes, and rhubarbs. I’ll have to look into the planting schedule for the area. It would be lovely to plant a whole section of garlic this fall. Can you tell that I’m excited?
It had been cooler than usual here as well, then we had some really hot days, and then some rain. It’s not the best year for warm weather plants and flowers. Your poppies do look amazing!!
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Maria, Thank you for your weekend coffee share. Cycling around Lake Varpan sounds great. I hope you get a nice garden plot. I have herbs and tomatoes like last summer. The weather has been sunny and warm in Toronto this weekend, 28C on Saturday and 26C on Sunday. Have a wonderful week!
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Thank you Natalie! The weather in Toronto sounds very pleasant. I hope you get to enjoy some beautiful nature in and around your beautiful city. Have a wonderful rest of your weekend!
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Wow Maria, being offered land to garden. You don’t hear of that happening often. I look forward to hearing details, maybe why this person wanted to do this.
Staying tuned here.
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It’s a local garden society that have a few plots of land for gardening that they lease out for a symbolic sum and a little bit of maintenance work every year. The plots have water and an excellent location. You have to be approved by them. I have been on their waiting list for a while, and now I finally came to the top of the waiting list. I am super excited about it, and I will definitely write updates about the progress.
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That’s great about getting a spot to garden. I wish more places in the US did that. No gardening for me this year. I might try containers again next year but we’ll see. I love your photos, especially the lake.
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Thank you Kirstin. I am excited about being able to garden more. I hope you are enjoying a great summer so far.
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I’m growing tomatoes right now but I think because I started growing them so late in the spring time it is taking a long time for the tomatoes to ripen because it’s been so hot. I’ve been adding more plants in the entryway to keep the front of the house cooler. We have big windows in the front. It’s wonderful for light but it gets hot in the summer.
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