My end of summer jungle

It makes me so happy to see how well some of the plants have survived this year. For the first time I am seeing cone-flowers in bloom and after waiting several years for the "chigger-weed" aka Queen Ann's Lace to bloom, I have both in quantity. The beneficials especially love the Queen Ann's Lace. The Mountain Mint is another favorite and it has really spread. This is also the first year for a long time that I have been able to have the Tithonia grow and bloom. Not all of them survived the deer browsing, but a few did and I think they are lovely. I saw a Monarch this morning on the red zinnias out front and felt happy to see at least one here. None of the tropical milkweed self-sowed this year, but I still have lots of the common milkweed and a few other varieties. The spider plants are self-sown from last year. I hope to always have them now. The Peruvian Four O'Clocks are so large they block the back steps but every year I forget to move some of them. All in all, I just wanted to share my bounty, such as it is. It gives me so much pleasure to watch the insects enjoying something I helped provide for them and even if it's not all neat and pretty, it's my garden and I love it, morning glories, weeds and all!

self sown cleome

Peruvian Four O'Clocks

Tithonia

Queen Anne's Lace

Using Angie's advice

I listen and learn. Some. Angie takes such great pictures of her flowers and especially insects and I so did want to capture some of my own. Not having the camera she does and not knowing how really to use Mike's camera correctly, I
listened to her and managed to come up with a couple of pretty decent pictures.

Sunflower

Zinnia

Inula

I still haven't figured out how to put my words where I want but I'm getting better.

Vacation in the mountains

Still new to all of this but wanted to share some of the pictures from our vacation this year. Here goes.

Us!

Fontana Dam

Next day, we took a ride on the Great 

Smoky Mountain Railroad.

Our entertainment on the ride

That's my sweetie!

Me

The final pictures I wanted to share were from the Little Bit of Heaven cabin where we stayed.

Fire in the rain from the front porch

View from the right side of the porch

View from front porch

View from the left side of the porch

The cabin was really nice but we were disappointed by the "view" we expected and did not get. It was secluded and quiet but unless you visit during the winter, you won't see the mountains and I would never want to drive up or down that one lane driveway to the cabin myself in any weather but especially when it might be icy or snow covered.