A Place Fondly Called Tingsgrove...Home For 31 Years~

Every Spring, I refuse to mow the grass on our second acre, until after the wildflowers, the Trillium, Phlox, Butterweed, Philadelphia Fleabane, Bluebells, Bleeding Hearts and others have been spent from their lovely blooms.  Some of these shares, these flowers, the shrubbery shall last all season, but not the wildflowers, they are here for less than a month, one beautiful spring month, that I cherish~

Of our 2 acres this is the acreage that forever changed things for me.  

For newcomers to my blog, I shall take a few moments to explain.  

Many moons ago, 31 years ago this June, we built our home on one acre of land and a few years later, were able to purchase the acre next to us.  One day, a feral cat that I had named Tom, went missing and I could not find him.  I looked all over the land and then when I got ready to return home...home is a 3 story contemporary cedar wood structure, painted wharf green, you cannot miss it...and yet, I could not figure out how to get out of that one acre.  In fact,  I could not even see our home.  It was so overgrown, with mother Poison Ivy plants...I call them that, because the vines were as big as my arm around and from those, came many others...17 garbage cans full of those vines. 

I am not a Martha Stewart type of gardener, or for that fact a homemaker either.  My place is a little bit too shabby chic, more on the shabby, than she would prefer;). I tackle things my own way, and approached it with an old hatchet that probably belonged to a relative and a roll of large extra heavy duty leaf bags and my mother's old squeaky limb loppers.

  It was not my intention to make it glorious, it is far from it, but if I owned it, I at least wanted to be able to walk upon  it.  It took me 5 years to tame back a bit, and afterwards, my husby said that we needed to give it a name.  My childhood nickname had been Ting and my nieces and nephews called me Aunt Ting.  That is how the word, this place called Tingsgrove happened.  

From that we have had my Tingsgrove Studio greeting cards, and of course, my blog title...not to mention the fact, that my husby used to write me letters when he traveled and instead of using our town's name, he used...Tingsgrove, Ky and with the zip code, it always arrived, right where it was supposed to be.

Here is the way it has looked for the past week.  The grass is getting taller, we have seen our first snake of the season, but soon enough the blooms shall fall away on the wildflowers and I shall get out my trusty old John Deere push mower and do the work of mowing.  I could go out and purchase a rider today, but then, I would not be able to walk the land, gather in my thoughts, see the tiny moments that pass me by, stop and pick up a turtle hiding from the lawnmower blades.  I would miss more of nature than I desire for now...tomorrow is another day. I may in time change my mind, yet for now, I am content using what I have to work with.  It takes me 4 to 5 hours to mow both acres, but I get the task done and enjoy every moment out on the land that we borrow for a time and for now fondly know, as my beloved Tingsgrove...come along, can you see the beauty, that is mine for the sharing~

 

 

 

 A neighbor was going to get rid of this tired old bench and so I carried it over on the grove...isn't a grove supposed to grow something special...well mine does not grow apples, peaches, or oranges, it grows a sweetness in time.  
The hollow logs I piled up, so that the chippys have a place to hide from the predators about~

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 We have a few of the old fashioned wild Dogwoods trees, as well as the newer pink and red varieties~

 The old picnic table and rickety walk bridge have seen better days, but I would not part with that table, for too many fond memories with our 3 daughters and now our grandsons.  A new bridge across the creek, make that 4 replacement bridges, now that would be totally agreeable with me!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now see, I didn't over tame it, I just smoothed my journey there a bit~




The above Mosaic was done by Mary at the Little Red House.
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