Sunday, November 29, 2009

Amazed I Am!

I took these photos April 1, 2009. As they'd not yet seen the light of day, here they are. :-)

Amazed, I am!
Amazed, I be!

No one's as much amazed as me!


Kate, at High Altitude Gardening, has just paid me a very special compliment by way of the following award. I am (practically) speechless! ha. I am to pass along this award to 15 garden bloggers that I've just discovered.

Kate's blog is also one You should visit! :-) I enjoy visiting her, as she lives in Utah (quite an environmental contrast) and enjoys a number of diverse interests.


I'm going to presume this disallows me to award those garden bloggers I've followed over the past 1 1/2 years, but I am going to include a few that I've followed for a period of time, at least.
Scroll down to the bottom of this post to visit the gardeners I've chosen for this award.


We've just finished our Thanksgiving celebrations, but I've not finished with giving thanks. During most of the year, I try to remain mindful of my many blessings:
1) the blessing of being able to raise two children, and now the blessing of grandchildren;
2) the blessings of a home that offers warmth in the Winter, coolness in the Summer (love those trees!), and safety from the elements;
3) the blessings of having enough food to eat (that coupled with the knowledge that there are many that don't, leads to blessing #4);
4) the blessings of having some excess that I can share... perhaps it's in the form of money, food, service, time, or emotional or physical support...
5) the blessings of useful abilities;
6) the blessings of a wonderful family;
7) the blessings of friends;
8) the blessings of being able to expound here, as I would in a journal;
9) the blessings of the natural world, the plant and animal life;
10) the blessings of ... Oh, boy! There's so much more ...

The following lists the 15 Gardeners you might like to visit (please pardon me if you've already received this award, or usually choose not to accept awards... I want to give you the "shout out" and link, at least!)


1) Our Backyard Life - Chad and Brandy are always very good to post a Photo Friday, which is often whimsical and always interesting!
2) A Gardener in Progress - Catherine has such beautiful photos and interesting posts about life in the Pacific Northwest.
3) BG_Garden - Bren provides many interesting posts. Most recently, she's providing posts on a great theme: Holiday Green Tour '09. You'll enjoy these posts, too.
4) Randy and Meg's Garden Paradise - Randy and Meg have received this award nomination from someone else, but perhaps you might not have seen the recognition? Now you have! Go visit them - especially if you enjoy learning about and seeing wonderful close-up photographs of a variety of animals! My interests include dragonflies, butterflies, flowers... take a look at their label collection! :-)
5) Olson's TRADGARD/Garden in Sweden - Karin lives in Sweden. Would you like to view a variety of gardens and flowers in other countries? She gives us glimpses of gardens in her travels, as well as her own garden interests.
6) Garden Bytes from the Big Apple - Ellen and Ellen present gardening as you would find it in New York City. They have much to offer, as they are authors as well as gardeners in this interesting setting.
7) A Corner Garden - Sue is a gardener in Nebraska. NE shares Iowa's western border. Sue and I share Zone 5b gardening conditions. She endured some city enforced garden reconstruction this summer, but everything came out so well!
8) Garden Endeavors - Patsi is a fun gardener to visit. I've followed her for awhile, but I wanted to make sure you visit her, too!
9) Kasey's Korner - If you enjoy beautiful photographs, I would recommend visiting Kathleen. She's a generous gardener, interested in photographing the many birds that visit as well as her flowers.
10) Best in Bloom Today - For beautiful photos that look like a colorful collage (but aren't), visit Lynn in New Jersey!
11) Troutbirder - For interesting stories, comments, photographs, history and tours, visit Troutbirder. He and his wife live in Minnesota and you might just enjoy a visit here from time-to-time!
12) VW Garden - for a lovely treat, visit VW who gardens in Washington State. Lovely photos and thoughtful posts.
13) Prairie Rose's Garden - Rose describes herself as a beginning gardener. I believe you would enjoy visiting her. She's posting through the alphabet... something she's inspired me to think about doing.
14) Garden Faerie's Musings - Many of you might already know Monica. She lives and gardens in Michigan and has a wonderfully fun personality! If you haven't yet visited, hurry over.
15) Nutty Gnome - If you haven't visited this blog, you're in for a treat. Do you want to know what it takes to make a garden pond, a garden tea house, etc., etc.? Visit Nutty Gnome and her husband (Himself) as they garden in their UK garden!
16) Northern Shade - I've followed Northern Shade for awhile... I consider her my garden soul-mate as we have so much in common (shady gardens). However, she's way up north in Alberta, Canada...

Whew! I know I added an extra... and I could have continued. However, I want each of you that I've nominated for this award to accept the award... you may save and place it (if you like) on your blog. If you're inspired, you may do this same exercise: pass this award to 15 new blogging acquaintances you've made, admire, and would like to share with the rest of us! (You might want to let each of them know they've received this award!) If not, just accept the award. You deserve it! :-)


Perhaps you'll meet some new friends this way.
Have a great weekend!!

22 comments:

joey said...

Like the cheery crocus, you indeed have much to be thankful for, dear Shady. Congratulation on the well deserved award :)

Mr. McGregor's Daughter said...

Oh, you had me going there for a minute, I thought you had a very early or very late blooming Crocus. Congrats on the award!

troutbirder said...

Thanks for the honor Shady! :)
When I first started blogging and realized that profiles were a way to come across people with common interests and I was focusing on creating shady gardens on Oak Hill... well there you were "Shady Gardener."

Rose said...

Congratulations on your award, SG! I always enjoy seeing what's going on in your Iowa garden. And thank you for choosing me as a recipient to share this. Blogging has allowed me to meet so many different people with similar interests and to learn so much about gardening--maybe I'll have to take the "novice" part out of my profile soon:)

I agree with your list of blessings to be thankful for. Our daughter came home from Arizona for the week, and it was a wonderful time to share with family. And the excesses...I'd like to share some of my Thanksgiving leftovers with someone!

Catherine@AGardenerinProgress said...

Congratulations on your award. You are one of my first friends that I made through blogging. You have been a very sweet and supportive person!
I love your list of blessings! It's easy to take for granted some of the things we have and can do.
Thank you so much for thinking of me :) I'm glad to see some new blogs to visit.

Pat said...

Hi Shady,
Many thanks this week...
Also an award...hoo hoo

Honored for the award and thank you.
Passing it along is not my cup of tea(think you already know that) but I will post a "thank you".

Northern Shade said...

Such pretty spring flowers, I love the look of spring bulbs popping up through the dried fall leaves. That Chionodoxa picture could have come from my front garden next to the cement stairs. Now you have me anticipating spring blooms again. Thanks for thinking of me.

bobbie said...

Congratulations on your well-deserved award! And thanks for all the great garden blog links.

I love your photos. I planted crocuses this fall, and they are now sprouting because of the weird weather.

Anonymous said...

Since we started our blog, we have stumbled across so others with common interests. It is really hard to keep up with them all.

Thank you so much for the award. I guess people do actually read our blog, haha.

Ellen Zachos said...

Shady, thanks for including us in such good company. You've got some excellent reading here, and I've enjoyed visiting the others on the list. I'm sure I'll be a regular reader.

Monica the Garden Faerie said...

Love the idea of showing April photos in November. And thanks so much for passing Kate's award on to me. I'm wonderfully, funnily pleased! ;-)

lynn'sgarden said...

Aw Shady, I'm touched and honored..thank you! There are many blogs on your list that I'm aware of but some I've not had the pleasure of reading...so that's the best part of these pass-along awards...finding new friends :)
I'm thrilled to know you enjoy visiting my blog...it makes the experience so much more enjoyable!
I'll do a shout out post soon...
Hugs,
Lynn

Gail said...

Shady, You deserve this award and more! I love the crocus with bee photo~~aren't the photo archives wonderful! gail

Anonymous said...

Shady~~ Thank you for the little reminders of spring. They're like miracle medicine right now! We gardeners are always looking ahead aren't we?

Kathleen said...

awww, Shady Gardener, you are so sweet to bestow this award on my blog. Thank you.
A BIG congrats to you and your blog too. It's very well deserved, I always enjoy my visits here. I wish we had some of those crocus blooming outside right now! That would mean we've made it thru the worst of winter. :-)
But instead of wishing away time, I'll be more like you and count my blessings. You had a really great list. Hope you had a great Thanksgiving.

MrBrownThumb said...

I've been hoping for an early spring so the blooms pictured confused me for a few seconds.

Congrats on getting the award.

Nutty Gnome said...

Hi Shady, congratulations on getting the award - well deserved, I reckon, but then you know how much I love your blogs!

And thank you so much for nominating me ......I'm almost speechless that you've listed me in with some fantastic blogs - and I'm looking forward to reading the others that I haven't come across before :)

Your list of blessings is so true and really makes me appreciate that I've got so much to be thankful for too.

Chloe m said...

Congratulations Shady!
I liked your thankful list. We really do have so much to be grateful for, your blog being one of them!
Rosey

Corner Gardener Sue said...

Hi Shady,
I love your thankful words! Thanks for mentioning me in your list. That was nice of you.

Shady Gardener said...

Hello everyone. One nice thing about being a Blogger (esp. a Garden and/or Artistic blogger type), is that there are so many nice people out there with similar interests to meet. I appreciate your comments as well as your blogs. :-)

Anonymous said...

Congrats on your award! And I'm glad you're opening up your unpublished photos... personally, I think there's no such thing as too many bees - great shot!

Deb

Shady Gardener said...

Hi Deb! :-) Bee-utiful? lol.