Tuesdays With Tracy a Look Back at July

Hello Friends!

This is Tracy, Kelly’s Mom, joining you for my monthly Tuesdays with Tracy with a look back at July. After lots of June showers it warmed up quite a bit here in July, and it was a busy month. Kelly will probably be sharing soon about her Vintage Yard Market. It was lots of work and lots of fun!

Tuesdays With Tracy a look back at July!

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July was all about…

PELICANS, PUPPIES, PRETTY FLOWERS, AND A FUN PEONY TRICK . That’s right, I said peonies even though they don’t bloom here in July I will show you a new trick I discovered. But first…

PELICANS

As you can see below, we had some new visitors on the pond. Pelicans!

For those of you, like me, who thought that Pelicans only live near the ocean, I’m here to tell you we have them in Colorado too!

PUPPIES

Now let’s talk about a new addition to our family. We welcomed a new grand puppy to my daughter, Lindsey’s house. Her name is Coco and she is adorable!

In a moment of being an encouraging father, my son-in-law Ryan engaged in a bargain with my granddaughter Blaklee. If she kept her room clean, and practiced shooting her basketball, and dribbling her soccer ball for 70 days, she could get a dog. (What was he thinking?!) Ha! Well, guess who won.

So, they found Coco in Nebraska while visiting Ryan’s parents but needed to leave her there until after their vacation to Hawaii. Lindsey flew to Nebraska and with the help of Ryan’s parents and sister, she picked up Coco and flew home the same day.

Below is a text of Blaklee seeing Coco when Lindsey picked her up. I love the look on Blaklee’s face!

Coco is a French Bulldog and already has had an adventurous life. Below is a text we received one afternoon. We were at the store and Coco stopped by our house for a visit…

My daughter, Lindsey, has a great sense of humor! And Lindsey posted the below photo after a morning practice in her high school gym where she is the Volleyball coach.

Isn’t she the cutest?! I’m sure she will have lots of fun playing with Kelly’s dogs, Kona and Zoey.

PRETTY FLOWERS

I’m sure enjoying the pretty flowers that started blooming in July. In our back garden we currently have a fun variety of blooms.

We have an “L” shaped backyard with most of the grass on the side of the house.

Below are a couple of varieties of shrub roses that start blooming in June and continue through fall.

Also, some Hydrangeas are in bloom.

Below are The Fairy Rose and Geranium Rozanne.

My mother had The Fairy roses in her yard so I planted this one in memory of her.

A FUN PEONY TRICK

I love Peonies but the growing season is so short, usually a month in my garden with my different varieties. Well my friend Patti sent me a video showing how to prolong the joy. Thanks Patti!

So here are five easy steps to a longer Peony season.

Step one – cut peony stems with the buds on them just before they are ready to open. It is described as the marshmallow stage of the bud, not hard and slightly soft and squishy. Strip leaves from the stems.

Step two – wrap them in plastic. Some people first wrap in paper towels but I didn’t. You could also put them in plastic bags.

Step three, put them in the refrigerator. I put them in the vegetable drawer.

In the photos below you can see my process.

I actually forgot to take a photo before putting them in the refrigerator. I was very skeptical and thought, “this probably won’t work.” The above photo was when I took them out of the refrigerator.

Step four, remove them from the refrigerator and unwrap them. I left my peonies in for one month! I thought that was a long period of time but some have left them in the refrigerator for six weeks.

Step five, after unwrapping the peonies, cut one to two inches from the bottom of the stem. Then place them in water. That’s it!

The photos below were taken literally one day later. And most of the buds eventually opened and became huge healthy flowers that I enjoyed for another week. How cool is that?!

What I’m Wearing

This is totally unrelated, but I realized the other day that I have been wearing mostly sundresses this summer.

So I thought I would share the dresses that I wear a lot. I actually have the linen dress in two colors, white and navy. All of these dresses travel well. I take a small bottle of wrinkle release and just spray the dress the night before I’m going to wear it and even on the linen ones most of the wrinkles come out. The linen dress has been thrown in the dryer and did not shrink. I love linen and just go with the wrinkles!

The sandals shown below are so comfortable and I wear them with all of the dresses.