Garden Views & Life Lessons

I took a quick tour of the gardens around the house (my, doesn't that sound grand?) and I bring you some pretties.  The allium (alliums? allia?) in front of the house are still a-bloom.  The cluster of them kind of disappears in a picture but a single blossom looks tres fantastique, don't you think?  Around the desolate west side of the house (recipient of the blazing sun in summer and icy north wind in winter) the iris are sending up buds.  I fenced off the milkweed sprouts along the lot line so that the new mowing service doesn't decide to veer off and take care of the "weeds" for that nice old lady.  (I'd like to say I thought of that but Durwood's the one who did)  The bleeding heart is in the fullness of its flowering.  I love the dainty little pink hearts with their droplet of dangling "blood" and I love that they're a plant-and-ignore kind of flower.  No lilies of the valley are open yet but I came this close to catching a photo of one of the chickadee parents coming back with a morsel for the nestlings.  Quick little devils. 

Life lesson #1:  if you fall prey to the enticement of 5/$10 herbs at Home Depot in late April and you plant them outside when it's really still too cold for them at night, they look a little bedraggled even if you cover them when it gets down to freezing.  Then the squirrels and chipmunks decide that's a good place to hide nuts and seeds so they look even worse.  So you go back to HD where the plants are now fifty cents more apiece (horrors!) but you swallow your pride and get a couple more to fill in.  I'm tickled by these plants; they're in peat pots so all you have to do is cut off the (recyclable) label, tear off the bottom of the pot and any rim that's above the level of the soil, and plop the whole thing into the ground.  Love it.  Oh, and you dig out a chicken wire cage to keep the little excavators out or at least deter them.

Life lesson #2:  if you and your assistant need to go to Wal-Mart, go around 8 AM when most of the Wal-Martians are still a-bed.  It isn't crowded and most of the shoppers look like they came from your home planet.

May 13--Andrew Yates, Swimmer.  Cyn knifed through the water with her strong stroke.  She kept her eyes open in bare slits so she stayed in her lane.  She swam competitively when she was in school, quit during the years when the babies kept coming and Warren was climbing the corporate ladder.  She started up again when Kevin, their youngest, hit junior high and could take the activities bus home.  The cool water and mindless repetition had saved her when Warren decided that his twenty-seven year old associate would be a bigger asset to his career than a washed out brunette with stretch marks.  Now she swam mostly for the peace of mind and the arthritis relief but it also gave her mind a chance to roam free while she churned up and down.

Hey, it's SIL1's birthday today.  Happy birthday!  We love you and wish we were there to bring you cake and lots of hugs.  Have a great day, SIL1!
Off to the back-cracker.
--Barbara