Perking Right Up

This morning I was rewarded by the sight of three of the four Rudbeckia plants quite a bit more alive looking than they had been last night and by the time I went out to unplug the fountain just before dark tonight the fourth one was catching up.  Seems they're going to live after all.  Hooray!


 


Yesterday I was pleased to see a red rosebud nodding at me from outside the window.  Dad's rose is blooming again.  Welcome back, Dad.  I don't know the name of this rose, it's an old one I do know that much because it smells like a rose is supposed to smell.  One whiff of it takes me back to Grandma's garden with its long rows of rose bushes.  That woman could really grow flowers.



The row of herbs have really been enjoying the increased heat and rain this summer.  I should take my snips out and cut off all the flowers and trim them back so they bush out and don't get leggier than they already are.

Speaking of leggy, the tomato plants are going crazy making leaves and fruit.  I took out that smaller bowl on the right this morning thinking it would be enough to hold the tomatoes ready to be picked.  Not even close.  Not counting the three tomatoes that the chipmunks have nibbled giant holes in, look at how many were ready or almost ready to be picked.  Durwood and I have some catching up to do.  We had tomato salads before tonight's leftover chicken and rice and I suspect we'll have tomato salads before tomorrow night's pizza.  Can you eat too many fresh picked tomatoes?  I don't think so and Durwood certainly doesn't think so.  He had a banana and all of the split-skinned cherry tomatoes I picked for breakfast this morning.  The tomato plants are so lush that they're falling over so I grabbed a couple more metal stakes (because the bamboo ones just aren't up to the job) and propped up the heaviest branches.  I'd go out there and trim some of the leaves out to get some air circulating through the plants to stave off molds and mildew but I'm afraid that branches would break and tomatoes would be lost.  Can't have that.


 
August 28--Louis Comfort Tiffany, Lamp.  On her walk home from her after-school job at the library, Lenore kept track of things she could depend on.  When she turned the corner from Walnut St. to Vine St. she always saw Mr. Wineberg putting his gardening tools into the shed.  He'd catch sight of her, tip his straw hat with the rip in the brim over his left ear, smile, and say, "Evening, Miss Lenore."  She smiled back and said, "Good evening, Mr. Wineberg sir."  A few houses up Vine St. she passed Mrs. Van Pelt's house with its wide porch and swagged velvet curtains that framed the most beautiful lamp she had ever seen.  The shade was like an upside-down glass mosaic bowl made up of tiny pieces of yellow and green glass arranged to look like flowers and leaves.  As the year faded and night came earlier she was sometimes lucky enough to see the lamp lit, to watch it come to life and glow with a richness she was sure only a special lightbulb could create.

I had big plans to cut more clothes patterns out today but instead spent the afternoon scanning in a 1994 dive trip album, then cropping them.  Now if I could only figure out how to convince the computer to copy them from the hard drive to the CD I'd be in business.  Maybe I'll google it... yeah, that's what I'll do.  I'm going to cut fabric tomorrow, really I am.
--Barbara