Halloween 2023

While Sheila was getting ready to greet Trick or Treaters as a "Witch"...

...I was busy digging up scores of Coleus and other plants to bring in before the first freeze tonight.

I put most of them in my bathroom. But I also put a few in the hall and the den as house plants for the winter.

Casa Blanca Lilies In Memory of Beth

Mike Bock has been a friend for over half a century now! We worked together on our college newspaper, The Asbury Collegian. Mike was editor and I was an associate editor. Sheila was later editor her senior year. 

About once a year Mike makes a visit of several days and we always enjoy those days -- word games, walks, and solving the issues of the day, usually concerning education or politics.

Mike often shows up with unusual gifts. We grow dahlias and cannas he has brought from his garden. I have several prized political items in my collection that he found at some junk shop or roadside garage sale. At Arrowhead I use the hand-carved wooden owl, cricket, and frog whistles and noisemakers he gave us. And the Esther Price candies are delectable -- He used to send a box of those to my Mother every year as well.

After his last visit we received a note from him inside a box of bulbs from his garden. This time they are Casa Blanca Lillies and he sent them as a memorial for us to plant in honor of my youngest sister, Beth, who died recently. What a wonderful gift. How we will enjoy those flowers and what sweet memories they will elicit.

If I can successfully plant and care for these we will have a display
of glorious Casa Blanca Lilies next summer.

On December 19, 1954 Mother held newborn Beth up to the hospital window so her siblings, including an excited seven-year-old me, could see her.

This cute little girl comes first to mind when I think of Beth.
She was eleven when I went off to College.

Beth had a beautiful voice. When Sheila and I planned our wedding, we asked Beth to sing three songs! One of them was Bridge Over Troubled Water. Our daughter Lillian sang that at Beth's memorial service.

This picture from the internet illustrates how tall and showy these lilies are.

May Flowers

 As May begins here on the banks of the Oostanaula, our garden is still choked with weeds and marred by neglect, but the same factors which have inspired the weeds to flourish have also brought beautiful and prolific blooms. 

Sheila walks through the weedy path past several varieties of irises at the foot of the levee.

Ain't they pretty?

I think I will buy a weed torch; I just despise using weed killer.

The blackberry blossoms are giving way to lots of little green fruits.

Only three flowers on the peonies so far.

The Knock-Out roses are gorgeous.

These last three pictures are from a few days earlier:

The first peony.

Volunteer oxalis at the back steps.

Another Knock-out rose.

Irises

Last year two of my neighbors (Carolyn McGinnis & Nena Dake) generously shared their iris plants with me as they were thinning theirs. So now, despite the fact that I have let weeds crowd my garden this spring, look at the gorgeous blooms I have. (No wide angle shots though till I get the weeds under control!)

Gleaning Facebook: "The Living Room"

We were a small group but we sure had a good time in "the living room" for A Time to Tell tonight. First Mary Elena Rivera Kirk cracked us up with the history of her skiing career. But the highlight for me (as you will see) was something a little different: Show & Tell from John the Plantman (and sidekick Dekie Hicks). John Paul Schulz demonstrated how to take a fairly bedraggled inexpensive potted juniper, a clay tray, some dirt and rocks, a hacksaw, some snips, and a few clumps of pilfered moss right out of the woods to create a living sculpture. It was a story of care, keen observation, bravery, and joyful abandon. The results were fascinating. Then my name was drawn to take the fascination home. We treasure our new John Schulz original, but you'll have to wait for a picture.