IN Carmel

 I don't know why but last night was a short night.  Four hours of sleep is not enough to fill the energy tank so today is peppered with a few tired breaks.  Patience is the word.  Tomorrow should be better.   I did a garden walk finding a whole lot of evidence the bunny was up to no good.  There were a lot of Zinnia stems on the ground in every bed.  Some even lying on top of the Menard "rabbit off" granules.  It's been a crazy rabbit summer in the Carmel area.  Later in the morning Doug told me about more broken stems just where I had cleaned up the mess earlier in the day. I found the third mess in the same place in the afternoon.  The zinnia is almost gone. The bunny just gave me an evil look watching me find the evidence of another meal. The tall zinnias have taken a big hit. I planted more marigold seed and have an urge to pull up plants that have been through the bunny chew but still alive.  I went marigold shopping...

  Straw flowers.  How pretty and they will last all year till next spring when I look for seeds in the flower.                The first of the season.  When it was just a bud, I was certain there was a cardinal in the bush.   It's been just that. LAZY.  I'm paying attention to the sermon preached this morning by Jill.  She talked about Mary and Martha.  Saying we could learn from Mary.  Martha usually overtakes us more often.  It reminded me so much of my "personal Mary day" that happened not so long ago.                                               I found dear Swallowtail munching away this afternoon.   Two little across the color wheel friends living side by side helping to make each other look beautiful. So it was church Sunday again.  ...

 Today was a day when the morning flew by with a whole lot of work and the afternoon flew by with a whole lot of almost nothing.  Well, there was something but not much.  I slept till 6:30 and then there was breakfast.  I grabbed the clippers and off to the garden to do some snipping for the altar flowers.  There were mostly grasses, a few Lenten Rose stalks and a few B.E. Susans.  The car was loaded once again with all of the Oehler flowers and our garden fillers.  We made it to church by 8:20 and I headed to the Gathering Room for flower arranging.   All was finished by 8:50 and I was off to the Community Rm for Soup Kitchen workday.  Most of the gang was there working already and the work continued on till 10:30 when all was in place ready for the 11 o'clock hour.  Heidi and I headed back into the sanctuary with the flowers. I took a lot of pictures.                   ...

 The end of the work week for most folks.  There is an exception here.  It's soup kitchen tomorrow morning.  The beat goes on.  There was breakfast with all the usual things that come along.  I did a lawn clean up gathering up stuff from yesterday.  I added more later in the day cleaning up some ivy.  I hate that stuff and it is now on the bad invasive list.  Sounds good to me.                                                                    This may need a little more work.                                                                   ...

  Peter R. never nibbles on these little zinnias.  He just tackles the big ones cutting off a branch and just leaving it to die.  Well, I must say thank goodness for the little zinnias.  But could you just refine your choices to just include a lot of clover and forget about zinnias, Peter? Woo.  After a day off for personal business, the back to work assignments have not been so easy today.  I might pretend I'm sick one of these days.  So, the day began as it usually does.  And then by 8:30 I was on my way to the drugstore for pills, continuing on to Ace for red beet seeds and then down to North.  Altar flowers are needed for Sunday.  Saturday is soup kitchen day and that usually fills the morning.  This Saturday I'll add flower arranging so, I prepared the vases knowing this will make Saturday a bit easier.   Then it was back home with a little picture taking.  Doug found the Swallowtail caterpillar.  It's growi...

 Two good friends...           The Katterhenry men visit every Wednesday.  Son owns the business; dad works on Wed. with son.                           I've made a Monarch man out of dad who loves to see the garden each week.  Garbage day, mowing day.  We never had those at my growing up home.  Times have changed.  We did mow the lawn but only when needed.  That could be mowed any day but Sunday and garbage...well, we composted everything even though I never heard the word compost.  I was given a pan of vegetable peelings at the end of meal preparation and told to throw them in the garden.  And there was a man who came around looking for tin or iron or things like that perhaps once a year.  I think the newspaper probably was used for lining peck baskets filled with eggs on peddling day when the garden products, eggs and just butc...

                           A wonderful way to start the day.  I would call these the old timers of the garden.                                                                                 They have given us some children. Today started out pretty slow.  Just how I like it.  I texted Kathy and she called me wanting to talk instead of text.  She'll be gone to the lake for more than a couple of days and I'll be picking in her garden zinnias for church flowers Friday. What a great friend. And while the talk was happening, momma dear and her little baby took a stroll through the neighbor's yard.  There's always something happening for entertainment....