And It'll be a wonderful Summer After All

Welcome to my blog, Kathy.

We had a lovely day today. The kind of day you have after several days of good rain, when the sun shines again. Yesterday evening Jeanet and I went to church to weed the garden we planted around the Blessed Mother's statue. We replaced some plants that had succumbed to the harsh winter and the spring drought. It is lovely.

Our wonderful priest has been transferred to another parish in Edmonton. While it saddens us, we know that his talents are needed elsewhere, and we believe that life is about sharing our time, talents and treasures (isn't that like blogging?). We had a farewell pot-luck for him after Mass today. A good time was had by all. He is happy that his new parish also has a prayer shawl ministry.

Now I would like to introduce you to Jack, the regal (aka Wimpy) Llama. Jack used to have 2 wives, the seductive ZsaZsa, and the Lovely Coco (unfortunately over the years, Jack became a widower). Jack is so handsome. He looks so regal. When the Llamas first came to live with us, we wanted to give them names. ZsaZsa was the same color as Jack, with sweeping eyelashes out to here. Coco was a chocolate brown real lady. And the ladies totally henpecked and dominated the poor guy. Naming him was a challenge--a name such as Prince or Royal was just undeserved. But if we named him Wimpy, he'd have nothing to aim up to. One day a 4-year old smartie named "Summer" was visiting while I was fitting her mom for a bridesmaid's dress. She re-named our two dogs (whom you haven't met yet) so appropriately, had they not had names they were used to, I could have changed them. So I asked her to help me name the Llama. She looked at him, arms a-kimbo, and said: "He's a Jack". And Jack he was. Not pretentious. Our school caretaker's name is Jack--a great person, a great family man. A good role model for our Jack, the Llama. Coco had a baby girl before she died. Jack was a real good dad to her. The power of a good name.
A glimpse at some lovely flowers. The pot above is from my "monochromatic period". I'm always trying to show folks how to creatively put plants together. The terra-cotta colored pot has a bronze Carex grass, an Alternantherna Royal Tapestry, a green-leafed Purple fountain grass whose seed heads will be shiny mahogany later on, and a Coleus that is mostly rust with just a bit of green. At the back is another Alternantherna-Purple Knight. I love it!!
This rose is Prairie Joy (oops, I forgot to deadhead one of last-year's flower stalks). It grows to 6 feet tall, is loaded with pink flowers, the scent is heavenly--it's a prairie hardy rose. I trim it bare at the bottom, sort of like a multi-stemmed tree. This allows other plants to share the sun under the rose bush. Its only drawback is that it suckers like crazy--I dig them out.

This gardener has the same vice in gardening as in knitting--starting too many projects. When I'm about to procrastinate on a knitting (or sewing) project, for whatever reason, I often just start something new, in the hope that this will somehow re-energize me for the other, less desirable project. Well, guess what happened in the garden? I have many large flower beds (after all, we own 320 acres of land), in various stages of maintenance. The ones nearest the greenhouse are well-maintained because they are demonstration gardens. The worst ones are overgrown with quack grass, dandelions and clover, but I can't Round-up them because the perennials hiding in there were given to me by special people, some of whom are no longer around. Others are in various stages in between. I couldn't go weed the garden (too wet), so I STARTED A BRAND NEW FLOWER BED on the west side of the house, where it was dry enough to work. It's 25 feet long and varies from 3-4 feet wide. I planted 2 Brandon Cedars, a Mock Orange, a clematis, and a Sensation Lilac. I will fill it out with a variety of lilies.

My Honeycomb Sweater #1 is coming along nicely. I'm almost finished the second sleeve. This pattern is so versatile--stretched, it can be incorporated into a lace shawl, I'm already thinking of sweater variations with the stitch. Wouldn't that make a good knitting book: Variations on a Theme, that theme being a single knitting stitch pattern?

I was just reviewing my blog list. There are just too many wonderful blogs out there. I have two blog lists. The ones on my blog, which I intended to be a) Very Interesting and b) Frequent posters. So my bloglist needs to be revised. I have another list of Bookmarked Favorites, on Firefox, all very interesting, but less frequent posting. I'm still trying to limit my time on the computer, so I have to streamline the blog-visiting. If your blog disappears from my blog--yiou have not been rejected--just moved to my other list (please post more). And please, blog friends, leave a little comment so I know you were here.

Till next time: There is a frisson that comes when a small grandchild smiles up into your face and says, "Oh, thank you for bringing me here", exactly as her mother said twenty years before. (Monique)