Good News This Week!

Good news this week! Our daughter's beau who has spent this past year in Iraq with the VA National Guard has now left Iraq and is spending his last days in the Middle East in Kuwait. Hurrah! By the middle of July we hopefully will be able to see him here in Virginia. We will give him a beer to celebrate his safe return.

Rest In Peace

These Roses Are For Tim Russert

1950 - 2008

A Man For All Seasons

May He Rest In Peace

Meet The Press Will Not Be The Same

The Heirloom Gardener

http://heirloomgardener.blogspot.com/

Go to this blogsite to meet the most amazing gardner. She has the most beautiful photos of heirloom roses and other plants. And she has lots of gardening tips on how to fight beetles without chemicals. She will give you a lesson in soapy water drowning of the beetles. This woman has five children. How she does so much with her yard with five kids amazes me.

Monday Wake Up Call

These flowers from my garden should wake you up after a busy weekend. Have a safe Monday back to work, if you work. If you don't work, it means that you have more time to look at the flowers.

Happy Father's Day

Daddy, Happy Father's Day to you! I wish you were here instead of out of town on business. I will see you Sunday night late if Mommy lets me stay up. If not, we will spend Monday together. See these photos. Grandpa Jack Jack has been giving me shoulder rides while you are away. Wow, I'm up so high that I can see myself in the mirror. I want to tell Grandpa Jack Jack Happy Father's Day too. This is his first Father's Day as a newly minted Grandfather. He makes me giggle when he pretends that he is Donald Duck going quack, quack! Click on the photos to see the little octopus on my coverall. Aunt Marilyn gave me this coverall.

Our baby is 32! Jennifer Mary turned 32 yesterday. She is our Flag Day Baby since she was born on June 14'th. And she is our Bicentennial Year Baby since she was born in 1976, the year of the U.S. Bicentennial. And she is our Arizona Baby since she was born in Tucson, AZ in the heat of the Arizona summer. Back then there were these contraptions on Arizona house roofs that were called swamp coolers. In the southwest desert it was the poor man's version of air conditioning. So in the one photo you see her dressed in just her diaper as we were trying to keep her from having a baby meltdown on her first Fourth of July.

Jennifer Mary was our firstborn so she didn't have siblings to welcome her home to our Raggedy Ann and Andy nursery. But we did have this little mixed breed pup (part lab and part dachshund) named Shiloh to welcome her home to Huachuca City, AZ. And there she learned to sit up, crawl, talk and walk. All activities that Jennifer's son, Jack Aidan, is now trying to do just like Mommy. Happy Birthday Jennifer Mary!

Jack Scared the Daylights Out Of Me!

I was sitting at the kitchen table this morning reading the Washington Post when Jack started screaming his head off. The last time he screamed in that tone of voice the second plane had just hit the second tower in New York City. Oh, my gosh, I thought to myself our house must be on fire! Then Jack yelled, "Look at the bird feeders! Quick, look at the bird feeders!" Oh no, that gosh darn coopers hawk is back and has killed another bird I thought to myself. So with fear in my heart I looked out the window and what to my wondrous eyes did I see but a young deer helping itself to the bird seed! It was just standing next to the irises and eating away. When I got up close to the window the young fawn got spooked and leaped thru the flowerbed, over the lawn and across the street. No wonder my hollyhocks and hostas have been attacked. And no wonder Jack couldn't understand how the birds were going thru so much bird seed. He would fill the feeders at 8:00 P.M. and by 8:00 A.M. they were empty again! So what am I going to do? I'm putting the bird seed away for awhile. The birds and all other wildlife will have to manage on their own or hitchhike to Ohio to Mr. Abraham Lincoln's bird feeders. I know. I know. I'm punishing the birds for what the deer did. But isn't that always the case. The good guys get punished because of the antics of the bad guys. Well, that's life. And when I went back to The Post I read that the neighboring county has wary homeowners because black bears have been sighted foraging for food in the burbs. Well, that really does it for me. I'm not interested in seeing black bears in my yard. The bird feeders are now history.

Astilbe In Bloom

Three colors of astilbe: pink Rhineland, white Deutschland and red Fanal. Astilbe is like hosta in that it is a perennial that keeps increasing in diameter until you run out of space and need to divide it. Then just get out your butcher knife on a cool and shady morning and cut it in half like a cabbage. If your plant has really grown you can take each half and divide in half again. Dig some holes for the new plants, stick them in the holes and water well. There you go. Easy. I started out with just one plant of each kind and have at least quadrupled my plants by dividing them.

Baaa Baaa Grey Sheep

The lambs' ears are standing tall and blooming. I grow this perenial for its feel. The leaves feel like velvet and the bees love it.

The Director of the Botanical Play

Do you talk to your plants? I do. In fact I think of myself as the director in a fast moving botanical play. Spring bulbs you are in act 1, scene 1. Roses you are at the end of act 1, so get ready. Mums, you don't appear till act 3, so just grow and grow but don't bloom till fall. All plants enter from stage left. When you have said your lines please exit from stage right. If you are a repeat bloomer, let me give you a haircut (deheading) when you exit from center stage.Green lawn please stay green and remember that you are the orchestra for this play. You must give each actor his due by playing loud and green. Madame de Bouchard Clematis you are now in the spotlight so please smile at the audience and do your thing.

Of course, there are always unexpected and sometimes unfortunate happenings during the course of the play. Sometimes you get rained out or winded out. And sometimes the actors don't even show up for the play because they failed to sprout or they died! Other times there is someone streaking the stage like last night when I had two wild brown bunnies attacking each other by the lily bed. And now and then there is a plant actor who can't go on stage and be in the limelight because they have been attacked and injured. That was the story yesterday when I discovered that the roaming deer had eaten the buds of one of the hollyhocks that was getting ready for her appearance in act 2. I've learned that I'm not really the director of this play even though I try my hardest to be. Someone up above is in charge.

It Began Sedately But Proceeded To....

It began sedately with the babies in their best clothes behaving nicely but proceeded to a total baby meltdown when the parents placed the birthday hats on the little ones for the official group photo. Trying to get nine babies to look at the camera at the same time was a challenge to say the least. One baby left the party early and missed the group photo madness. The party began at 11:00 A.M. and by 1:30 P.M. some folks sorely needed an afternoon nap. And it wasn't necessarily the babies but the adults who needed that nap! If you would like to experience more of this baby madness, click on our daughter's blog:
http://www.jennandterry.com/
Just want to let you know that Jenn and Terry now have a new blog so the pics are now under Flicker at their new blog. The new blogsite:http://jennandterry.blogspot.com/

An Unforgetable Party

Yesterday Jack and I had two parties to attend. The first one so wore us out that we almost skipped the second. The first party was a combined first birthday for eight little babies that are in our daughter's baby support group. The second party was a high school graduation party for our neighbors's son. I have so many photos to share from this baby party that I don't know quite where to begin. Well, let's begin with a photo of the birthday cake. There were eight names on the cake but I counted ten babies at this party so that means that we had two babies crashing the party.

Naval Academy Application

Will the Naval Academy consider your application if you have a baby plug in your mouth? A friend of Baby Jack's Daddy gave Baby Jack this outfit. Doesn't Jack Aidan look cute in it? He also reminds me of John McCain.

Blowing Bubbles

This past Wednesday on a paint break we blew bubbles for Baby Jack to catch. Did you know that they now have bubbles on steroids? These are latex bubbles and they last a long, long time. In fact, some stuck on Jack's little red car and they were still stuck there when we returned Thursday morning. Jack really enjoyed seeing the bubbles and trying to catch them. We enjoyed the bubbles too. Reminded me of Lawrence Welk and his bubble machine.You are never too old for some bubble fun.

Little Gem Magnolia Tree

This is the first of two Little Gem magnolia trees that we have in our yard. This one always reminds me of 9/11. We planted it here by the bluebird house just two days before 9/11 occurred in 2001. If you have a small yard then a Little Gem is the magnolia tree to select. It reaches just to 30 feet with a 8 feet spread when fully grown while a regular magnolia tree can get ginormous at 100 feet with a 50 feet spread. It may be little but it smells like a big magnolia tree. Heavenly.