it's the great pumpkin, charlie brown...

The holiday TV special about Charlie Brown and his crew and the pumpkin first aired in October 1966. I probably would have watched it, had I still been living in the United States, but in July of that year, we'd moved back to Poland, and the last thing on my mind then was Halloween. Poland (in those days) did not acknowledge or celebrate Halloween. 

I didn't miss this particular holiday. Living in Manhattan, in a mostly adult apartment building, I was not going to have much opportunity for collecting candy from neighbors. Only once did I even try to do so in my building. My mom allowed me to take an old sheet and convert it into a ghost costume. I rang some doorbells on my 9th floor. I got zero candies out of the deal. (In the following year I went to stay with my friend Jackie who lived on Long Island and had a proper gang of kids going door to door, and the candy loot was then substantial.) Since my parents weren't holiday loving people, pumpkins were not brought into the house for pumpkin carving, or pumpkin pie, or pumpkin anything. I probably never even touched a pumpkin until I moved to live as a nanny for a young child in New York. I was then 19. I assume they had pumpkins, but I don't really remember.

So is this why I never thought of Halloween as especially fun? 

Oh, but today we had great fun at a pre-Halloween outing that had all the trappings of this holiday, with some Wisconsin farm motifs thrown in for good measure.

 

Millie and I wake up to gorgeous weather. She has a bit of an upset tummy so I dont linger in bed (which is a shame because I did not go to sleep until way after 1 a.m.). But you cant feel anything but grand on a morning like this. Fall sunshine, misty blue skies, a cool breeze. Just fabulous.

Breakfast...

And then she snoozes while I plant. Just one rose. I dont have any more here right now. (I also invite a neighbor over to inspect and consider taking two of my oldest plants (dating back to.... May!). I'm having trouble with them in the places where they were planted and she has a large yard and loves to grow gifted flowers.

[So how many roses do I still expect to put in this Fall? I believe 17. And not a penny more!]

I have a noon zoom call with my Warsaw friend and then very quickly I go to my daughter's (Millie stays in her crate). I pick her up along with the three kids and we set out for the Enchanted Valley Acres.

Madison families know and love this place -- it's just about 20 minutes outside the city, located in a beautiful dale where Christmas trees grow and fields of corn are harvested to create corn mazes.  The idea here is to structure a Halloween-ish experience for kids, especially young kids. Yes there are pumpkins that you can buy and take home. But there are also themed activities: large slides, goats to feed, orange trampolines to bounce on, tractor rides, horseshoes to swing and toss, chains to lift up, big tires to roll in. And so much more.

They charge an entrance fee and though it is steep (in my view), it is well worth it, especially on a gorgeous day. Kids have freedom to roam and try their hand at any number of things. I'll post fifteen photos to give you a sense of the place.

And of course, there are the pumpkins. Each of us got to pick their own. Sparrow chose the largest he could find, Snowdrop picked the most perfectly shaped one, and Sandpiper wanted the one that came with a small paint set that you could use for it. 

Since Millie had had to stay in her crate for some 3.5 hours, once I returned home, I immediately took her to the nearby dog park.

She has mixed feelings about it. She loves dogs, but she prefers to tango with ones whose scent she recognizes.

Still, she does like the walk. It's just long enough to give her some movement and short enough that it doesn't wear her down. And the dogs are always on the friendly side of things (except for my two: Henry and Sadie both misbehaved here horribly, though not toward other dogs. Toward the dog owners).

Evening at home. Guess who is tired after this very full day? Yes, Millie of course. She and me both! 

with so much love...

still planting, after all these years

This morning, on Public Radio's Garden Talk (which happened to be on when I was driving Millie to doggie daycare), the person interviewed was the author of the new book, Home Greenhouse Revival -- Leslie Halleck. Talk about dangling temptation in front of my nose! Imagine, if I had a small greenhouse, I could continue garden work even on the coldest day in January! Then I googled the price of putting up something that was well ventilated, heated, insulated, etc. I do not have a spare 10k waiting to be spent and that is the absolute minimum you can expect to pay for such a structure. 

Ed and I had once talked about putting up some winter growing shelter by the sheep shed.  It didn't make sense to me then and there. Not enough sunlight for one thing. Sure, you could put in plant lamps (which you may have to use in any greenhouse anyway, depending on what you want to grow). And not easy to get to from the farmhouse, if there's snow. Sure, it would cost next to nothing (built by us, from scraps), but it would look miserable and probably it would not function well. In my imagination, a greenhouse would have to serve at least two purposes: one would be to continue growing things all year long, and the second -- to have the whole project be a pleasurable experience. Trekking to the sheep shed in the dead of winter, into a DIY structure, built without proper materials or heat sources or anything at all really -- well, there's no beauty in that. At my age, beauty is an important component of a day. 

But isn't extending the growing season in this way a fool's errand anyway? Doesn't a garden person need the winter pause to think, rest, reimagine how it all will come together next spring? I don't know about that. I find winter to be long because we spend too little time outdoors. What would you do for four hours outside, especially if there is no snow and especially if you have a little pup who probably would hate the bitter cold? Wouldn't a greenhouse bring you closer to nature? 

I used to have a lot of plants indoors, in the house. I'm not keen on that anymore in part because Millie eats the soil, the fallen plant debris, really pretty much anything. Most houseplants are toxic to dogs and  she would surely chomp on it, if only to test you -- to see if you are paying attention. Too, house plants tend to be... boring. Same old stuff that you'll see in shopping malls and offices. Stuff that survives the inhospitable conditions of a dry warm underlit house (most homes are suboptimal in one way or another). Stuff that you'll see in Miami and Maine. Just plain boring. It seems that at one time or another, I've grown it all. Or seen it all. Or yawned at it all online.

All good reasons to contemplate life with a greenhouse. Except of course the cost. And it probably would not satisfy my HOA. I dont think they like additional structures on wee properties. Still, I can dream! A greenhouse big enough and warm enough, so that I can take a cup of coffee in there and admire a blooming plant or two. Doesn't that sound grand?

 

Breakfast...

Millie then goes to day care, I work on planting three very little roses (no wonder they were discounted). And I notice in my master plan that I've mixed up two big ones: Windermere was supposed to be by the drain pipe and Emile Bronte was supposed to be in front of the white fence. Somewhere along the way I switched them. Does it matter? It's a question of color: I liked the first set up better. But this will do.

 

And then I pick up the boys and the girl at school. Well, not exactly that: the boys are coming home by school bus, so that I actually pick them up as they get off the bus.

It saves me a whole 45 minutes to do it this way and so far, they seem to like the bus.

(what the boys like to snack on after school...)

 

We all then go to pick up Snowdrop. By car, because Friday is the day of the Great Adventure. Their mom tags along for this. We had wanted to go to a nearby pumpkin patch (for the annual pumpkin acquisition), but it turns out the patch is only open on the weekends. To tame their disappointment, I offer to take them all to Bruce landscapers. They usually have seasonal merchandise. Something small for their rooms.

Everyone is in a happy mood -- Snowdrop had had some extraordinary test results in school, Sparrow was deconstructing a crush entanglement in his class (not his own!), and Sandpiper just loved the idea of getting small weird pumpkins (I'm told the boys went to bed with their choices tonight). 

From there, to Clasens for a treat, and then the young family goes to their various places and activities and I pick up Millie (actually, Snowdrop does the "picking up")...

 

 

... and my pup and I are off to pick up tacos for dinner for Ed and me. 

I remember when he and I used to take these same tacos to various outdoor spots in the county and watch the sun go down. These days, the sun goes down long before I ever sit down to dinner. Still, it's good to have Ed here for the evening. Over tacos.

There is a beautiful full moon out tonight. Ed takes Rosie, my moped, for a spin around the new development. I'm thinking of letting Rosie go. She wont bring in much, but someone will surely love her as I did in the years I rode her, sometimes early in the morning to watch a sunrise over Lake Waubesa, sometimes to the market to pick up veggies and flowers. Now, with Millie here, I can't imagine I'd use her enough to justify the cost of keeping her. Sigh...

A late night tonight. This will be the pattern in the net week or so. Lots to do, and too few hours to fit it all in. But then, isn't this true for everyone? We are a harried lot. Maybe that's a good thing. I doubt it. Far better to step outside and just look at that full Harvest Moon (unusually bright at the September Equinox, hence the name -- giving off prolonged light, once needed for the harvest) and to gaze at it for a long long while.

with so much love... 

waiting

There is a book I used to read to the very young ones called Waiting. I don't know why they loved it (nothing happens!), but they did. The book shows windowsill artifacts, ostensibly with some senses activated, watching the seasons change outside. They wait. Not for anything in particular, just for, I don't know, time to pass?

What do you do when you have to wait for something or someone? 

Waiting is different these days. When I was younger and lived in postwar Poland, waiting in lines was the norm. I didn't like it -- nobody liked it! -- but it was expected and so you made do. No phones to scroll! You looked at the people in line. Most faces were grim. People had things to do, other lines to wait in. A slow moving line wasn't helpful. 

It's a little funny that in France, you often have to wait to check out with an item you want to buy. The lines aren't long, but if it's a small shop (and there are many of those), the attending salesperson will take great care with each sale -- folding the garment, packing carefully a dish, tieing a bow around a jewelry box. Then, when all is done, they come out from behind the counter and hand you your parcel face to face. Honestly, after years in Polish lines, I try very hard to be patient, but part of me just wants to get out and run. I would call this "unnecessary waiting." (I do admit that pleasant sales clerks are a delight when it finally my turn to do the purchase. Still, is it really worth the wait? I don't know...)

There are times when I like to wait. When I pick up the kids at school, I take a book, listen to very light, soothing music. and the wait feels like a spa moment. No one bothers me. I can't do much else. It's delightful. Or, waiting for a day of travel. I like that too. The anticipation is fabulous. 

Then there are days like this one, where I have to wait for plants to arrive. As you know, I worked intensely to get the ground ready for planting. I have such callouses on my hands that even a soothing balm wont soften them. There actually 16 holes waiting for roses and there are three campanula (bell flower) babies waiting for my decision as to where they should go.  I do appreciate a break though. The whole day feels like a break. Maybe that's what waiting is for me? An intermission?

 

Breakfast.

 

 

And then Millie goes to play and I go back home, in no rush to do anything. I tidy up the rose garden, dig out some more stones from some of the holes, distribute more mulch, but all this takes no more than an hour. Hmmm... must I do laundry now? (When you feel you should be productive, do laundry. Or fold laundry. Or carry it upstairs. I did all three.)

 

In the afternoon, I pick up Snowdrop. 

We have a different routine today: we go to her house and hang out. Her mom joins us for a while. We talk about what it's like to be 5 years old. Goose is with us, happily moving from one person to the next.

It feels so good to have this moment of calm here too. 

Honestly, a day of waiting can feel as grand as a day of digging. Or a day with a full agenda. So long as it's not waiting in a shopping line. Don't like those.

(Millie, this morning, in sunshine, waiting --- for something to develop outside...)

 

with so much love... 

 

so many...

The more you work on your garden, the more mistakes you'll make. That is my conclusion and I wont back away from it.

Say, for example, you're 73. And hypothetically speaking, say you have been gardening, oh, since 1981, so for 45 years. You'd think that by now you will have made most of the mistakes that one can make, so if, for example, you have a plot of land and you put in a new garden, you're golden, right? All your learning will have paid off! Your magnum opus, piece de resistance, in all its magnificence, will be fabulous and close to perfect. Oh, sure, there may be outside forces that could kill the whole thing. Storms, freeze and thaw cycles, infestations, predators -- they could destroy your thing of great beauty. But it will be a thing of great beauty, right?

Things that I neglected to pay attention to (at the age of 73 after 45 years of gardening):

1. The sun does not shine down in the same way in all seasons. A spot (for example, one where you chose to grow roses) that was 100% sunny in the summer may now be... more shady. 

2. When you order roses and you are watching your budget, you tend to pick up smaller, younger plants. They'll take longer to mature and bloom, but they are less expensive. But then, perhaps you should not create a rose garden where you will have also inserted the great estate roses from the Live Sales that are already several years old and therefore huge (but at fantastic sale prices). Because the babies will be well hidden by their older, grander cousins. (In working with perennials, you never worry about the age of a plant you put in. With roses, you have to worry about it. Or be sorry.) 

3. Everyone says -- plant roses in the Fall! It's the best time for them, they'll have a chance to establish a good strong root system, you'll have beautiful plants come spring. To my knowledge, Fall started yesterday. Thus I am abiding by that directive. I'm planting in the Fall. And early Fall at that. One-day-old Fall. So how is it that AI tells me that the last rose planting should take place no later than 5 weeks before the first frost? That plants might die if you put them in too close to a frost. Or come out warped in the spring, or basically look awful, as if an amateur planted them? As it is, I'm lucky, because the next ten days have no frost in them, even though Madison's first frost dates are typically thought to be between October 1- 9. If you plant in the Fall season here, how is it that you're giving your babes five safe weeks ahead of frost? And yet, all the nurseries are shipping roses left and right, including to Zone 5 places like mine. I don't understand!

I could go on, but I'm afraid you'll have tuned out. Rosarians tend to overdo it on the rose talk.

 

So, back to the early morning. The light now is just beautiful on a sunny start to the day.

While Millie sniffs, my eyes follow a butterfly. Her yellow looks gorgeous against the aster. Next to her -- a bee. 

 

 

Then she moves on, so that it's yellow on yellow. It's hard for me to look at this picture and think that the butterfly could be a male. But in fact, it could be either, or both. Some butterflies can indeed be both male and female -- a split-gender as it were. This particular butterfly is called the "Little Yellow." Sadly, it cannot survive our winters. The Little Yellow does a one way migration from the south, then dies off as our days get cold.

 

 

 

 Breakfast, now as usual, in the reading nook, by the window.

 

 

 

Wednesday isn't a doggie daycare day for Millie, but I make an exception today: I have the last of the sod to rip out and 9 roses to plant (leaving me with 15 more, but those haven't arrived yet, so 9 it is for the day). If Millie stayed home, I'd have to crate her for a good chunk of the day. She has such fun at daycare -- I take her there to be with other dogs instead.

Back at home, I work nonstop. Well, I pause when Ed drops by to help me with three tiny chores -- putting up the number sign in the back of the house (along the driveway), attaching the "feet" to my ceder planter, and tightening the screws on my stool. Ed remains stronger than me, despite my shoveling and stone and soil lugging frenzy this summer.

Since it's a day of roses, let me post this, from today:

 

 

They're not from my rose garden. They're from the nursery and I got them for being such a good and loyal customer and participant in the Live shows on Thursday. Only this Thursday I'll have to pass on the Live rose event. When they do their surprise price drops (sometimes down to $1 for a rose bush), I'm too tempted. And I really dont have space this year for anything more. Besides, in a little while, I wont even be 5 days before frost, let alone 5 weeks.

with so much love... 

the incredible power of a fruit fly

The fruit fly is tiny. About 3 to 4 millimeters in size. Its brain? The size of a poppy seed. Here's what else I learned today: a fruit fly can kill you.

How is that possible? Let me describe just exactly how my life nearly ended at the hands of a fruit fly.

It was a very normal morning. Cool of course, but, it's the first day of Fall, so yes, it's going to be cool. I slept a good six hours -- a vast improvement over the four the previous night. Breakfast? I'm still improvising. Skip the tray, lay it out on the window sill. Easier to reach while I'm reading.

Millie is curious about the offerings. 

I give her a bit of yogurt in a "pup cup." She licks it, but with that attitude of "doing me a favor." We both doze off afterwards. Sleepy weather. But I force myself to get going. Lots to do in the garden today!

In the car you go, Millie! And we're off.

Happy Dogz (her doggie daycare place) is a 17 minute drive, mostly along the Beltline. (For the non-Madisonians, the Beltline is one of those city highways that wraps itself around the city, or at least the southern part of it. The speed limit is 55 mph (88.5km), but many stray into the low 60s. Still, it's a "polite" highway. Many of us use it daily and we know where the bottlenecks are, and we know that it empties out as we reach the western section. Most of us are careful drivers. When a maniac speeds by, we all shake our heads and hope he or she will get stopped by a cop. 

Careful as I am, perhaps I am also a bit complacent. Today, I sort of lost it in the car. I had left a bag full of compost over the weekend to take over to the farmette and it had leaked. I managed to clean up the mess yesterday. Or so I thought. On my morning drive today, I notice the fruit flies. There weren't hundreds of them, but there was a good handful and they were irritating to the max, flying around me, the windshield, darting quickly, raising my ire and raising, too, my protective instincts: they must be driving Millie mad back there. They're certainly driving me mad! I start swatting at them. With my elbow. My palm. Clapping, slapping, with only partial success. Fruit flies know how to evade the likes of me. 

I drop Millie at the daycare (she seemed unruffled by the fruit fly saga) and turn around to return home. Same highway. And that's when I saw it -- a crash, just ahead of me. Many vehicles were involved and one was completely flipped over. How could that even happen on this city highway? How does a car flip upside down? Of course, there were ambulances on the scene. Of course there were. I expect to be reading about it in tomorrow's press.

And I thought -- that could  have been me. Two minutes earlier, distracted by fruit flies, I could have been in that mess. I could have died at the hands of a tiny fruit fly.

All this to say that yet again, I consider myself lucky. Jumping from stone to stone on a path through turbulent waters, teetering sometimes, but somehow, I have managed to stay afloat. Remarkable.

*.    *.    *

Fourteen years ago today I attended my daughter's wedding. How fortunate that those two met and fell in love! How lucky for me that they live nearby with their bevy of kids. Happy anniversary, you two! May you grow and prosper and be lucky in life!

*.    *.    *

I work in the garden. Enough said. No, wait: not enough said: I toiled today! From 11 until 3 (that is 4 hours in case your math skills aren't up to snuff), I dug holes and shoveled out turf. I dislodged rocks and carried all of the debris to the vacant lot. There was a reason for my insanity (such hard work!). They're going to do something about that lot tomorrow (it's leeching mud into people's driveways) and it may well be that my dumping ground will disappear. And by the way, my driveway is not covered with leeching mud because I dumped turf in the corner of the lot closest to me. The turf held back the stream of mud that everyone else got. That was unintended consequence for sure!

*.    *.    *

In the afternoon, I pick up Snowdrop after school. 

 

 

 

Yesterday (which was not my caregiving day), for the first time, she took the school bus home. Most kids love that ride. Snowdrop, who is enthusiastic about pretty much everything that comes her way, hated it. Why?? -- we ask her. Too loud, no friends are on the route,  mean bus driver. Since I would have to leave my house the same time, whether or not she takes the bus, I offer to pick her up on my days, at least until she gets used to the ride, the noise, the kids, the mean bus driver. 

On our way home, we stop at the market to get some flowers for her parents. 

And back at her house, we read, but honestly, it can be a challenge for me these days. Why is the print in books now in shades of gray? When did it stop being black? 

When we're done, she tells me that one of the books I purchased for her during the Barnes&Noble outing last Friday is not one she will ever read. (It's pretty depressing -- dont know how we missed that in the store.) Since we have a few minutes left, I suggest we return it right away (or else I'll forget about it and it will be a wasted purchase). And of course, once we're at the bookstore, she pleads for their hot chocolate.

It's getting late and I really should return her home, but she really really wants to go with me to pick up Millie. "I haven't seen her for weeks!" 

And then Millie and I drive home, I see that there are still some fruit flies in the car. I resist the urge to swipe at them. After all, they have a lifespan of what, 50 days? Yes yes, I know, each fly can lay 500 eggs, but I'm not worried. We are in Wisconsin. Fruit flies, eggs and all, cannot survive in freezing temperatures.

with so much love... 

trivial pursuits

Planning a trip (whether or not it actually happens). Binge reading mystery novels. Baking. Sitting at Borders Bookstore coffee shop with a stack of interesting books that I have no intention of buying and sipping a tall latte. Watching a rom-com on repeat in the years when they used to be actually good and funny. Planting a new garden and especially a new rose garden. These are examples of plunges I have taken in my life, ones that then, unexpectedly, swallowed me whole. Ones that I cant wait to return to and try to fit in at  every spare moment. 

Because I lose myself in said activity, much of everyday stuff gets shortchanged. Is this why I have been staying up so late every day now? Lat night it was 1:30 before I called it quits (and no, Millie did not want to sleep in the next morning). 

Right now, I am sitting at my computer nervously watching the clock move forward. Soon it will be dusk. Soon I cannot dig anymore. I want to be out removing sod and digging more holes, even though at the moment, I do not have any roses to plant. 

Obsessive? Perhaps. 

Rose gardens are, in fact, like wine: you enjoy it, you want more. There is a group of rose planters who attend the "live" sale online every week, then follow up with reviewing their roses on FaceBook. Judging by their posts, they're mostly women, and yes, they are obsessive, and many of them are quite rich. They must be, because they buy enormous roses in enormous quantities and have husbands (yes husbands!) yelling at them for buying too many. (Some of these same husbands then dig the holes for the new arrivals.)  I am neither rich, nor do I have the spaces they do for rose gardens (they post photos, so you can tell), nor a husband yelling at me or digging for me, so that dynamic is totally lost on me and yet, let's be honest -- I share their passion for this flower. (I have been growing perennials for more than forty years and I don't know of a comparable perennial buying/growing group that likes to brag about how many boxes of new plants came by UPS that day.) What is it about roses? They are not especially easy to grow and though the bigger plants can be expensive, the younger smaller ones cost no more no less than any other flower you may buy for your garden. So what's happening here? Are roses the new white wine we once drank before/during/and after dinner?

For me, they are both demanding of physical labor (I like that!) and, as I've said before, they take my mind off of everything else. And they allow me to create a vision of a flowered future. A rosy one at that!

 

So, reluctantly, I am up with Millie early-ish, bundled now in sweatpants and my fleece over a sweatshirt, that's how quickly we jumped into autumn. 

Breakfast.

And then I plant three roses and dig out some mud. I have blisters now to show for it. (One of the roses went into Millie's yard, so the girl could hang out with me while I worked.

I also stopped by the farmette to drop off food for Ed and to pick up some more compost. I visited for a few minutes with him (but only for a few -- I was in a hurry to return to my digging!) and also with his one remaining hen.

She lays very small eggs and she is very lonely, as all her mates have been taken away by predators. She sleeps and poops in the garage and she occasionally hangs out with the wild turkey family that inhabits the farmette. I'm not sure they are happy with this, but so far, no squabbles have ensued.

And then I worked some more on my garden, forcing myself to do the unpleasant -- mow the lawn, which, admittedly, is a much smaller task than it was just two months ago!

(Millie, on a walk: her retriever genes kicking in...)

 

 Back to my rose notes. I'm moving things around tonight, on paper. Does it matter whether All Dressed Up is in back of Loves Me Loves Me Not? Will Princess Anne feel snubbed because she is very much behind Princess Charlene d Monaco? I put in Mill on Floss today and I forgot to check it off on my site map. Oh, I see that she is next to Emily Bronte, with Nye Bevan not too far. (Did you know Nye Bevan was the Welshman who, in 1948 created the National Health Service in the UK? And can you believe it -- they've had national health care over there since 1948?!)

I can go on like this until 1:30 again if I don't rein it in. Such a fabulous thing it is, to grow roses. And to think that they may even bloom someday!

with so much love... 

 

why do kids like playing in the mud?

I just don't see the attraction: mud is slimy and it clings to everything -- your hands (or gardening gloves), shovels, buckets, anything it touches, leaving a thick deposit of goopy yuk. Dirt is beautiful. Mud is gross.

 I have a lot of mud in Steffi's Yard.

It still is raining this morning, albeit lightly and they are telling me this is the tail end of our wet weather. Of course, many of my dugout holes are still either wet with standing water or muddy in the extreme. In fact, the whole garden is muddy. Everything squishes. No surprise here -- my yard got a total of 6.5 inches (16.5 cms) of rain in the past two days.

Many of the rose blooms have given up and dropped their petals. Many, but not all.

(an Eden climber)

 

(Sweet Mademoisalle)

 

 

And no, I haven't given up on my other flowers. Some are drying up for the year, but some remain magnificently vibrant and colorful.

 

Breakfast -- now permanently inside. Indeed, it's cool enough for me to turn on the furnace. Just to see if it's working and to give the interior a little burst of warm air.

 

 

 

 

I'm not going to delay planting, mud or no mud. When Millie naps, I work on the rose bed. And it is its own special gardening misery. 

I cart away some of the mud. Weighted down by water and boulders, it's all heavy stuff, even in the wheelbarrow. But, I do succeed geting four more roses in. I have only 28 left for the season (no, I'm not a math dunce. I, um, added one more this morning. I had a reason, though I don't quite remember now what that reason could have been). 

Just after the noon hour, Millie and I meet up with Ed at Tati's. My pup is almost as excited about going there as she is entering Happy Dogz daycare. And she has finally recognized Ed as one of us. No more introductory barking.

Afterwards? You guessed it: more mud work.

In the evening I cook dinner for the young family, even though they're not here for it. At the moment three out of the five are sick and I'm not in a hurry to pick up whatever it is that's going around at the moment. I hand over the food  and return home.

  

 

 

Looking through my email, I see that there is yet another friend who is very sick. The trouble is -- every one of these friend illnesses isn't trivial. It's not a cold or a gastric upset. Mending will take time. I suppose we all need different parts of us repaired as we get older, but still, I hate to see how much the illnesses have affected their lives. And yes, I am grateful for every hour where I dont have to think about treatments, or worry about cures. If you're healthy, you are by definition lucky. Charmed in fact. At this time in my life, that is exactly how I feel! You too Millie?

(roses and sweet peas and Millie)

 

 

with so much love...