Roy has gone to do battle with people at Lowe's. He's a brave soul because he battled the cart traffic in Sprouts this morning. Glad one of us likes to do that. We realized halfway in our weeding and plant transplanting we did not have enough of the right tools to accomplish our work. Of course I am laughing at this because last year we did all our planting and building with children's yard tools. Hey, I didn't know if I would be that committed to the planting process since I've never been that successful gardening. Last night we worked a little on pulling weeds and we had bought a sharp hoe to chop and uproot. It will come in handy if we see a snake on our welcome mat. Anyway, I was swinging the hoe, chopping up weeds and I kind of went chain gang prisoner, like in Cool Hand Luke , swinging away. Roy told me, don't do that I am afraid of hoes because he was hit in the head with one by one of his brothers growing up. It's good to know Roy doesn't want to be close to a swinging hoe and yes, this also counts as a double entendre Our corner flowerbed that we built up and planted last year was just so beautiful but I did learn a lesson, it was difficult weeding, so I am going with a different combo of plants. I have found I do well with roses, snap dragons and zinnias. A couple of months ago Roy totally cleared out that back flowerbed but something I planted last year, starts with a D, rebounded and had taken over. We took the biggest of those plants and transplanted them to the front flowerbed. Lord knows I am probably over the allotted HOA limit number of plants one can have. Again, I will point to the house around the corner that has a huge ceramic swan out front. It seems that maybe the HOA picks on new residents because....they can. The thought came to me as we were digging and pulling and planting, that I had never been more like my mother than at that very moment. My mom was an avid gardener. Wherever my parents lived, the flowers that my mom planted and nourished were so beautiful and healthy. When they lived in Georgetown my mom was constantly transplanting her plants from the front to the back and then out in the front yard again. Since my artist bent is stick figures, I drew her some lovely cartoons of her plants talking amongst themselves about how long they would remain until they were transferred once again. Probably the other time I am like my mom and this hasn't always been the case but I am becoming a quick believer in her request, "Can't we see it from the car?" Sightseeing and reading historical facts on plaques wasn't her idea of a good time. My brother and I would tease her about this all the time but here I find myself wanting to view from the car. Oh, the other thing is watching the birds out by our feeder and bird bath. When she was alive she would tell me stories about the birds in her garden and yard, about the little bird houses she put on the fences waiting for her twittering seasonal residents. I see some of the funniest things going on with the birds but I don't have anyone to call and bore with my bird observations. So, blessed readers, you are going to get one story right now. I have written about the Don't Mess with Texas Mockingbird and we have a few more mockingbirds coming around. There is a younger mockingbird and if there happens to be a dove on the top of the feeder, it stands there with its mouth wide open waiting for mother or father dove to feed it. The dove just looks at that little bird like, are you crazy? Then the little mockingbird goes back to feeding itself. Believe me it is cute and funny in person.
Friday, would have been my mom's 84th birthday. I felt there wasn't a better way to say Happy Birthday to her than to work in the flowerbeds this weekend. I miss her.
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