Now and Then

The Sensation Lilac is almost fully opened.  What a treasure!  I hope the bush does well where it's at, I've often worried that it doesn't get enough sun or have enough room between the Golden Bamboo and a Rose of Sharon bush.  We'll see next year how it does and possibly move it to a more auspicious location.

We repotted this darling African Violet that was in a basket Kristi gave me last Easter and it's blooming and has lots of buds coming out!  It is happy in the SW facing garden window in the kitchen.

We had quite the excitement yesterday.  Dayle's hair was getting quite long and so I ordered a battery operated clipper and it arrived so we went out on the deck and I commenced learning how to be a barber.. :-D  It kind of looked like a patchwork quilt when I was done and I kind of laughed like a hyena as I perused my work on his noggin.  But it's not like anyone will see him.. right?  And he's happy the long stuff is gone.  So.. win, win... right???  :-X

Our Siberian Irises are in bloom.. which makes me happy as they did not bloom at all last year.  I have no idea why.  

The big pink Rhododendron is looking good, Dayle estimates that it is 25 feet tall!

The garden is growing.. we are going to do more planting today.  Soon we'll harvest some of the larger lettuce leaves for a salad.

The first bloom on the 4th of July rose - I didn't notice that a earwig bug was in there when I took the photo.  What do you call an earwig.. the same or something different?

The Bolivian Begonia, "Bonfire" is coming up after spending the whole winter in our basement, dry as a bone.  It amazes me.

The "THEN" part of my blog post today -- while Dayle was mowing yesterday I decided to go through a box of old photos.  What a walk down memory lane!  This is one of my favorite pictures of Dayle, at the helm of Stargazer, our Ranger 26 sailboat that we had for 25 years.  We're sailing up the Columbia River here from Cascade Locks.

I had purchased a waterproof camera back then and had taken it with me when I was swimming off the boat.  I took this from water level and just love this photo.

This is another day when we took some of our family for a sail.  Son Travis, his best friend Dan, my sister Roberta and her husband Teddy.  Another shot I got from the water.  :-)

Going back even farther, our dog Baba, (named Maximillian the 1st) a liver spot Dalmation, and our brand new VW Bus.  My first new car.  Dayle had a 1968 GTO and got this for me to drive.  Oh how happy I was!  This photo was in the front yard of the house we rented in Milton, Louisiana, on the Vermillion River (bayou).  Dayle worked for PHI - Petroleum Helicopters Inc. flying crew out to the oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.  This was taken in July 1970, we were married in February.

Here is a snap of me testing out the bed in the back.  :-)  We had this bus for 25 years.  We drove it to Florida many times and camped on the beach and swam in the beautiful clear blue ocean waters there.   To this day I rue the day we sold it.  I wish we had it to this day.

Back to the present... Dayle made baked pork chops prepared with Shake 'n Bake for pork, fried potatoes with onions and corn for dinner last night.  NUMMERS!

Today is gardening day, more planting.  Dayle got a panel of lattice to put behind the peas and beans.  He'll put that up today.  I hope you are staying safe and being careful.  We must all take care of ourselves and be vigilant.  ((hugs)), Teresa :-)