The day started with scraping and pounding on the walls. Our painters have been working for five days doing prep. The walls look great now, and next week they get a paint job! The painter will start with the front of the house first since it will be bright white (we want the Govee lights to reflect better).
We stayed inside doing our computer things until Carlos, our trusted gardener, showed up, and then we put him to work. He did the following for us (as we are getting too old).
- Planted two climbing roses in the front yard
- Planted our new boysenberry and blueberry plants
- Fixed front sprinkler head
I then began finishing off my Birthday/Christmas present to myself; my very own bidet! Yeah! Mary saw me curled up like a sow bug with one leg in the bathtub and began giggling uncontrollably. Of course,e she got the camera and took a picture of me doing my latest yoga moves.
It’s a lot more difficult than it was 40 years ago!!!
The painters were hard at work preparing the house for painting. They have spent five days so far just getting ready to paint. I am excited about testing the new paint on the front of the house!
The preparation work takes four times as long as painting the house!
After the gift installation and painting status walk was complete, we headed to the garden and provided directions to our wonderful gardener.
Climbing roses are not true climbers; they lack tendrils and must be manually tied to structures, often growing 8–20 feet high. Known as “madmen” for their rapid growth, they can bloom multiple times a season. For maximum flowers, canes should be trained horizontally, which encourages vertical, blooming side-shoots.
This is a climbing rose, and we expect it to crawl up the front gate by next Monday (or we want our money back!)
I caught a glimpse of the wabbit who was visiting the garden again!
Tomorrow I will set a trap for this pesky wabbit!
A Day of Garden Chaos (Mostly) began right after our fancy lunch made from the garden—basically, we ate our future. Then we went right back out to destroy— I mean, improve—the rest of it. Today consisted of four phases of activity:
The Great Hydrangea Relocation of 2026: I had hydrangeas to transplant, which is fancy-speak for “dig up these plants and move them three feet over because apparently they had an opinion about their current location.” Hydrangeas are dramatic. They’ll either thrive or stage a slow, leafy protest. No in-between.
The Rose’s Witness Protection Program: Then there was the rose that had been living in the shade like some gothic Victorian novel. “I’m too delicate for this sunlight!” it probably cried. Well, NOT ANYMORE, ROSE. Time to get a tan and deal with it.
Mary: The Flower Assassin: Mary, meanwhile, went full Edward Scissorhands on the patio flowers and roses. Snip Snip. SNIP. Dead blossoms are gone. Overgrown petals? Obliterated. She was basically a tiny, focused tornado with pruning shears.
The Grand Finale: And why, because Easter is coming, and by God, THIS garden will look SPECTACULAR… even if it’s just us three admiring it like we’re posing for a home and garden magazine shoot.
We checked the soaker hoses, and they are operating as expected; everything is getting the necessary water.
Below are twelve melons and six watermelons. Watermelons are botanically fruits (they’re the ripened ovary of a flowering plant), but they’re not vegetables in the culinary sense.
We have almost 75 feet of soaker hose in the corn/melon garden.
We love our blueberries! Blueberries are one of the few truly blue foods, native to North America and historically called “star berries” by Indigenous peoples due to the five-pointed star shape on their blossom end. Packed with antioxidants, they are considered a superfood and were even brought to space by NASA.
The roses are doing quite well, and Mother Nature (Mary) keeps them deadheaded, pruned, and deweeded.
What is the difference between deadheading and pruning?
Deadheading and pruning are often confused, but they serve different purposes in the garden. Deadheading flowers is the simple act of removing faded flowers to encourage more bloom. It’s a quick task you can do with pruning snips as you walk through your garden. Pruning, on the other hand, involves more extensive trimming to shape the plant and promote overall health.
I ran across a picture from 1954 with Judy, Claudia (my cousin), and yours truly.
We are going somewhere, but for the life og me, I have no idea…. It was, after all, 70+ years ago!
So, I ran it through one of my many AI photoprocessors, and it looks pretty good!
The turning point for home color photos was the 1930s-1950s, with the advent of Kodachrome (1935), a game-changer—better quality and more affordable —and then Ektachrome (1946), which made color even more accessible. Color home photography was pricey, with color film costing 3-4x more than black & white.
Most casual family photos were still black & white through the 1950s-60s. By the 1970s, color was common but not universal. By the 1980s, color was standard.
The 1990s brought digital photography, and in the 2020s, AI could turn black-and-white photos into color! We lived in an amazing time.
Judy is out of the picture these days, but I still talk to Claudia every few weeks!
Today is Jonathan’s 37th birthday! He and his bride are celebrating this evening. Mary and I called and sang happy birthday to him!
Jon and Sarah are somewhere in the Caribbean!
I also found a picture of Jon, Colleen, and me from a recent Caribbean trip. We had a lot of fun on the two-week cruise.
We love our grandson!!
At 6:00 pm, Robin and Bob dropped by on their way to Europe for a three-week vacation! We walked them through the garden, shared a bottle of champagne, and sent them off in a limo to LAX. We will really miss them!
Be safe and take a lot of pictures!!
We watched some TV and crashed around 10:30 pm. It’s been a long day!
