It has been a pretty much delightful summer. Not delightful in the amount of times I have been swimming or gone kayaking, but delightful in terms of the beauty of nature and especially in my own yard. We have spent an inordinately large amount of time on the patio and the visual is always striking. The sad area of the fence between us and the neighbors, formerly controlled by malbor and his crazy cameras, has come into bloom. At one time, the horrible, maybe 12 inches in depth (depending on where it was) small plot of land was originally filled with white marble stones. I removed what I could and settled for topsoil and the flowers were either planted by me or volunteers (phlox, yarrow, coral bells, poppies, violets, and various forms of sedum). The flowers died when malbor was alive a few years ago. I believe that poison in the form of Monsanto chemicals, may have killed them. We ended up putting pots over there, filled with lantana and portulaca and now have a raised herb garden. It is beautiful and a delight to see from the patio.
Frankly, photos do not even do them justice.
The lighting that we now have in the evening is stellar. Solar power is the source of the lighting. I started out with very long strands of tiny warm yellow LEDs on the fence. the entire fence in the back yard is down and it works even in the winter. We have little jelly mason jars with fairy lights inside in various places. There is solar lighting in the way back area of the yard which lights up the pond and waterfall and a piece of Japanese art and a driftwood piece. The overall effect with the flowers and the lighting makes for a really inviting, calming place, a counterattack on that Pandemic and all of its side effects.
Nasty world leaders, crazy populism, wars in unseemly places and for no real apparent reason and their trickle down effect on the people we were once even close to have made havens like this a necessity.
Meanwhile, I am on the patio and about to tackle some of the mess from the trees and the season and keep track of our dog and that of our son (whose dogs we have for two weeks) and enjoy the space.
