Another Week Gone Already.

 I have every intention of posting more often, and then another week zooms by and I haven't. We get busy and then we got tired and then time vanishes. Now it's Sunday evening and by the time you see this it will be Monday, June 1st!

In my last post I mentioned that we would be providing a garden tour for our friend Jan and her friend Debra. A few days later we got a lovely thank you note from Debra on a photo card she made of Jan and us in our garden.

What a delight to receive her thanks on in hand written note with a photo. Very few people write notes anymore. I loved it.

On Tuesday we finally reclaimed my sewing machine that I had taken into the shop for servicing. They had never notified us that it was ready for pick up and then they had to find it buried in a deep corner. I spent much of the rest of the day sorting and organizing and putting away. I probably won't do any sewing until gardening season is over.

On Wednesday we finally got to tending the raspberries. I weeded and then Tom got them tied up. Now they look tended. I moved on to trimming the boxwoods that are in planters on either side of the garage doors. 

Tom did the heavy work of moving them out so I could get to them, putting them back in place, and cleaning up the trimmings.

Knowing that we wanted to get to the big job of trimming the Candy Tuft (Iberis) that grows on the top if the broken concrete wall so we could get that last big job checked off our list, we started with the shorter wall in the back yard on Thursday then enjoyed the warmth of a slower paced sunny afternoon. 

Friday it was cold and rainy, Jill showed up at breakfast and entertained us with all of her comings and goings, work and play stories. Grocery shopping got done, and the afternoon was mostly quiet and restful. It was payday so I paid the bills and did the bookkeeping. 

On Saturday we attended a garden club garden tour and then regrouped and were off to Olympia for a memorial service for the former wife of Tom's cousin and the mother of their three sons, who we hold dear. Cynthia was a remarkable woman, as we learned more and more about through shared stories of family and friends. There was so much love in that room, and a few surprises for me too. A woman from my past as a reading specialist knew me not only because we worked together one year, which I didn't remember, but she had a family connection I didn't know about. She knows all about the Whidbey Island cabin because at one time she was a college roommate one of those three son, Scott, as mentioned above. I also met the new wife of another one of those three sons, David,  and her son, a young man I flagged down to help me open a water bottle. I took an immediate liking to Katie, the new wife I didn't even know about. 

As sad as it is to lose a beloved family member, it is wonderful that families gather on such occasions to strengthen connections and make new ones. 

Sunday morning we got an early start on the wall trimming. You have seen photos of this wall in bloom in the past. In bloom the Candy Tuft is covered in white flowers, but when they fade, they are best trimmed of all of the seed heads. 

Now they are all trimmed. I ran the hedge trimmer and Tom did the cord laying, the tarp moving and the clippings pick up. It took us a little over two hours and I was very glad to cross that job off the list.

While trimming. I found a Junco's nest tucked into the wall and plants. Fortunately it was empty so I thing the young had already fledged. Bird's nests are rather amazing, aren't they. 

Tom did some more work, I rested my arms and shoulders, and caught up on reading. Then Jill texted, wanted to know it we would like to take her and Jake out to dinner, since they were going to be scarce once June rolls around. That's an invitation parents don't pass up. 

Now we are just about ready to settle in for the evening. I'll look for  a Netflix movie to watch, something fun or sweet or just "nice". 

We need nice.