GERANIUMS

I have three geraniums, Florence, Phyllis and Blossom.

  

In the spring they take up residence on our porch.  They spend the summer putting out so many flowers that I have to wash down the place with a hose to get rid of their discarded petals.

When the weather gets cold in the late fall I save a section of each one, put it in a small pot with fresh soil, and bring the three inside for the winter.   They sit for months in front of a sunny window waiting for the snow to go away.  Around March they think they are in Italy or, maybe California, and start putting out blooms.

I enjoy my geraniums in the summer when they 

decorate the deck with their bright hats of pink, red and white.

But the indoor blossoms after a long gray winter, although less and smaller, 

are to my soul like water in the desert. 

SPRING SING

The bike path that goes by the pond was blocked off…

…due to construction by the city of a new water slide.

…so I followed the railroad track.

Photos made even fancier by using
Pioneer Woman’s “Fresh and Colorful” actions.

I discovered a beach party of black cormorants
and white pelicans on the pond.
It doesn’t seem to matter to them who is what color.

A pair of Canada Geese arrived and splashed down.

I got buzzed by a hawk.

With a little looking around I discovered the mama hawk on their nest.

There was lots of singing by daddy birds.

Here is Mr. Redwing.

Letting everyone know it’s finally spring
and he’s staked out his favorite tree for a nest.

EVERYBODY HAS A TALENT

We knew we’d made a mistake when we drove into the parking lot of the grocery store.  The place was packed with cars bearing license plates from all over the country.  A new semester had started at the university, and the students were stocking up.

DH and I elbowed our way through the energetic crowd, dragged a cart away from a little old lady (okay just kidding) and went off to find our supplies.  We made it easily through produce.  Students don’t buy fruits and vegetables.

But we got stuck behind a mom who’d parked her cart full of kids and goods in front of the bacon.  She was reading the label on every brand.  Who cares what’s in bacon?  It tastes great and is guaranteed to kill.  What else is there to know?  We HAD to have bacon so I told DH I’d go for the other important item on the list and meet up later.

I needed a can of Oregon Blackberries.

 Guests were coming for dinner and I was making a pie,

an apple blackberry pie, for dessert.

They keep those cans on the very top shelf.  The shelf is at least six feet off the floor.  The blackberries were on sale, so of course from my full height of five foot two (on a good day) I could only see one can.  Stretching vertically has been a challenge for me for the past six weeks, but I managed to reach that one can.  But I needed two.

No clerk was in sight, and I doubted climbing the shelves to the top to get a better view of the ledge was a good idea.  Then I saw a wad of young men standing in the checkout line.  One guy must have been six-five with arms like a spider monkey.  I stepped over and asked him to come with me.  I showed him my can (not THAT ONE! pervert) and politely asked him to see if there was another like it on the shelf.  He grinned, glanced and easily gathered the last remaining can and handed it down.  I thanked him and he returned to his friends.

I wish I would have dared to invite him over for pie.

But he would have wanted to bring all his friends

 and there were only two cans of blackberries.