I could spend thousands, nay millions of dollars on dog toys, as you do, cause our dogs are our babies, and we will do anything for them. However Cueball's favorite dog toy is an empty 2 litre diet coke bottle. He will chase that thing around the house with gusto for hours, until he wears himself out to be honest. I have no idea what the attraction is, I mean really, it is an empty diet coke bottle, but as far as Cueball is concerned it is the best toy in the world, and is more fun than a boxer dog should be allowed to have. I suppose it is a bit like buying a $200 dollar toy for a child and finding that on Christmas morning the child is spending more time playing in the box that the toy came in than the actual toy. I suppose the best way to put it is that the simplest things in life are the best. It is strange that my mother's dog Benji, has the same fetish, he will play with an empty soda bottle until the top comes off and then he is done. My dog Cueball and my mother's dog Benji have the same joys, separated by continents. I guess dogs are the same all over the world.

As you know I am a die hard bargain shopper, and that particularly goes for plants. The dead plant section at Lowes (where things cost $1.00 or less) is my favorite place in the world. I am also a big fan of the sale which Lowes, Home Depot et. al. have late in the Spring when they reduce their summer bulbs (dahlia, gladioli etc) to 50% off, usually at which point I start buying them with abandon. This year I happened to have to go to Wal-Mart (a place I hardly ever go), to buy a pond pump (and I only went to Wal-Mart because I was too lazy to drive half way across town to Lowes, a problem which will be solved when my own Lowes on my side of town will open next month). As I perused the pond pumps I noticed a big 50% off sign, right next to all the summer bulbs. So as you do I snatched up every bag of dahlia I could find and took them home (and I actually did buy a pond pump). When I got them home I had absolutely nowhere to put them of course, but as is usual for me, I had recently turned over and seeded the "accidental bed" (a bed so-called because whatever ends up in it is purely by accident). This weekend one of the dahlia bloomed, and she just stunned me. A deep, deep burgundy, so deep that in some lights she looks almost black, and after the good soaking rain we had on Saturday she just looked beautiful.



I just kept going back and looking at her, she is just so beautiful. I am so looking forward to the rest of the summer when she blooms like this.

This evening I saw something that I have never seen in all of my days in my garden (and that is saying something). This evening when I got home from work I put out the sprinkler in the front garden to give my poor flower beds and containers a good soaking, it seems like it has been weeks since we had rain. I would leave the sprinkler in one location for a while and then move it so that all of the beds got a good drink. After I had moved it from one spot I noticed quite a commotion as a whole family of Chickadees came down into a wet tree to take a shower. They would alight on a branch and then flap their wings so the water would fall from the sodden leaves down onto them, then they would ruffle up their feathers to get a good soaking and move on to the next leaf. They all appeared to be having the time of their lives, and were actually fighting over the best spots. I have two bird baths, one out front and one out back, and both are clean and filled with water right now, but I suppose the Chickadees, just like humans, prefer a shower to a bath sometimes. They were delightful to watch and for once I forgot about going into the house to grab my camera to get a shot of it, I was so enchanted by the whole thing that I just watched, and sometimes, that is the most enjoyable thing to do.

I heard a saying once "a woman can never be too thin, too rich, or have too many silk blouses." Personally I think a woman can be too thin (me until not so long ago), I won't quibble with the rich thing, but the silk blouses I would quite happily replace with "or have too many asiatic lilies growing in her garden." I bought my first asiatic lilies during a Lowes 75% off sale in late spring one year. I found a place to put them and watched that year as they emerged with foliage but no flowers (I did not know at the time that to bloom properly the first year they need to be planted the previous autumn.) As it was I was disappointed but hoped for better the following year. Of course the following year the lilies bloomed and were spectacular, at which point I was (not to put too fine a point on it) hopelessly addicted. I deliberately went to Lowes about the time that they would be reducing their summer bulbs to 75% off and like the hopeless junky I am trampled little old ladies in front of me to snap up every bag I could lay my grubby paws on. As is the way with my plant and bulb buying addictions once I have the said bag of bulbs I have absolutely no idea where I am going to put them. Luckily asiatic lily bulbs are fairly small (as opposed to a potted plant) so finding a spot for them to rest is relatively easy. The great part about it is that once I have planted them I completely forget about them. So it was with delight this year that I found them coming up all over the place. There were yellow ones



The palest of peach



Ivory ones



Pink ones



Orange ones that remind me of orange sherbert,



Yellow and Orange stripy ones



Pure white ones



And even spotty ones that look like they have been spray painted.



This is my favorite time of year when it comes to my garden, when my asiatic lilies are blooming. However, I will not expect you to hold me to that when my oriental lilies are blooming because I will be waxying lyrical about those too:)

Than a man who will lay down his life for his friends.

He could have jumped out of the humvee, that would have been easy, but what did he choose to do? He chose to place himself between the grenede and his friends, so that they could live. Stop. Think. Just imagine you are in this position. There is a grenade, it is going to detonate, it is a) going to kill you and all your friends or b) it is going to kill you but your friends will be saved. He was 19, a 19 year old kid who should be going to movies, sneaking beers, driving dads car when he shouldn't be. He looked at that grenade and made a decision, it is me or my friends. He chose his friends. The sheer magnitude of his sacrifice should never be forgotten, how a 19 year old soldier chose that option is to be honest, beyond belief. It is what they do. Anyone who has never been in the service will probably never understand this sacrifice, but everyone who has been will. There is no greater love, and there should be no greater honor bestowed upon a boy who in a moment, became a man and in a moment, became a hero. May the name of Ross McGinnis forever go down in the record books as a hero of all heros and may we all, from now on, strive to be as honorable as he was in death. I am crying as I type this, I am not ashamed.

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