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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I have been thinking about this entire "shopping" thing just recently, in fact I spoke to my mother about it this weekend. When exactly did "shopping" become a hobby as opposed to a necessity? As far as I know the pioneers of old did not leave their ranches and go into town for the express purpose of "browsing" no they went to the feed store or whatever to buy something they specifically needed. So why did "shopping" become a hobby? At what point in history did people stop shopping for things they needed and start "shopping" as a pastime? I mean think about it, you get up in the morning and think "I'm going to go shopping today" for what purpose? You have a wardrobe full of clothes, you have more shoes than any person could wear in a year, you have a freezer full of food, a fridge full of food, cupboards full of food and yet, despite all that, you feel the need to go out "shopping". It is strange that the entire US economy has now tied itself into that notion with the "stimulus" checks which are going to go out which they are hoping will encourage people to go out "shopping" for things they neither need nor want. The majority of Americans have all the clothes they could ever need, they have housing, they have food, they have cellphones, they have TVs, they have cars, they have things that people in third world countries could ever dream about owning and yet weekend after weekend Americans go out in droves and go out "shopping" for stuff they do not need nor, in the end, do they really want (any thrift store buyer will tell you that). What is going on here?

In the stories of old a brave knight would go out and sleigh the dragon to save the damsel. Today I was the brave Knight but I was saving the dragons. This morning turned out quite nice, warm and sunny, and obviously the naiads hunkering down in my pond thought it would be a good day to hatch. Little did they know that by mid morning a storm of epic proportions would come through and would soak their wings and weigh down the plant stalks on which they were drying would plop down into the pond. During brief break in the rain I wandered out onto the patio and found three dragonflies literally drowning in the rain. Knowing I could not let such a thing happen, one by one I lifted them from the pond and brought them into my kitchen and placed them gently onto some sunflowers which I had cut from the lawn yesterday. (I now apologise for the absolute awful quality of the following photographs but I was more interested in saving the dragonflies than I was about taking photographs).




I left them in the kitchen for a while, catching their breath, just getting thier bearings and resting on the sunflowers. After a while the rain stopped and the sun came out, so I took the container which housed the sunflowers out onto the concrete patio table where the dragonflies sat and absorbed the sun. Covered in pond weed and still saturated with water they waited. As I watched, and looked more closely it occurred to me that I had three different types of dragonfly that I had rescued hatching on the same day. First a Dragonhunter, which in retrospect I should have let drown as his diet consists of other dragonflies and swallowtail butterflies but you know!



Next an Eastern Pondhawk, either a female or an immature male in the green phase.



Finally (my id is a little shakey here) a female blue dasher.



After the sun had warmed their wings a little while I performed some surgery with a toothpick to separate their sodden wings and remove what I could of the sticky pondweed. Soon each had four functioning wings and were happy to sit and dry them. By now they trusted me and when it was time for a little "surgery" they happily climbed onto my finger to be "treated".







At one point I think the dasher might have thought that I was "mom"



Every now and again one of them would flutter their wings, trying them out, just in case they were ready, and, inevitably eventually they were. And away they flew, on gossamer wings. I suppose there would be a boat load of people who would think "my god what a waste of a day" but me? Nope, I think it was a wonderful day, a day when I saved three lives, albeit tiny lives, but three lives nonetheless. Sometimes it is good to be me. :)