I know you can’t see him. She appeared too, a moment later sitting right in the middle of the gate for just that moment before I got the iPad ready. You’ll have to take my word for it. The other picture  is just to show off my pink lilac bush. I took the last bunch of lilac as a hostess gift last night. They are finished now, the mauve ones drying off into little brown annoyances and the pink fading away. For their annual two weeks of glory they were intoxicating but this week they will revert to their tree-weed status. 

The garden is poor. For the first time I am plagued with squirrels. I will ask my grandchildren for a surplus water pistol. I have no pity or mercy upon them. The birds are wonderful this year, probably fattening up on the many snails that have appeared. 

I count on the peonies that are almost there and the irises who never let me down. They are of a watery blue, an ink blue and a deep almost black. My indigo plant is growing inches every day and the clematis doing its best to recover from some O’Henry type pruning. You know, The Gift….look what a disaster I have wrought, my love, for you. 

If anyone knows of a way to make hydrangea bloom please tell me. Having inflicted coffee grounds, egg shells and ground up banana peels on my little darlings ( and subsequently learned these things do nothing to help) I really want to help this faithful climber to put forth a bloom or two! It’s been growing vigorously for about five years and last year there was one flower!

This was meant to be about consolations. Those birds? Bustling around and calling or fluttering excitedly early in the day is a beautiful beginning. They don’t care about anything except what their own natures call them to do. Their single-minded purpose is a good point of meditation.