indigo pears

Happy Birthday, Andrew! [Our son]
Here he is as a 10 year-old at the rock gym and later on a climb somewhere in the Western hemisphere (below). Andrew is now in school to become a chiropractor, and is married to a wonderful woman, Mary. We love them both and are thinking of them today!

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Having a different schedule this week, I have the day off. So I headed down to my chair in the garden this morning, journals and coffee cup in hand. [Watercolor above from my garden journal of a yellow-shafted Northern flicker. I was delighted to see these "new" (to me) birds in my backyard a couple of weeks ago. I didn't know what that "polka-dot" bird with a red cap could be....so I did some research!]

Before I could sit and write, I had to lift and tie up heavy, fruit-laden branches of the tomato plants. Here is the garden about 9:00 a.m. after they were tied up to the bamboo and the wire cages.

While tying back the branches, I discovered two cucumbers hiding under the large leaves!
Here they are with dark coleus for accent.

I'm thinking that this garden is rather too shady for a vegetable garden, the large oak tree next door casts a long shadow. I think the garden is in sun barely 6 hours/day. If it were sunnier, I think I would be harvesting more. But is is fun and what we get is delicious!

I made another change in the garden, pulling out all of the purple plants, perilla, except those in the concrete "greenman" planter. I need the space they were taking.

Finally, here is a photo of the flowers beside my garden chair.