Veronica, Harebell, Swallowtail video, the Pipe is finished! River Wallowing & songs (Issue 104)
Visit the new Veronica website page. That’s where all the good info is located! Veronica is a new flower to me. I tried it a few years ago, but I think hubby weeded it. I planted two varieties this year and I am excited to watch them to see what they do. I think they may be a new favorite flower to spread about the garden.
Here is the YouTube video. Thanks all who are watching my videos.
Visit the new Penstemon (Harebell) website page. There is no video with this one as it is from 2020. In my study, I am totally confused about the varieties. I think I want to look into them further and possibly plant another one in the future.
YouTube Shorts do not embed on Substack, so visit this link to see the Papilio glaucus, the eastern tiger swallowtail that has been hanging around my gardens.
This photo was taken June 30 to share with you one of the many progress photos and videos I have taken since February on our drainage pipe work. We spent a lot of money, but saved a ton more by doing it ourselves. Over 6 months of work, and we are finishing up the last stretch today! Months ago we finished the first pipe and this second one seems to just keep going on and on.
I cannot tell you how elated we are! We still have a lot of perephrial work to do.
We had the air conditioner raised on Friday and we have a pile of dirt left over from installing the pipes on that side of the house, so we will need to shovel it around to raise the ground to have water flow away from the house and the window wells.
We have a huge mound of dirt outside our big picture window. It is going to be moved mostly to the very back of the yard to restructure the surface in the back garden bed to direct water into the basins. Some of the water is bypassing them, so we need to make ground higher than the basin to make the water flow that way.
We also have some steps that lead out the back gate and we are going to use the dirt to rebuild and stabalize those steps that keep sliding down from the torrents of water that flow over them.
I keep saying at least we won’t be digging up dirt and making a mess, and that each task we have left will feel restorative and ever so closer to the finish line. The work will feel much easier than the work that we have been doing.
These bags of gravel have been very expensive and extremely difficult to carry in this heat. On Thursday the heat index reached 109 degrees! We had to stop. There was no way we could continue to work in that heat. We have been getting up early and working until we can physically no more because of the heat. At least today the temperature was 88 and the heat index only 91. That is 18 degrees less than on Thursday! It is still very hot, but much more able than the earlier. We started this in February and had no idea it would take us this long to do. I thought we would be done long before the heat and humidity hit. It is what it is and we have perservered!
What a glorious day it is to finally (nearly) finish this huge project. And we can say we did it ourselves!
Yesterday after working until noon on the pipe we went river wallowing and ate at the local windery. River wallowing is our favorite thing to do! Again, shorts do not embed here, so here is a quick video to watch. I am not sure if I will post a full video or not, but I have one to put together. River wallowing just feeds my soul! I need this!
While we were at the river, I searched for river songs on YouTube and listened to a few. Later in the middle of the night trying to go back to sleep, I even searched on my phone from songs I had digitized years ago. Wow! There are a lot of “river” songs!
I had never heard this song before from 8 years ago. The lyrics are captivating. The comments are even more interesting.
Johnny Depp quote: “People cry, not because they’re weak. It’s because they’ve been strong for too long.”
From What Dreams May Come: “Good people end up in hell because they can’t forgive themselves.” - Robin Williams.
Dear God, today I pray for all of us. Today I p ray for our collective pain, our collective sins, our collective suffering. Today I ask you to forgive us and to teach us to also forgive ourselves. Today I ask you to wash away all of the pain from our hearts and bring us to peace. Today we reach out to you humbly and surrender from trying to do everything ourselves, and allow Your power to flow through us, to guide us, to help us overcome the insurmountable. Addition, Pain, suffereing, egativity, hatred, igrnoance, regret, poverty, disease, war, famine, shortcomings. We surrent Lord. We cannot do this by ourselves anymore.
I hope this post finds you well and reaches your inside feelings in some way.
Cheryl
Big congrats! It’s all a labor of love. You’ve got a botanic garden, so many varieties. Foxglove beard-tongue is beautiful! Another foxglove, interesting, i just googled and find that they belong to different families.