Happy Birthday Dad!

Today is my Dad’s B-day and he’s made it . . . 62 times around the sun I think. (47 . . . 97 . . 2007 . . . + 2 years for 09) Yeah, he’s 62 years young. Here’s a big bunch of yellow roses for you daddy. Don’t know if there’s 62 of them, but it’s a digital picture so you can duplicate it if you want to. LOL. :o}

I had quite the busy day, a result of a spontaneous encounter. Last fall I noticed a small pear tree beautifully endowed with some of the most luscious looking fruit just down the road from where we live. I had stopped to inquire about the over-ripening pears and to see if we could pick them, but no one was living at the house. I kept an eye out, but never saw anyone there and, as realty signs were posted on the property, figured nobody resided there. Fast forward to last Thursday: A man was out cutting up a tree and on a whim I stopped again to ask about the pear tree. The tree wasn’t theirs, it was the neighbors, but they had a pear tree in back that was a help-yourself. I commented on the beautiful landscape (With my 15 years experience in the field, I was quite sincere on this point. The place is gorgeous.). One thing led to another and I had a job, sort-of. The flower garden needed some serious attention. It was overgrown and plants needed to be split and moved, weeds needed to be pulled. I offered to straighten things up in exchange for some of the splits and babies that decided to seed themselves in less than optimal locations. The man who maintained the place (it turned out to be a retreat center, religious based) said he’d pay me for any work, and to help myself to some of the extra plants. Just what I asked the universe for: Free perennials!

So I spent four hours there today and came home after dark and had to cut a new 20 or so square foot bed to temporarily store all the splits that couldn’t find a home in the garden at the retreat center. And more to do tomorrow!! I’m pooped. I’ve been fasting for the past three days—mostly water and a little watered down lemonade, and some herb tea for my head cold. Oddly enough I haven’t been energy deprived like I sometimes was on other fasts.

Now a weird part: An hour or so after I was there it began raining, and as I looked down at the ground, I noticed what I thought was hail bouncing back up after it hit. It was quite warm, so I thought that was odd. On closer inspection I discovered that it wasn’t hail, it was what looked like larvae. Imagine the Mexican jumping bean without the bean. Tiny white threadlike worms or larva, each about a centimeter long, were bending themselves into little balls and then popping open, causing them to pop up 3 to 4 inches off the ground. Strange. I asked Dad and my former business associate Joe about it, but neither had ever seen this before. Anyone know??

Today Rowan ate:

tahini/sesame seed milk w/ flax

grapes

oranges

green smoothie with fresh picked spinach, lettuce, arugula, kelp powder, bananas, apples

whatever else dad made as I was “working” (Yea!)

~Sharilyn