Garden Pictures

 A lovely bee in our garden enjoying the petunias and lantana

 The flowers are starting to bloom and spread... this is the 'pretty' part of the garden.

 Some smaller pollinator lifeforms enjoying the cucumber flowers.   We might even get some cucumbers in a week or so.. saw one or two just beginning.

Today's haul from the garden - this is the second haul of this type, sweet peas, beans, tiny zucchini squash.  It was a nice combination before cooked up.. going to cook it later.

In other news:  Mark and Esme and the dogs found a turtle up at the top of the road and Mark brought it in and put it in a box for the night to save it from the dogs and from his mowing this morning.  He took it back out this morning after we painted 'L2013' on the top of its shell in small letters in enamel paint.  I remember my mom said she did that when she was young and found the same turtle years later, still living there.  An hour or so after Mark had taken it out and released it back into the wild (where he wasn't going to mow) Esme came running through the front door with a purple clover plant saying 'I have a gift for the turtle!'.. but the box was gone.  She was so flattened.. stalked dumbfounded back to the door, out to the porch and sat holding the clover and looking at it like 'I didn't get to say goodbye'... what she told me when she came back in was 'It was a gift... it was a gift.'  So sad, and sweet.

Spud puppy is up for leash training.  It isn't working very well.. but we're trying.  He went to town yesterday and got everyone to feel sorry for him at the flea market.

I made Esme another pair of pants, and need to kick my butt into gear on the pink dress fabric.  She washed her feet in the bathtub all by herself yesterday (self sufficiency) .. which is progress.  She asked me this morning what 'passengers' meant.  After I told her it was anyone in a car, truck, train, plane etc that wasn't the driver she thought.. then came back with some story about all the passengers would crash and fall out, and die and the girls would be witches and the boys would be vampires and mummies, who were not mothers, but dead boys wrapped up in string - that is what mummies are... and we would all have to run away from the passengers.  ??  At least they are words, lots of words!  She is asking for a lot more definitions now and using them, which is excellent for her.  She also got into her Minecraft after I reinstalled the computer and is trying to rebuild things.  She asked me in her 'long rambling HUH' type fashion to rebuild the things I had before on my world 'The thing that is really tall and open and they fall and they are at the bottom and go WHEE they are hills and we go down and up them and you can build that one more three more times, ok?'  Hmm... well, I'll build something ;)  I think that means she wants my minecart system back...but that is what we are up against sometimes, still.