SPELLING BEE

Time is marching on

“Behold, my friends, the spring is come; the earth has gladly received the embraces of the sun, and we shall soon see the results of their love.”

-Sitting Bull I thought this was the perfect arrangement of words to express the way our world right around us looks. Even in this time of great turmoil, we can still find something to ease our pain and find time to rest our minds.

They say if you can still find time to laugh and see the bright side of a disaster, there is hope for a brighter future. I sure have been trying to do my best to make this work. The 2 car garage that contained a wide range of goodies including my 2004 screaming yellow Mustang, is now down to a flat concrete surface. There was a separate door for each vehicle and Husband Larry had to make one door a bit wider and the inside of the garage area a lot higher to get in the 2009 Ford pickup. It still was a close fit and I probably only backed the pickup out a few times and never recall driving it in when Larry was with us. That was 100 percent his job. With the current arrangement of having the “garage” down to the flat concrete surface, I can easily zip in and out of it with no fear of hitting anything. For the last 6 months I had been either leaving the pickup out of the garage as much as possible or leaving it in and taking the car instead. If I ever really did need the pickup to move, it was a big process. I folded in both mirrors and hand rubbed straight lines in the dust on the hood to follow the 2 objects on the freezer in front so I could get it in the garage. Also, it probably took a few trips in and out of the vehicle to be sure I had it in far enough as if there was not a lot of room lengthwise. Backing out was a bit easier as the mirrors were still tucked in but it was hard to keep the wheels straight. I had another blessing in place as Husband Larry had an accident with the pickup and it got a lot of damage so any new bumps or dings would be hard to notice. There was a lot of praying and then expressions of joy once I got that in or out job done. It was good luck on the day of the fire that I kept saying I would put the truck in “later”, so I now have one vehicle I can drive.

I have been trying to put this little bit of information in the last few articles but I keep running out of room. Did you know that this is writing number 105 for this paper? Wow! how did that happen? Talk about time flying by. I had written close to 500 articles for the previous paper and then missed one week of writing and moved to this paper. The number of loyal readers has also been increasing and I am thankful for that. I do enjoy sharing with you and hope that even if my writing gives a single smile or adds a bit of helpful information to your life, I have done good.

Our first major summer holiday has come and gone, and usually it is the marker that says “summer is here”. No more frost warning for several months and hopefully we can at least put the jackets to the back of the closet. Perhaps it is safe to put away the gloves and mittens unless you use them for pulling weeds.

We have been getting some nice natural rains but still remember that plantings under trees or covered areas may still need humans to do additional watering. Double check any potted plants as sometimes there is just too much plant area to take in even a good rain. Almost all of the fully grown potted plants have already made their roots wrap around the inside of the pot. That forms a space that makes a perfect water runway so no water gets to the interior of the pot. Be sure to have a dead heading and fertilizing plan in place. I noticed this year that some of the potted plants you buy had labels that stated they have 3 months of fertilizer in the soil already. Okay, one less job for you. By taking away the dead blooms you let the plant just think about blooming and forget about reproducing. Wishing you a great summer…….

BY BEA WESTERBERG