Here is another look at the garden my grandson, Gavin, helped me plant in June. I would have to say that it is thriving, wouldn't you?


This another shot from a different angle. I think of my little guy every time I look out and see this garden. I call it Gavin's garden. When my grandson Gage was about 4 he pulled a limb on the maple tree in my front yard and broke it off. He was just being a kid and I didn't want to make a big deal about it. I didn't want him to get in trouble. I took the broken limb and I stuck it in the ground and "planted" it. It grew! I always called it the Gage tree. I had to leave it behind when we moved, but I carry the memory with me.

This is a new garden, only a few weeks ago I asked that a mound of dirt be dumped here. It was unsightly and I pondered how to mold the lumpy hard clay into something resembling a "mound". It was raining and I took a trip to the grocery and found theses lovely mums at a wonderful price. Problem solved. I stuck them into every crevice and then climbed atop the pile and sort of stomped it into the shape you now see. Cover with mulch and... voila... a garden. Two of the children in the park came by on their bikes and wondered about the mulch. They told me it looked like chewing tobacco to them.

Frogs, I love frogs. this is my new welcome sign complete with a happy frog. He is perched among my strawberry plants.

I have been a little slow and lazy so far this week. I actually slept until 9:30 this morning! I could have slid under the covers and slept the whole day away, but got up.

Last night was simply horrible here. We have a leak on one our sites. This site has a frost free hydrant and the parts are easily available. Love of my life had already made three trips to "town" for various things and couldn't find what he needed. I suggest that he make a list of all the things he can anticipate before he leaves on the first excursion, but this is not the way he operates. You would think that after 35 years I would know this.

The sky was already losing light as he left to go to a store about 50 miles away to get the part he needed. I thought I might be coming down with a cold and had been instructed to "take it easy". Other than the laundry and dishes and the occasional phone reservation I was doing that. But as soon as he left the floodgates opened and the phone rang non-stop and I had enough traffic to make it impossible to curl up on the couch with the dogs.

I was counting the minutes left to be open when the phone rang and a late comer asked me to wait for them. I did and the man was very nice and thanked me for waiting. I went through my usual speech and used a hi-liter to mark the route he should take. He left and I locked up. Love of my life was still absent. I got all settled in for another episode of House. I had been watching it all day and was beginning to think I may have something seriously wrong with me. I had my computer at the ready to look up my symptoms....when.... the phone rang.

It was the wife of the nice gentleman I had just registered. They were lost. Lost? I gave him a map. He was paying about as much attention as any other man does when being directed by a woman..... but ...... lost? She says that she thinks they took a wrong turn and they are on a deserted road with no sites and a big mound of dirt (not my new garden!). I step outside, phone in my hand, looking for the lights of their rig. The sites start on one side of the park and are sort of in a horse shoe shape. There is a turn you can take and it will lead you to a row of sites that are out of the tree line. I should be able to see them and I don't. I tell her that I will come and find them.

I am already braless at this point and I throw a sweatshirt on and shove my socked feet into my flip flops and grab the car keys........ and I get into the car that is so out of fuel that the light is on and it is making that stupid dinging noise. Now we all know that I don't put fuel in my car unless I absolutely have to ( like when I go to Minnesota to see my kids). I had alerted the one who is responsible for keeping his wife's tank full that I had already driven over 25 miles in the light-on, dinging state. It is dark and I don't relish the thought of running out of fuel and leaving my car to walk home...even in my own park.

I drive over to the unfinished area of the park and through the tree line there, thinking that they could be there, since I can't see their lights from my building. They are not there and I turn my little car around and head back to the main road. I see that my fence has been hit pretty hard... hard enough that the post is completely out of the hole, concrete and all. I finally spy their lights in the woods. I make my way cautiously to them and find that a couple of my campers (pipe liners, no less) are already helping the man back out. Tom and Hoss to the rescue!

Long story. We ate supper at 8:30. Tonight as I checked in my last camper, he was concerned that I wouldn't have change for a twenty. Welcome to my world.