The Patio is Ready for Summer...

Over the past month or so we've been getting the patio garden ready for the summer season. Last Sunday we filled the water garden with new plants, and before that we'd started filling pots with beautiful and tasty herbs. White begonias are slowly filling in the bed around the fountain, and the plants in the mini-rock garden, tucked into the corner of the patio, are sprawling nicely. The orange blossoms of the Kangaroo Paw have become a hummingbird magnet. It's rare now not to see one or more of them flitting through the yard. And, most amazing, the calla lilies are STILL sending up blossoms, continually blooming since mid-December. Sadly, the zucchini planted a month or so ago in a huge pot sent off lots and lots of flowers, but not a single piece of fruit, and has developed a terrible case of mildew. The good news is that summer squash abounds - we certainly won't do without just because we didn't grow our own!

Power Failure...

Thursday afternoon we experienced a "brown-out"; a couple of hours later it turned into a complete loss of power, not just in our home, but in all twenty-three of the units in our complex. Servicemen from
Southern California Edison arrived around 5:30, eventually determining that a underground cable into the complex from the street was bad. Early in the evening Larry spoke with one of the crew and was told we shouldn't expect a return of power until around 5:00 a.m. Turned out that wasn't even close to true. It was 3:05 on Friday afternoon when the power came back, nearly twenty-four hours after the power shortage began.

At times during the day on Friday there were up to five or six pieces of equipment and a dozen workmen on the property. Once the bad cable was removed and the new one replaced, it was decided that replacing the transformer was "prudent". Larry couldn't resist taking a few pictures of some of the activity here in the neighborhood.

The MacKay Tartan...

Margaret ordered a scarf in the Ancient MacKay plaid when we went to ScotsFest in May. It just arrived, and it's quite beautiful!

In the Good Old Summertime...

Happy Summer Solstice!

A Pic-Nic Visit in the Park with Heather and the kids...

It has been way too long since we've spent time with Heather and the little ones. We met earlier today at the Arboretum on the campus of Cal State Fullerton for a stroll around the grounds and a pic-nic lunch on the grass.

The Children's Garden...

A beautiful place for a walk...

Just a few of the sights around the Arboretum.

A couple of Margaret's favorite people...

Our dear friend, John Berney, recently started his own hunter/jumper training business, a move that was a long time in coming and is proving to be the best possible thing he could have done for himself and a group of loyal customers. Here he is with "little" Makenna, the young lady that Margaret coached through countless horse shows, back in the kid's pony days. Now she's growing up, and is beginning what we believe will be a very successful show career with her new big horse companion, Rich. She picked up a couple of blue ribbons yesterday - the first to go up on the new John Berney Equestrian wall!

A flower of a different color...

What a surprise to find bright orange sunflowers at the Farmers Market last Thursday. Margaret just had to get a few of this unusual specimen. A few hours later, the truth came out, just like the red dye that seeped back into the water in the vase! Oh well - they ARE pretty, and if we can find more of them during harvest season in the fall, they'll be great to set out with our other autumnal decorations!