Saturday, April 11, 2009

Spluttering Saturday...

I'm still trying to fight off Dottie's cold...a few hours good then a few hours miserable. I get to where I almost feel like doing something then I'll cough myself into a splitting headache and decide not to...

I mailed that paperwork off Priority with a return receipt to make sure it was there by Friday afternoon. I've done my part and now will sit back to see what happens!

Tomorrow Dottie is off for the holiday and we'll be spending the day at John and Noel's, watching the grandkids hunt Easter eggs and such. Hopefully we get the egg hunt in before the rain begins again.

I'm giving up on my tulips for the year; last year I had over a dozen, but this year they've been covered so much that only 4 buds had come up and one of them snapped off under the cover in the wind the other night. It's supposed to freeze again tonight and perhaps again later in the week...perhaps next year!

I saw someone's photos of flowers in her neighbors yard, ones planted by his wife and now she's gone and he's in a nursing home and no one was there to enjoy them. I acquired my tulips that way...the women who owned the house up the hill from me gave almost everything she had to Jim and Tammy Faye "back in the day". I had kept her car running for her and such, helping her mow on the hot days and doing what I could without intruding too much. When she died and the house was sold, the next tenant didn't care a bit about the flowerbeds and such, so finally I asked if I could transplant the tulips and did. Each year I think of Mabel Rose and wonder if anyone else does...

The house has been through a half dozen tenants since then and been vacant the last 3 years. I'm sure no one but me remembers where those flowers came from, but I'm glad they aren't mowed under like her iris bed was!

May your weekends each be wonderful!

alan

11 comments:

Riot Kitty said...

Hey,
Sorry about your cold and your tulips. Sweet story about how you got them, though.

Wendy said...

Very sweet. We are flowere friends. ;)

chrissieB said...

E gets very sneezy this time of year, but it's allergies and not a cold, she thinks.

We have loads of tulips here. They grow all along the side of the road between this village and the next small town.

I must take a picture of them on a sunny day. They were initally planted, and are tended, by the local parish council but every year more and more of them are stolen by visiting holiday-makers, bulbs and all.

Hope you clear that cold soon, Alan.

love
chrissie
xxxx

mckait said...

Hello Alan~

Too bad about the tulips..ine never came up this year.. or not the flowers anyway.. just leaves. I have a couple of hardy hyacinths that braved the cold. The rose bushes are starting to get a little green on them.

Just wanted to pop in and say hello and wish you good things..

Damienzchance said...

I don't know your Mabel Rose, but I do have a dear friend gone from my life, and not a day pass i don't keep his spirit alive in my memories.
Please don't give up on your tulips!!!

robin andrea said...

So kind-hearted of your to remember your neighbor Mabel Rose and her tulips. Some years are definitely harder on early spring flowers than others.

Anji said...

Hope your cold is on the mend by now. I'd forgotten about the hunt till I head whoops of joy from nextdoor. It woke my sleeping teenager! -time flies.

What a lovely story behind your tulips. I hope you have a bumper year next year. I hate to think of someone in the future pulling up my irises.

The house across the road had a lovely garden and when the old couple died the garden was sold off and a house built. They chopped at the cherry tree and I think they have a lot of concrete (the walls are to high to see in). The cherry tree has hardly any blossom this year and I'm sure it's because it feels unloved.

Angeline Rose Larimer said...

I appreciate your tulip troubles. Mine are hanging in. This would be the second year in a row of them not making it to full bloom. We'll see. They're budded, waiting for a long stretch of sunny weather. As it is, feels less than forty out today.

The story of inherited flowers really got me. Not a lot of other folks out there as sentimental as me.
When my grandmother died, I took a dried out succulent from her kitchen windowsill and resolved to keep it alive as long as I could. Other people went for inanimate remembrances, but there was something about knowing grandma shared a living space with that plant, poured water for it, picked a dead leaf off now and again, that made me feel close to it...
I brought it back and it has been ten years now. Nobody could get me to part with it.
You can bet if grandma had had irises in her yard, I'd have dug them up. As it is, I miss her peonies every Memorial Day.
So I planted my own.
Now you've got me wondering who will take care of them for me in sixty years. Maybe a granddaughter. I hope. :-)

ryssee said...

What a nice story about the tulips!
Mine (along with the daffodils and other miscellaneous bulbs I can't remember that I stuck in the ground) need a good stretch of sun. I'm hoping for this week!
Hope you feel better fast.

Lucie G said...

Get well :).
Shame about your tulips maybe next year.

Kranki said...

Hope that cold has released your nose by now. What a wonderful story about the tulips. They make everybody happy when they bloom but having an extra attachment to them makes them even better. Maybe they will make an appearance in a couple weeks. Our cherry blossoms were about 3-4 weeks late this year.