Moriah treated Mark and me
(Mary) to breakfast at a local restaurant near the house where she is living. As we were leaving, I saw a pair of old cement wash tubs used as a planter for flowers in the outdoor dining area. The old wash tub taken out of our garage space was just killing grass so I now had a creative use for it. The lettuce plants keep us and our neighbour, on the lower level, supplied with salad greens. Hopefully there is enough growing weather left for the volunteer watermelon to develop down the front of the tubs.
After the back-room was demolished, we could see blooms that had been hidden at the back of the property. One was a two-toned, pink and yellow double hibiscus on a bush with mostly peach coloured (colored) flowers.
When the council (local government) representative surveyed the trees on our site for a possible new building on the front of the property, I asked about various trees that were a bother.
One was a cabbage palm that was just starting in our back garden. They are natives but self start all over the garden. Since one was
not very big, she said I could remove it. I sawed it off at the ground but it started to sprout from the root-ball. The new sprout was a beautiful green against the old brown stump.
One night as Mark was closing drapes and shutting windows, he noticed a visitor on our fence.
Even though it wobbled when he ran along it, the possum ran the length of our falling-down, side fence. He often makes so much racker jumping onto the tin roof over our back room and running to the front of the house. Even though he ate all my tomatoes on my deck forcing me to plant them in a bed out front and drape them with netting, it was still exciting to see him that night.
Regardless that the palms drop large quantities of flowers, seed and leaves all over and cause a mess, they also attract birds. One evening four Rainbow Lorikeets were hanging on this seed pod. Some were even upside-down. They are honey or nectar eaters.
Most of the potted plants that we had at our old apartment, Mary brought to the house. Wilamina, who lived downstairs wanted to block sound from the street by placing some of them in front of her lounge (living-room) door which used to be the area for the garage door. Due to the construction, we had to move many of them to make room for the rubbish skip-bin so we placed some next to our front door. They immediately started to bloom. We may leave some of them there. Mark thinks it looks like the entry into a plant shop.
We had friends (the Benders) from seminary days visit from Pennsylvania with their son and his wife. Driving visitor around, pointing out nice spots to see, draws our attention to the beauty that is around us all the time but often we are too busy to notice. Thank God that beauty is there even when we don't pause to appreciate it. The Bender's son gave us a hand-carved, wooden pie knife and server. It is so well formed and finished so smoothly that it is a pleasure to hold and touch. I love good wood and this piece is Maple.
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