Beautiful!

I can almost say perfect!

We had a wonderful rain yesterday - only 3/4 of an inch and it won't make much of a dent, but we'll take it, and happily.

D and I stopped dead in the middle of the yard yesterday evening, as the sun sat on the horizon, and simply stared. I was so awestruck at the beauty in our yard that I almost burst into tears. D was just silent. (Men, you know, would never admit to the beauty of such frilly, silly things as flowers pulling at their heart strings).

It's simply indescribable. Oh, I wish I had a camera! It totally sucks that our yard is so gorgeous this year and I can't even share it!

The double impatiens I overwintered and planted in the bathroom sink (the bottom cabinet I painted white and use it to hold gardening tools and extra pots) Are covered with blooms. The old vanity chair I attached screening to and planted is simply overflowing with WS'd petunias and snap dragons. (Yeah, I make lots of wacky planters!)

My one datura that germed is a freaking tree! It's covered with buds, so I'm waiting patiently. The 4 o'clocks are also covered with tons of blooms. The toad flax got a bit bent and messy looking from the wind and downpour, but who cares! They're still beautiful. The candy tuft is starting to open, and the globe amaranth have the beginnings of the most powerfully, bright purple blooms I've ever seen! The buddleia are getting ready to burst, the bee balm are beautiful, the lillies my Aunt gave me years ago have the biggest and brightes yellow blooms I've ever seen on them!

The koi are happy as, well, fish can be, and growing like mad. The water has a deep tinge of algae green, but as long as they're happy and healthy, I could care less. The DIY filters are working perfectly this year. I need to get my daughter to take pics with her phone, I think! We ended up with 4 baby koi (I'm really glad we didn't save all those eggs!) that we moved inside yesterday. I would have rather have left them out, but the dragon fly larva were starting to feast. I have lots of daphnia to keep them going for a while, and there will soon be mosquito larva in the daphnia bucket too.

The containers by the pond overfloeth with WS'd snaps. They are the best I've ever had! The Moon Flowers are going gangbusters! Yay! No buds yet, but they are climbing the arbor by the door like mad. I sheared the salvia a couple of weeks ago and it has thrown out twice the blooms for the second round.

Since the cattail yanking, the bog is looking gorgeous. I found the most beautiful spider on the blanket flowers - Bright yellow with red stripes - I almost touched him, he blended right in!

There are tons of tomatos coming, the peppers are still full of blooms (I wish they'd get to peppering already) lots of zucchini and cucumber blossoms. The green beans are profuse with blooms. I pulled a second cabbage today to have boiled with meatloaf.

I thank God every single day for the beauty I'm allowed to have and for the wonderful people who sent me seeds so that I could actually wander among that beauty in my own yard. Thank you Kim, Sissy and Don. You all have no idea how bright and wonderful you've made my yard and garden. Thank you, thank you, thank you!