June 6, 2011: Happy Birthday Daddy!

Today is my dad's birthday; he would have been 67 years old.

Darcy and I went to the cemetery. The Wilby headstone was overtaken with irises, so I dug up about hald of them. About half of those are now planted here and there around my house. I think I'll plant the rest at the lake. I also sowed some forget-me-not seeds at the grave. Darcy sat on my sweater on the ground eating a snack and asked me what I was doing.

"Digging up flowers."


"What flowers?"


"Irises."


"Oh. Where's your daddy?"

Uh...hard question to answer. I had already told her we wouldn't actually see my daddy, so I just said, "Here." I know she doesn't understand, but she was OK with that answer and I left it at that.

Then she said, "Mommy I have to pee." So I was saved!

Our lawnmower took a long winter's nap outside and is now caput, so a friend of Kevin's came over with his tractor to mow it for us. After going to the cemetary I spent a couple of hours placing stakes at the perimeter of all my gardens, marking young trees, and the patch of irises, shown above. I put 4 stakes around the irises, one at each end and 2 on the long side (the decorations were not there).   After supper I found that 2 stakes and a lot of irises were GONE...mowed down!! So I planted some of the irises I dug earlier to try and replace them. I hope they will grow back next year!  I placed the decorations to try and make it more obvious for the next time.

Here is another one of "Dad's irises" planted in the front yard.