Flower Friday : : Guara

Although it was a dismal drizzle when I left for class this morning, I was so preoccupied with my computer problem that I barely noticed. By the time Tobi and I met my brother Rick, who is here for the weekend, and OilMan at Acre Coffee, the sun was trying to come out and we sat outside not even trying to sort out the disasters unfolding daily in Washington and elsewhere in the world. 

The clouds had covered the patches of blue sky by the time I started prowling around the garden looking for a flower picture. There is a lot to chose from at this time of year, and while not great for my mood, the light was quite nice for pictures of roses and squash blossoms, hydrangeas and sweet peas, but in the end I liked the lacy guara with a background of purple giant verbena.

I had to laugh at the engineer and the artist teetering across the steep hill in the back trying to lay out a line for a small wall they are building in an attempt to lessen the slope and create a terrace of sorts. OilMan insisted on using a string and stakes and a tape measure, while Dana kept telling him to move things one or two inches this way or that.Although they seemed to be in agreement over the fact that the wall should parallel something, there was absolutely no agreement over what it was or whether this was actually occurring. 

A large collection of rocks from the field is appearing at the bottom of the stairs. Dana must have transported half a ton of rocks by bucket and hand truck from the field where she found them. I think she just wants to get started.

While OilMan and Dana toiled over their wall, Rudy and Blake teamed up to deconstruct other walls. Rudy finds lizards within and somehow directs Blake to remove the rocks so he can dig, sometimes for days, looking for the long vanished lizard. 

As I write this, the tantalizing fragrance of Middle Eastern spices is drifting in from the kitchen where my brother is cooking a tagine. I love it when Rick comes to visit....