Flower Friday : : Achillea

We took out a huge blue agave from this spot in our garden a couple of years ago. It was blooming and would take years to die, but death cannot be avoided once they bloom. With Dana's help we relandscaped the front of the house with lavender and the space vacated by the agave with achillea and a 'rock river'. We had just finished planting everything when the whole town caught fire, our power went out and we had to evacuate.

OilMan was obsessed about watering and we actually went back once to put some water from the hot tub on the new plants, but then a mandatory evacuation was declared and we had no choice but to leave all our new landscaping to its own devices.

We were gone for two weeks and when we came back, fearing the worst, these achillea were not only alive but thriving. They have grown a lot since then and to me they are a symbol of resilience and determination and the fact that although the fire was only half a mile away, there was no sign of any damage save for smoke and ashes.

We bought the egret with a fish in its mouth from a farm supply store down the road partly to remind us how lucky we were, and partly to help a friend who owns it and wasn't as lucky....

In the wake of the most extraordinary 'debates' featuring the huge field of Democratic candidates hoping to defeat the incumbent president, I can't help feeling that they are shooting themselves in their collective feet. There are so many of them that they had to be split into two groups of ten and spread over two nights. Each of them seems to have chosen a different issue on which to concentrate. I had hoped after the first night that they would concentrate on attacking the incumbent instead of each other, but the second night's group did not follow suit....

It's going to be a loooong election season....