A Very Drippy Day Indeed!

This morning I had a fabulous Zoom date with the people that I travel to Europe with. If you look back in my journal to last October you'll find me in Portugal. A very small group of eight people join our two hosts (a small wine importer and a pastry chef) on various "back road" adventures in Europe. Most of us live here in Portland. We've been to Italy and Portugal, next fall (we hope) will be Spain. So we all "zoomed" this morning - our hosts (now friends) Dan and Elizabeth now live in France, and my sister-in-law lives in Santa Fe so it was just great fun to see everyone when we can't get together in person.

So that was really the highlight of the day! It rained steadily today, so the golf game was cancelled (surely I'd melt in the rain, don't you think?) but I did get out to the garden for a dry moment this afternoon. I'm not nearly as far behind as I have been the last two days. I had a choice of lovely flowers asking for their portraits to be taken, but I haven't posted a digitalis recently and the roses, peonies and poppies have been in the spotlight recently. This is a sweet lonely digitalis that popped up under a rose bush. Pretty isn't it?

Early last night a friend took me to see an amazing oak tree that is 500 years old. That's why I was so late blipping. It used to be a circle of 5 oak trees that could be seen for miles around, and it was the gathering place of many tribes of native people in this region. Every July and August the tribes would gather and celebrate, do business, conduct marriages. Eventually, as the tribes succumbed to disease and then eventually and tragically relocated to other land, the Five Oaks became a gathering place for others in the community. You can read a bit about it here if you're interested. The bizarre thing is that it's smack in the middle of an industrial park!  But the last remaining oak tree is exquisite - it's a very moving place. Just imagine what that tree has witnessed over its life! See extra.