Dear Mom,

Well as I promised here are some pictures of our garden. Well I actually only promised one of our “hope” garden. But give me a camera and our garden, and I can’t help but take a couple of pictures. Ok so here is our “hope” garden.

The picture is taken early in the morning, so lighting may not be a good as it could be.

Those are miniature Korean Lilac bushes surrounded by lavender plants. I planted the garden about 10 months ago, in anticipation of this spring. One lavender plant died this winter, so I replaced it recently. It’s the one in the center on the right. The garden is beginning to smell like lilac. I enjoy watering it in the evening.

By the way, you can expand the pictures by clicking on them and resizing them. Then you can get a better look at the plants. That is if you are looking at this online.

Ok, next I have to show you the birdbath on the deck. Never mind that the deck itself needs staining. Actually it needs to be replaced… but I have more time than money! Well anyway, here is the birdbath…

We’ve had this planter about 5 years now. And have always used it as a fountain. The birds love to wash themselves in it. And I mean wash themselves … they stay in the water for about a minute once they get started. I really enjoy sitting drinking coffee and seeing them hop into the birdbath. The swallows like the flat are right next to the iris. By the way, that iris is at least 3 years old. It winters out of water… amazing! Most of the water plants we put in there are one season. Well, we actually drain the planter, turn it upside down, and move it to a protected place in the winter. We have had it turn into a solid block of ice several times… that’s no good.

The flower on the left in the fountain is a cardinal flower. Hopefully it will do well. It may be too wet for it. But I’m hopeful that it will do ok there, it certainly won’t be because of lack of sun… If all goes well it will yield bright red trumpet like flowers and will grow between 2 and 3 feet high.

What’s also cool about this fountain, (can you see it?) is that it is attracting the mocking birds. They like to come and drink from it. We have never had mocking birds up on the deck. They don’t come and eat the bird food that we put out. So it’s nice to see them up close. They are gorgeous birds. And forget it… the robins will never come on the deck. We have plenty of robins in the yard, but they never come up on the deck.

Ok, at the risk of making this document a bit too big for email, I’m going to include a couple of more pictures. I could resize them smaller, but then you don’t get to see the flowers too well. And as they are, you can resize them to get a better view of the flowers.

The next picture is a before picture. Joseph and I filled one of our whiskey barrows with snapdragons. I’m visualizing a riot of color!

We have about 40 snap dragon plants in the barrow. So it should be special. I’ll send a mid summer picture later. In my mind, I’m visualizing a rainbow of colors, right out side of our kitchen window. Last summer we had this barrow filled with zinnias. They were spectacular.

Hey I just realized, I’m going on about my flowers. Well don’t hold it against me. Especially since it’s just between us two… (wink). Esp just mentioned that we should start a greenhouse business. That is not a bad idea. I really love working with plants. Great therapy.

This next plant is an inside plant we picked up last year at Peterson’s down in Lambertville, on sale. Wow what a prolific plant! It’s a anthurium plant. What a great looking plant. It has doubled it’s size since we got it. It makes bright red flowers year round. And it does well inside. What a nice home companion it is. The mistake we made with this one is that the planter does not have a whole in the bottom of it. So we have to be careful about watering. We bought a couple of large planters last year like that. They look great, but you have to be careful about how much water you put in them. Anyway, this anthurium plant has done well in the entry foyer that gets plenty of light, and has a controlled temperature. We have had a lot of success with plants in that area.

Ok, last one for this letter. Here is our coffee plant. It’s now 3 or 4 years old. We had it out on the front stoop last summer, in the shade. It did great there. And that is where it is for this summer also. The one problem we have had with this plant, is light. The leaves char so easily. It happened again this year. I put it out on the stoop 2 weeks ago, but on the other side. I thought that was the shadiest side. Well, it gets mid day sun. And wham, it charred many of the leaves. We turned the charred side towards the house when we moved it in the location you see here. That is why they don’t show up in the picture. But they are there! It will do ok. We expect more dramatic growth this summer from this plant. It really does great in this location. Who knows, we might someday be able to make some coffee from it’s beans. As of yet we’ve not seen any.

Well I guess that is all the picture I dare cram into this document. The file is already over 2 megs. Thank God for broadband! It’s seventy and overcast here today. Hopefully we will get the rain the weatherman promised to us this weekend. We are parched here.

Joseph is home for the summer. He made the dean’s list. Hopefully he will be working for the Somerset County parks department this summer doing maintenance and event management. That will be a great job for him. We’ve got our fingers crossed for him.

Jeffry is with the Mary Mother of God youth group today, and is heading down to Great Adventure Amusement park. Roller coasters and a youth rally are taking place down there. He should have a great day. Even though the day is overcast, we sent him with suntan lotion. He burns as easy as I do. He finishes school in a couple of weeks. He had a great year at school.

Esperanza and I are doing well. We are taking good care of each other. She is such a great cook, I have to constantly watch what I eat. I mean it, this week she cooked lasagna that was to die for… wow was it good. I enjoy her coffee at breakfast every morning.

I had break problems with the Porsche a couple of weeks ago. And now there is some sort of oil cooling issue. We are dropping it by the dealership today to see what is going on. Hopefully it won’t be too expensive. Yeah the dealership is open today (Sunday) because there is some sort of Porsche club show there today. Hopefully will see some cool cars when we get there. I’ll take some pictures and send one or two in my next letter.

I trust you are settling into Sharon and Paul’s home by now. It’s always a big adjustment when settling into a new environment. I hope that you, and the Welsch family are able to reach a comfortable arrangement. I bet you end up talking Spanish before too long!

It really feels like rain here. The wind has picked up and it has got cooler. We really need a good soaking rain. Well I pray that we get the rain and that God blesses you this week. We’ll talk soon.

Your son,

Jeffry