Breakfast in the rain…

Of the many pleasures of our garden, the gentle NW spring days are one of the greatest. It rains…but this morning we threw towels onto the fabric seats of our patio set and had breakfast (softboiled egg in spaceman-with-helmet egg cup) on our flower plates with our little fat-kitteh salt shaker and beverage of our choice.

Wabash was in bloom—snow white, blue-veined, with an indigo fall and white beard, my father's alltime favorite iris, and mine—and the new rhododendron (starts pink, goes...