The Birds and the Beasts
I found the strangest (largest) green beetles eating up my roses. I find them to be as pretty as the roses, but am not happy about their eating habits.
Here’s another rose (there are five bushes clumped together with four different varieties).
And here’s our rose bush over the well (which I show you every spring). It blooms in May. Very pretty, but no scent.
And my peony is blooming for the first time in my garden. Upon closer look, it seems that there’s another one of those large green beetles, tucked in the petals. I’ve never seen these guys before. They must not hatch every year.
The peach tree we planted in memory of Alistair – the baby we lost – is doing much better this year. There are eight peaches total!
And the capucine (I forgot the English name) seems to be springing up on its own now. What a cheerful bug repellant!
We’ve transplanted the strawberries from under the apple tree to their own little wooden boxes.
And in the middle, we planted a cherry tree. It will be cute! I hope it doesn’t get so big that it shades the strawberries, but I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
The raspberries are just beginning to show up.
And the lavender over there in the corner that used to be a weed-fest is starting to do nicely, even though it’s not a super sunny spot. We covered it with wood bark to keep the weeds at bay and to prevent moss and other ground cover from forming. I like the lavender here. It’s white – so different from our other two blue and purple varieties.
And this is a before shot. We plan to fill the wooden box with earth and plant garish red and yellow annuals that I wouldn’t want to put anywhere else in the garden. (I’m a pink, white and purple flower lover). And then next to the wooden box in the small plot of grass, I will plant calla lilies.
Next to that wooden box is another that’s already filled. Did you know that sage flowered so prettily?
This is the part of the house that we see when we first walk through the front gate, and I love it! I love the brick wall, the flowering plum tree, the wood bark. We’re working on the plants, but this area is filling out nicely.
And here’s another area that’s coming along, but needs more work. We need to paint the wall and studio white, and put some outdoor wood tiles for the floor, but this is a sweet little outdoor patio with a potted olive tree in the corner (that I hope will get bigger).
Hunter caught another bird.
Can you see his brother or sister in the branch there? I heard Juliet shriek and – surprisingly – Hunter dropped his prey.
But it was too late for the poor birdie. He didn’t stand a chance. His tail wasn’t even fully developed and he was no expert at flying.
Juliet was traumatised.
But she felt a little better after determining that the two remaining birds were old enough to forage and this was not the mother he had killed.
Gabriel dealt with his feelings in his own way.
And William talked.
This picture is really for the grandparents who will be astonished at how much he has grown.
Today was Mother’s Day in France, and Gabriel bought me earrings with his own money. He was so proud. He looked at me wearing them at church, and he said, “I keep thinking that you have new earrings, and I forget that I was the one who bought you those earrings!”
He asked me if I was going to tell everyone that he was the one who had bought them for me, and I said, “Absolutely!”
We went out to eat and it reminded me that I had been meaning to write some tips about dining out in France. I put them on my Facebook Fan page (did you like my page yet?) but I thought I would put them here if you want to pin them for later. You never know when you’re going to get whisked off to France for dinner!
(PS I know there’s a tiny typo in it, but I would have to start from scratch to fix it. Ugh.)
Happy Memorial Day my beloved American friends and family!
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