My Garden: Part II

Tomato plants are looking good--see some already red?

The first bunch of spinach...now without all the weeds.

Pepper plants and happy-looking sunflowers

Zucchinis and cucumbers

Parsley and Dill (blooming)

Was hoping you might know what this plant is and if it should be pruned back a bunch...we didn't last year and now it is even bigger. Already done blooming.

My garden!

Last night I got the final plants in my garden, and am posting photos!

(Left) Purple iris for Dad!

(Right) Spinach

Garden overview pictures

Middle Row: (Left) Peas (Right) Herb garden with parsley, dill and basil.

Choices

if i can't do
what i want to do
then my job is to not
do what i don't want
to do

it's not the same thing
but it's the best i can
do

if i can't have
what i want then
my job is to want
what i've got
and be satisfied
that at least there
is something more
to want

since i can't go
where i need
to go then i must go
where the signs point
though always understanding
parallel movement
isn't lateral

when i can't express
what i really feel
i practice feeling
what i can express
and none of it is equal
i know
but that's why mankind
alone among the animals
learns to cry

—Nikki Giovanni

Good friends

This was the future. Life would get busier and more varied, populated both by beautiful things and unfortunate circumstances. If their friendship demanded exclusivity or solitude, it couldn’t work. If it required that everything go as planned, it would turn brittle, and ultimately it would break. On the other hand, she knew that if they could be flexible and big, if they could encompass change, then they would make it...“Whatever happens, we will find each other. We always will.”

-Ann Brashares, Girls in Pants

Contagion!

This was a really good movie. But almost too close to real for comfort. Its one of the negative sides of living in a world that's so connected. It is definitely sticking with me though, and that's my definition of a good movie. Anyway, worth watching if you get a chance!

National Fossil Day at Glen Canyon

On Saturday we also celebrated National Fossil Day at Glen Canyon for the second time. We had a good turnout as Katie and I provided materials for dinosaur drawings and rubbings and stamp pictures and dinosaur footprint watercolors and clay dinosaurs...

I don't usually get to spend my days working with kids, and really enjoyed being pumped up by their enthusiasm! Their excitement, and wearing their new Junior Paleontologist badges and knowing the answers to all my questions during my therizinosaur talk.

What a great setting for National Fossil Day the visitor center was this year. Last year's milestone of getting a fossil case in was impressive. But this year to be surrounded by amazing artwork and the mounted therizinosaur skeleton and pictures of the Western Interior Seaway and the moving plesiosaur and the Pteranodon outside--surrounded by stories of Glen Canyon's ancient past!

A little more subdued in all ways from last year, it left us free to focus on the kid's joy and parent's curiosity.

One year ago today...

Glen Canyon lost two great rangers--Laurie Axelsen and Brent McGinn. We still think of them often and wish they could be back with us. We are inspired by what they taught us. In their memory I wrote a poem last year.

Harsh landscape

Sun and shadow

New ant hills on smooth riverbanks

Grateful to be alive

Tears leaking out

Beautiful landscape

Photos of wreckage

Haunting

Bright colors

Survived by parents

Tragedy

I can only imagine

Wind-whipped hair

Firm piloting

A good teacher

Winks and barefeet

The helpless feeling of knowing you can never name enough things after them