Funny Garden Moments on the 'Day of Light'

NPR just called today “the Day of Light”. Gotta pull myself together. So the days are about to get shorter again...meanwhile, stuff is blooming like mad. I’m going to snap myself out of my solstice funk by sharing some images that capture a few of  my "lighter" garden moments.

One such smile-bringer is a plant...prairie smoke. I spotted it recently on an arboretum visit and what would summer be without it. Every time I see it, I have to think of the title of that wonderful Tennessee Williams play, Summer and Smoke, or Eudora Welty and her tall grass prairies stretching off toward the horizon. Cool.

I also can’t resist sharing a some whimsical shots from the garden that inspired my novel series, LIFE IN THE GARDEN. Last season one of our community gardeners spotted a hole about the size of an electrical outlet box in a tree in the garden. “What on earth would somebody be doing trying to bring electricity out here?” she thought. Turns out, it was a pileated woodpecker hole. Take a look also at our very own pet garden snake on one of the paths. It has become a real crowd pleaser with visitors, though it’s not exactly as advertised.  Also in the slideshow, a frog chorus from my daughter's pond that makes our pond's little crew of the critters look downright skimpy.

Biggest garden ‘funny’ of all is the incredible number of chips I have filled so far with photos for my blog. Little did my photographer husband know what a monster he was creating when he urged me to take over my own illustrations. LOL.