Run For the Roses

Another beautiful day today...and such a lot to it. First off, it was Cinquo de Mayo, though I never did get around to a celebratory Margarita.

I'd have preferred a Mint Julep, but I wasn't in Kentucky...and anyway, our mint has only just started unfurling from the ground in the last 24 hours.


Here's a closer look at the blossoms of the money plant. Pretty, eh?


Out in the back garden, the sun had the latest tulips open wide in invitation of pollinators. I haven't seen any bees out here yet this year, though am keeping my eyes open for them.

I saw a pretty little orange butterfly the other day, and there are assorted other insects flying around, though.


I even got in about half an hour of tugging out more errant clumps of grass from the winter, in preparation for adding some fresh topsoil to the back garden beds in the coming week.


But pretty quickly, I had myself organized and on the road to Hyannis, for assorted errands and what turned out to be my own "run for the roses."

First, there was a visit to Le Mart de K for the purchase of the afore-mentioned top soil and a package of crocosmia bulbs, for blooms later in the summer. I'm a little disappointed that I was distracted from picking up a package of cannas in matching colors, but oh, well, all in good time.

Then a visit to Borders and also Newbury Comics--it was Free Comic Book Day, so impossible to pass that up.

And then on to Ocean State Job Lot, where I found two promising looking roses...a pink hybrid tea and a deep red flowered shrub...and a nice assortment of flower seed packets, to put that new top soil to work once it's been added.


And then off to work, where the cherry trees are in full-on bloom, and alive with bumblebees. Really nice to see them, as it is the first sighting for 2007.




This evening at Churchill Downs, there was the usual musical remem
brance of that Old Kentucky Home, a great thundering of hooves, and a dark bay colt named Street Sense and a jockey named Calvin Borel came from next to last to win this 133rd Kentucky Derby by two and a quarter lengths.

Good show, old chaps!

There's a frost warning for us tonight, so the roses (and a six pack of dianthus I made the acquaintance of last night) will stay in the relative safety of the car for the overnight.

Frost isn't such a bad thing, though, as I contemplate other weather alternatives, and spare a thought tonight for the folks in Greensburg, KS and Sweetwater, OK, who've suffered great losses in tornados there today.

Time to count those blessings!