Dunbar Memorial Garden

At the beginning of Summer Break our divine Miss Sarah advised us all that bugs rarely bite her beauty. Unfathomable to me because I have always been the bait for any and every insect and recall ever summer counting the dozens of mosquito, flea, chigger, and black fly bites I was eternally blessed with since I was "knee high to a grasshopper" and since my parents moved us from the city to the country.

Two chigger bites to the belly button later and Sarah now knows that "sweet" is a term determined by many elements - and surely within a berry patch. Sorry, Sarah - it's the price we must pay for strawberry raspberries, n'est ce pas? When Sarah lifted her shirt at the Dunbar Garden today I don't think I was the only one shocked by the demonstration of the proverbial meanness of the chiggers. But we managed to sympathize then go back to work. No actually, she gave us this showing late in the day which was grand because I'd hate to scare folks from work at the garden because we DO NOT HAVE CHIGGERS AT THE DUNBAR GARDEN!!! (mosquito's - yeah we have those).

Rewind, back to this morning. I arrived a few minutes early under the auspices of watering our n00bies. Sarah sauntered up as did Jaz, Katelyn and Natalia ready to get some work in before Jesse's dad showed up to boss us around. Sarah is drawn to weeds like a homing device and the other gardeners wondered around bundling up sunflowers with gardening tape. We pruned back some sad beebalm then did the same with a few oxeye sunflowers. Jackie arrived to start painting the picnic table and had good creative help by Katelyn and Jaz.

Our freshly "moved" Tyler moved some mulch as did our farm girl Grace and her sidekick Natalia (with some help from JR) and the side bed of Fringetrees and Josh's red maple were transformed in record time. Among our "snacks" Natalia (with assistance from her pal Maggie) created a rice-krispies-treat that included essence of Andes mints - consumed happily and heartily by us all. Raspberries from Berries on Bryan Station were also in the mix (sans chiggers) and the cool temps made working conditons pretty darned optimal.

At the end of our work-day, Jesse's dad discovered our Northern Bayberries have leaves that are like the bay leaves used in cooking so smashed a few to stick up our noses. I'm not sure everyone appreciated the olfactory overload but I kinda did. When we planted those guys I picked them out because they are among the few "almost evergreens" the native plants offer. Cool stuff that we always learn something new when we are at Dunbar.

Oh and btw, the gold finches were all over the place when we got there this morning (and Jerome and I witnessed one at my house this afternoon). But we wondered at the seeming lack of butterflies this year? Plenty of bees and bugs and caterpillars. It reminded me somehow of how Jesse and I would stand at the kichen sink hand washing dishes (yeah, I know so 19th century) and how I told him about a girl in highschool on the speech team who performed an excerpt from a holocaust play about how "butterflies don't live in the ghetto."

We'll have to keep looking, maybe they are there when we aren't. I have seen one Monarch and a random cabbage white but it's strange the lack of them when last year was so resplendent? Fayette County Public Schools doesn't seem to be doing anything out of normal in their herbicide sprayings but what if they are using a new brand of chemical? We are MULCH MADNESS this summer so maybe that will help? One day soon there will be no reason for them to spray at all - we are working on that.

Love. love. love. to Sarah, Natalia, Katelyn and Grace. Jaz and James. Tyler and Jackie. Jesse's dad and our mulchification. The garden speaks for itself because it is continues to be awesomeness and floribunda. Yeah, and pretty darned pretty. :)

Love to all. <3>