Beginner Gardening: Hackberry Trees, etc, #2, 1 by Sharran

Sharran wrote:
Hey Charlie....
So good to be back. Carol's questions made me smile. Here are answers for her:

Strangely enough, I was in a suburb of Chicago called Aurora...a very nice community. My son lives there, in a leased townhouse, but his lease is up in June so he has purchased a house and I wanted to take a look at it. The trip is maybe about 450 miles north of my home, and he was here last weekend bringing his boat back from Nashville, Tennessee, and I kept Ethan while he did so. Ethan is in preschool, but was out this week, and since Alyn, my son, had to work during this past week, but was returning here to the lake and his boat for this weekend, we decided it was a good time for me to go back with them. No driving for me when my son is at the wheel. But it sure was a long trip!

I have lived in this community here since '73, and I have wonderful neighbors. We keep check on each others houses during times like this, and my favorite neighbor is just in my back yard, so she always checks on and feeds Jazz and Daisy. They were not very happy and pouted for about 5 minutes when I walked in the door, but got over it really quickly. They do have a food dispenser which I leave well stocked, same with water, but she came in and gave them a small can of moist food once a day, and they were fine.

Son and Ethan are at the lake this weekend with friends, and I was invited, but really needed to spend some time at home since the weeds took over in my absence, and I have roses running up and down my back yard, blooming like there is no tomorrow. And there are lots of events planned for this Memorial Day weekend at the lake, so they will be busy, and will stop by here off and on. I boated enough for 2 lifetimes when the children were young and Bob and i had a houseboat. We lived on it during summers. The marina is only about 5 miles from my house. And from here in mid-America, one can go most anywhere on the waterways, south to Florida and the Atlantic coast, around the gulf and on to the west coast, or north to Chicago and the Great Lakes...so it is a well traveled route. I have been by water several times to the Gulf, but only to Chicago by water once, and never on into the Great Lakes. We had planned to do that but Bob didn't live long enough. Now I rarely boat, just short day trips. I might now that Alyn has this new boat, it is live-aboard, but not sure I really have much of a desire to do that these days. We'll see.

Wayyyyy more than you wanted to know, I'm sure, but maybe Carol will know I tried to answer all her questions. You will find I can write on a subject non stop when I get started. It was a bit of an impromptu trip, the one I just returned from, but it was a lot of fun.

Here's my first daylily bloom of the year...I usually leave the date on my flower photos, but just noticed my camera date is off by a day. Oh well, I never know what day it is anyway. (One advantage of retirement.)