Happy Birthday Pirl!!

just beautiful Pirl!!

Thank you, Allison.

Happy Belated Birthday, Pirl!

Thanks, Sandy. Your beautiful gardens are an eternal inspiration to me.

This is just one example of Sandy's stunning gardens with hostas as a leading star:
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/fp.php?pid=6653647

Just one more:
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/fp.php?pid=6653882

Those hosta are wonderful!

love them!!

My dream is for my gardens to look like Sandy's and I've told her so.

Gorgeous.
Pirl your gardens are just so beautiful don't know how they can look better

Wow - gorgeous hosta collection. No deer, I guess!

Thanks, Jen. That's a lovely compliment.

Victor - should we send Sandy some deer? Even if it were possible I couldn't inflict them on anyone.

Belated Happy Young 70 wishes, Pirl. We've been away for 4 days celebrating my son's birthday in Conn. Boy, I know so many who are celebrating their 70th this year, including Hank! I love the photo of you and your Granddaughter! I'm assuming she's the one on the left, right? :) It really is a great photo of you and of her! How lovely to celebrate together. I must say that you were among my first DG friends and I have always enjoyed you and learned so much from you. Thanks for the many gifts you give us all! Keep the celebrating going. You are SOOOO worth celebrating!
XOXOXO
Louise

Thank you, Louise, for the sweet and humorous message. Megan might not appreciate the joke but I do! She and I are just 9 hours and many years apart.

Beautiful clematis!

Your post is a delight for my soul.

Arlene

:) Without a sense of humor, we'd enjoy this stage of our life a bit less, wouldn't you say? Whenever I think about my own soul, I always picture it smiling. Yours smiles often too!

I'm a soul man.

A sense of humor is a blessing, Louise, especially when it involves a full length mirror after taking a shower. Then my soul really laughs!

Funny, Victor, you don't look like James Brown!

Arlene, sorry I missed your special day. I hope it's a special day for you all year!

Sending you some caladiums to enjoy.

Marcia

Thanks, Marcia. Your caladiums are lovely. I enjoy foliage now more than ever but I do wish the deer would allow me to enjoy hosta foliage as well.

It really doesn't seem fair that you have to put up bird netting just to enjoy your garden, but it does keep the deer away. Hosta is like deer candy.

The deer adore me! They can have their "All you can eat buffet" dinners wherever they wander. I only wish that eating hostas made them sterile.

LOL

I like that idea.. ok someone work on that!!

Cement females would work but only temporarily until the bucks found the real females.

A guy on the main road, which is Main Road (oddly enough), had a female cement deer in his garden. The buck attacked and when he didn't get what he wanted he smashed it to pieces. It made the local newspaper headlines. He bought a new cement female and the buck returned ready for action. Sad to say, she got stomped also.

It might be fun to video the buck and a blow up rubber female. He'd be surprised when she just disappeared with a big poof!

I know a few two legged "bucks" who would love to have their "does" disappear with a big poof !

Funny, JD!

Wow, that's weird, Pirl!

Hey JD!

That is FUNNY!

JD should write comedy. This is what I received from him this morning:



Taken from the Southold, N.Y. Gazette
August 12, 2011

Mrs. John J. Ryan (nee Zuegel)
7-29-1941 to 8-12-2011

Friends and family are mourning the loss of long time resident Arlene Z. Ryan of 200 Hill Rd., Southold New York, wife of retired banker Jack Ryan.

A freak incident of Mrs. Ryan's own makings lead to her untimely demise last Friday evening. Known internationally for her award winning flower gardens, Mrs. Ryan had been waging war (unsuccessfully) against marauding deer that were obliterating her prized blooms for the past decade and causing her to suffer undue stress and anxiety.

Having no luck deterring the deer and exhausting every known method to rid her property of the four legged intruders, Mrs. Ryan purchased and installed a 10 foot tall air-driven, infrared sensored, inflatable scarecrow in the middle of her vast daylily collection. The results were spectacular and she purchased another one for her vegetable plot.

Triumphant, Mrs. Ryan was able to assume her long held tradition of sharing the bounties of her vegetable garden with friends and neighbors as well as supplying local churches with daylily blooms and other beautiful flowers.

Her husband Jack told our reporters about the ill fated occurrence that resulted in this tragic loss. "We had just retired for the evening when my wife suddenly remembered she had left her wrist watch on a fence post by the vegetable plot. Fearing the predicted rain would ruin her watch, she insisted she was going to go retrieve it, even though I told her it only cost ten bucks at the gas station and was easily replaced. Donning her bathrobe, my wife went out and I heard the door close behind her. Moments later, a blood curdling scream echoed through the house. I jumped out of bed, ran out the kitchen door into the garden. There she was. Slumped over the fence post, watch in hand (thankfully it was unharmed), and the huge scarecrow bobbing wildly in every direction under the moonlit sky. She had no pulse but it was obvious she had wet herself in the brief but fatal ordeal. I unplugged the scarecrow and called paramedics. While waiting for them to arrive, I did manage to harvest a few choice asparagus spears I had overlooked earlier that day."

When asked how such a thing could have happened, Mr. Ryan replied, "We talked about this when she first bought the (expletive) thing. I told her that eventually she was going to go out there one night and forget the thing would go off and it would give her a heart attack. She was blonde. What can I say ?"

Residents on the quiet rural road have become accustomed to the assorted eccentric circumstances Mrs. Ryan was seemingly always experiencing. Those who knew her sympathized with whatever it was that caused her to do the things she did, unintentional as they were, yet bizarre at the same time. A neighbor who identified herself only as "Hilde" told us, "She had a good heart, but I tried to avoid her whenever possible. She routinely stole my hydranger* blooms and threw weeds onto my property for years. That's fine...I would just sneak over there at night and steal her lilies."

At her request, Ryan herself requested there be no services.

Mr. Ryan will be holding a huge plant sale at his property next weekend, as well as interviewing local widows who might be interested in accompanying him on a cruise to Price Edward Island in the fall. He hates to see the pre-paid tickets go to waste.

In lieu of flowers, cards, cakes, casseroles, etc. Ryan's family is requesting donations be made in her honor to the Master Gardener Association of America. Mrs. Ryan will have the title of Master Gardener bestowed upon her posthumously in the spring.

In addition to her husband Jack, Ryan is survived by a son, daughter, 2 grandchildren and her dog Harry as well as a plethora of cousins with the surname Houttuynia.

*****************************************************

*that is not JD's spelling error.

this is the best thread!

JD is the best!

It is a very strange reaction to wake up and read your own obituary! Now I know I have time left to weed and plant before the end arrives.

P.S. I do not wear a watch!

Funny!

Oh, my, that was a very funny story! He should be writing mystery stories!

lol

that was too funny :-)

His stories of growing up with three older sister and three younger sisters, and the ensuing "Estrogen Wars", are too hysterical for words. He's a gem.

Not the typical middle child. Great sense of humor and sense of style.

Hey hey! I'm a middle child too! ^_^

There's a lot to be said (and sorry for) about being a middle child. Right, Victor ?
Shrinks have a field day with us.
Time for your medicine, Victor ! Be a good boy and do what the Dr. told you.

LOL

My sister is the middle child......that explains it all......

Since I'm the youngest and my brother was the oldest - "that explains it all" with my sisters!