Pride goeth before a fall.....

.... and I was so proud of the job I did re-erecting my garden fence with all new stakes, driving them into the ground by hand.  I repent.  Today I discovered that some rascal, most hopefully four-legged, decided to rip a huge hole in that beautiful fence in one place, and tear several other places.

   Being the lifelong seamstress that I am, after repenting of my pride, I grabbed my curved needle and some polyester reinforced quilting thread and stitched up the holes.  I've since tied selvedges all around to flap in the wind, and added aluminum pie pans to clash around and generally scare the bejeebies out of my nocturnal visitors (I hope).  I even stuck a yard flag out there to flap in the breeze, and hung my favorite kitchen-utensil wind chimes on the fence.  Yep, it looks less than beautiful now, but (again with the HOPE), HOPEFULLY we'll have a nice harvest like last year.

I  pulled dirt up into a row and planted one row of Okra before I realized that it was too much work to do by hand, after the rain having packed the dirt again.  Maybe tomorrow I can loosen it up a bit again with the tiller, and then rake it into a semblance of rows, hills, and walkways.   A raised bed garden is looking better to me all the time.   Sounds great to be able to go out to a lumber-enclosed, raised bed, bend at the waist and plant !   Surely it has it's own aggravations too?

  Anyway, beyond that, the good news healthwise is that my hemoglobin levels were finally high enough yesterday that I was able to donate blood for the first time in about 2 years or more.  I was happy !
  Monday I go for my 6 month post-surgery checkup.  Small things, that make a big difference, have changed, but I still have very little volume to my voice, cough alot, have difficulty sleeping, and MISS SINGING !  But, God is my healer, and time is my friend.  Anesthesia and surgery, on the other hand, are not things I want to tolerate again, so if my surgeon offers to make my voice better, I think I'll just tell him that I'm waiting on God to do that when he desires.

Yard-wise, my bronze-rasperry Irises are blooming down the driveway on either side of the mailbox.

Iris

And I couldn't identify this greenery when it came up, so I left it alone, and it turned out to be Sweet William !   I bought seed and put it out SOMEWHERE once, but I don't know if this is from that or from Rose, or from the birds/wind sharing her garden with mine.  But it is a very happy surprise for me, and I hope that they reseed themselves and hang around for years !

Sweet William

Also, the Purple Salvia that I planted last year have come back as they are supposed to (never had them before and I shaded the area when we built the carport, so I had my doubts).

Salvia

And my newest visitor to our bird feeders is this Indigo Bunting.  I've never spotted one around here before, although this time I thought he was a Bluebird for days before I actually saw him AT the feeder.

Indigo Bunting

And, an interesting thing that I noticed was that a black and white Grosbeak, like I noticed last Spring, showed up on the exact same day as in the photo that I took of one last year.......April 25 exactly.  God is so amazing !  "A time for every purpose under Heaven" !

Grosbeak and Red Finch