Two things: First, some of you might have tried to get on the blog between about 3 pm and 7 pm. It was down because the server was down. Sorry for that. It’s the second time that’s happened in two weeks. It is ultimately frustrating because you can’t come here, I can’t answer comments, and there’s always a loss of ad income (which is happening to every blog and website during this period of lockdown.)

Second: Look at my boxwood! I truly thought it had come down with box blight. There were dead leaves everywhere and they looked exactly like the photos of boxwood after box blight. My original suspicion was that the dead growth was due to the late freeze we had in May. But then I started to worry about blight. I cut out most of the dead growth, pruned the bushes, and was sure we’d have to remove them at some point – because that’s what you have to do with blight. And now, after a month or so, there’s new growth everywhere and they’re looking healthy again. Hurrah!

The four boxwoods were the very first thing we planted here. We moved in at the end of August and there was nothing we could do about planting anything in the big bed or anywhere else on the property until the next spring. But I managed to dig out a bed in front of the porch and we bought 4 tiny little boxwoods and planted them.

See? That’s all we had. Those itsy bitsy bushes are now huge, nearly 15 years later. Don and I were chatting on the porch this morning, remembering that there was nothing but a couple of hostas in the bed to the right of the boxwoods and some sedum in the big garden bed. Nothing else. I planted everything else; the three garden beds on the far side of the house, the bed in front of the house, everything in the bed by the porch and the big garden bed, and the chicken wire fence garden and the memorial garden. Don was telling me that I should be proud of my work, my creativity, in creating all these gardens, and you know what? I am.

Especially when we are so homebound right now. This little oasis has made a huge difference in our daily lives. I cannot tell you how much I love our home and our property. The addition of Don’s work on the paths in the woods and the work done in the Secret Garden has made an enormous difference, as well. I dreamed for decades – literally, decades – of a little cottage in the country with gardens everywhere and it finally came true. But not until I was in my fifties. I’m here to tell you it can happen.

Just grateful for what we have today as we know so many are unable to pay rent or mortgages, are out of work, don’t have enough money to put food on the table, have run out of unemployment. We have to fight for them. Because the GOP has shown, by and large, that it won’t.

Stay safe.

Happy Thursday.