The Case of the Purloined Posey

As you probably surmised, not much is going on down here at the moment. I've spent the week recuperating from last weekend's trip and trying to get my hip to settle down. After a session with the chiropractor, the hip is on the mend but still somewhat sore. I figured all house work could wait for a week. Or two. No sense it getting the thing mad at me for pushing it too early.

Be that as it may, I did have a pleasant surprise this morning. Last year about this time I made a foray out to an abandoned cemetery and dug up some irises that had spread like crazy. I brought home about a dozen bulbs and plopped them in the ground and have been watching them ever since. I am not new to the phenomena that are bulbs. I know they sometimes take a season or two or three to finally make up their minds to bloom.

At my previous home, I had planted a mess of narcissus bulbs that I had gotten from my grandmother's flower bed and that had never bloomed for her. They sat in my flower bed for another several years before they started blooming their heads off and spreading until I had quite a showy display every year. I am still kicking myself for not moving those bulbs with me. I also had a thick growth of iris bulbs -- purple, white and yellow -- and I failed to move any of those either. Time ran out and I had to leave them all behind.

So, when I found that huge lot of irises in the cemetery, I decided to get myself a new start of bulbs. I was a little doubtful they would make it in the rocky soil where I am now, but they never faltered, never wilted and never froze back.

And this morning I found that one of the dozen or so plants was in full bloom.

Even if this is the one bloom I see this year, it gives me hope for the future.

LSW