Sue, did you get your bear drunk again? Shame on you!

Everything's now within reach, so it'll be much easier to take cuttings.

Hey, I am only guilty of the "Sue...on wine" part, no bear or trumpet here!

We had a thunderstorm, so I had to shut down for awhile. I'm still laughing. I don't think my daughter ever really understood what was so funny, but Sue's drunken trumpet playing bear just nearly brought me to my knees. I guess Ashley just doesn't know the players in this little vignette.

Thanks for the entertainment, ladies!
Sorry, Sue. My daughter lives in Florida and this is the first time she's been home in a year. I'm just going to leave her wondering about my internet friends.

Roses arrived today from Heirloom and they look healthy and good!
Thanks so much for the good recommendation about them, Zuzu!

Hooray! Did you already tell us what you ordered from Heirloom? I don't remember hearing the specifics of that order.

Zuzu, they are

Antique
Royal Pageant
Star of the Nile
The Mayflower
Viking Queen
Gemini

I love your taste in roses, Janice. It covers all the bases. I know all of those but Viking Queen and they're wonderful. Royal Pageant (Della Balfour), in particular, is a great, great rose.

Oh, thank you so much, Zuzu!
Now if only I can keep them alive!
I don't coddle things, so if any of these are too finnicky their life expectancy at my house will be limited!

Here's some more evidence of that rampaging grizzly. He knocked the top of my bird bath off.



And he pulled a little cement cat off one of the gazebos, where it had been hanging for years.



And here's what he did with the poor trumpet vine and another photo to show where it used to be:

It's all the wine Sue gave him, Zuzu.

So sorry, though. What a mess.
Do you know what really caused it?

Not a clue. Maybe raccoons? If a whole family of raccoons decided to climb the trumpet vine all at once, they could have brought it down, I guess.

Could be. Have you had trouble with raccoons before?

We did have a couple of strong gusts of wind when that storm system came through, I was upstairs sitting on my bed looking out the window and it was a big whooshing sounds and the trees were swaying a lot. Maybe that was it.

Just took these shots 20 minutes ago from my upstairs bedroom balcony, the clouds broke open enough to allow the lowering sun to shine on the trees in the back, making them just glow, especially the liquidambers. I see this most afternoons, my favorite view is from my bed looking out the window so I often sit there with my laptop. It's especially nice when there are blue skies and dark clouds mixed into the picture. The light and shadows make it hard to get the exposure right.


Oh, and Brad added a nice finial to the top of the pergola a couple of days ago, gives it a nice finish. Now i just need those vines to get growing!

Beautiful view, Sue.

Beautiful, Sue!
Zuzu, so sorry for all the damage! Racoons took down part of our chimney once. ..

The raccoons are here, but they don't really cause any trouble. They and the cats knock things over by accident regularly, so it's just a fluke that all of these things happened in one day.

I received my roses from Palatine today -- 8 of them (7 for me and 1 for Sue). No photos yet. I don't want to open the box until I'm ready to plant them or take care of them in some other way. Sue's coming over tomorrow to get hers, so I'll take pictures of them then.

Ghislaine de Feligonde (for Sue)
Kordes Herkules
Poseidon (aka Novalis)
Queen of Hearts Fairy Tale
Red Intuition
Souvenir de Baden-Baden
Tarde Gris
Zaide

Zuzu, those are gorgeous! Love especially Zaide and Baden-Baden and Sues' Ghislaine. All are yummy!
- can't wait to see them bloom for you!

O T -- good Lord the little mister just won a REAL PIG like I know how to raise a pig !!! Shes around 80 lbs and black sssooooo now what thank goodness shes not living here she gets to live at a friend of ours till shes big enough to be dinner we just have to buy her feed I swear. every one said not to let me see her or name her or she will be a very spoilt pig that will live forever !!!!!!!!!!!!! lol

Pigs make great pets!

LOL, Gloria. We're going in halvsies with an organic feed cow. I do not want to meet it. Just deliverer it to my freezer thank you very much!