Played my retired guy card yesterday. I sat in my chair all morning and read a book. The mowing waited. It eventually got done but only after I finished the book I wanted to finish. I still need to edge and that will happen today after I get a haircut and have lunch with my brother and my cousin. We still have enough summer left so there’s plenty of daylight for late chores.

I noticed several of my schoolhouse flowers along the drive have bloomed. Not as many as I would have liked, but it was a hard spring and summer on the rain front so the little bulbs are probably waiting it out. Maybe they’ll make a better show next fall. The false leave mallow that lives deep in the beds beneath the big oaks, on the other hand, is putting on quite a show. The plants are tall, they’re covered in blooms, and the creamsicle colored flowers are fairly large. We’re hoping they start seeding and that we get more of them. That would be something.

In other blooming news the Barbados cherry is in full swing. The cherry crop will be healthy. Now if the fruit was bigger than half the head of a ten penny nail, we’d be in business. But it’s tiny. Fit for birds and growing more Barbados cherries, which it is busy doing. And that’s it from the flower front, which as news goes is less than scintillating, but that’s what I’ve got, so that’s what I’m giving. And I just noticed a miniature crape myrtle in back flower bed finally bloomed. Better late than never. And again, thank God for rain among other blessings.

John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver's Tale