Sean's parents and grandparents showed up early this afternoon to take some of my extra irises off of my hands. I gave them three bags full of irises that are ready to transplant. Most will bloom blue-on-purple or purple-on-purple, but there are a few that will bloom white-on-white.

Speaking of—one of those is blooming at the side of the house. It's absolutely beautiful; highly ruffled, almost-glowing white petals over white falls. Very nice. It's wasted over on the side of the house where no one sees it. Next year, though, it will be much more prominent.

Pictures coming, promise. They're half scanned, and I'll finish them up tomorrow. I'm just not real keen on spending the rest of the time remaining in this day working on these pictures, when they can wait another day without anyone losing sleep over it.

Jeff is trying to wear the cats out again tonight by getting them to chase the laser pointer's beam all over the house. Tenzing, our resident acrobat, has been running himself silly trying to catch the quicksilver-fast point of red light. Silly cat; at least after this, though, he sleeps. Jeff is probably going to throw the cat through the window if Tenzing wakes him up in the middle of the night with his raucous playing.

For the next few days my entries will need to be made during the day. For some reason, the light in the computer room is not working, and neither is the fan it is attached to. Thus the room gets light and dark according to the passage of day. Add to the mix my none-too-strong eyes, and problems result. At this point in time, the easiest resolution is not to use the computer room when it is dark outside.

Until the lights are fixed, so much for the luxury of late-night journal writing; the thoughts must be bared in the light of day.

It is storming outside again, patchy, intermittent storms. Mother Nature can't seem to make up her mind whether she wants to rain or not, but she is being indecisive enough that I will not be able to work in the flowerbeds today like I'd wanted to.

Yesterday's purchases from a local nursery: two tiny pots each of French tarragon, standard chives, and Kentucky Colonel spearmint.

A roundup:

• 10 Dutch lavender
• 2 Provence lavender
• 4 common sage
• 9 sweet basil
• 2 Tuscan blue rosemary
• 2 creeping thyme
• 1 Greek oregano
• 2 lemon thyme
• 1 Confederate jasmine
• 1 yellow jessamine
  

This entry written under influence of great tiredness and several glasses of painfully alcoholic apple pie.

It is done—the first of the two flowerbeds, anyway. The end plan, of course, did not look like what I had planned, but I suppose some flexibility's good for me. Rejoice, say my tired muscles. They will ache a bit on the morrow, but not now.

I think we're all prepared for tomorrow's gardening extravaganza. The rototiller and various tools have been obtained. Due to the rain, we won't pick up the compost until tomorrow morning.

Sean promises this is going to be much easier than I think it's going to be. That's good, because I'm thoroughly dreading it.

Kat's mother confirms that she's going to try to get me some of Kat's grandfather's camellias from down in New Orleans. I love this—the thought of having a garden comprised of pieces that other people have loved and cared for makes me very happy indeed.

My first iris is blooming, close to the door. Dark purple and light purple; once my camera returns with Heather from D.C. I'll have to take pictures. Heather has my point-and-shoot while she's out in D.C., but, come to think of it, this kind of work would do better if I used my manual-everything Pentax anyhow.