Most of my flowers and all of my herbs are now planted. Only the deck flowers are still in their pots waiting for a more permanent home. After everything was planted yesterday, I saw I still need more herbs for the garden, some for the window boxes, geraniums for the deck pots and more flowers for the front. After my dump run today, I’ll go shopping.

The weatherman was right: still no sun. The rain came last night which was good for everything I’d planted. The sky is gray and the day is still damp. The leaves on the oak tree are getting bigger and darker. Maybe they sense summer coming better than I can.

When I was little, I often presented my mother with a bouquet of yellow dandelions. She was always thrilled and made a big deal of putting them in a glass of water then on the table or the windowsill. She made me feel as if I had given her the most beautiful flowers anyone had ever seen. I remember buttercups and holding one under my friend’s chin to see if she liked butter. If she did, the yellow was reflected on her. I remember blowing dandelion puffs. The field below my house was filled with them, and we’d run through, grab a few, blow and let the wind take them. They always seemed to waft gently.

I don’t remember lots of flower gardens in my neighborhood. Most people, like my father, planted a few flowers in front and none in the backyards which were filled with clotheslines and a wide hill of grass stretched across the back of where all our houses stood. Lawns were the big thing. There wasn’t an acknowledged competition, but it existed none the less. My father mowed a certain way. Every Saturday you could hear the click clack of his mower as he walked across the lawn in the particular pattern he favored. None of us ever mowed. We didn’t do it right. We’d cut the grass, but the pattern was always wrong. My father had a beautiful lawn, but he was never the winner. Mrs. Burns always was.