Another day full of God’s blue cloudless sky and Mother Nature’s kite flying wind. The sun was bright and the greens of all the tree foliage were highlighted by the sun. The birds were singing and the trees were rustling with their new leaves. I was thinking this might have been the kind of day Noah and his family greeted when the rains ended, the sun’s promise of another day of living.

Washed out my humming bird feeders this morning and put new nectar in them so maybe the little birds will come by. Had one fly around in late afternoon but he didn’t stop to drink. I planted my pansies around the oak tree hoping they will last a little longer. They just don’t usually last through April in the urns but research says they’ll last through the summer with lots of watering and some sunshine. I told Stew I bet the pansy roots were stretching their legs, happy to be out of the urn and in the cool ground. His reply, “I’m calling Shady Oaks!” I planted two bunches of pansies around the the hummingbird feeders so maybe that will encourage the hummingbirds. I’ve got so many beautiful song birds I shouldn’t complain about the humming birds not visiting.

Worked in my little garden today. I’ve got to do a little tilling before I can finish the flower part of my garden. Got the vegetables in my big pots and have sunflower and zinnia seeds for the rows behind the vegetables. They all got a big drink of Miracle Grow. AND the ants are dead!

I put million bells baskets (calibrachoa) in my urns on the porch bannisters. I bought some small hanging pots full of purple, dark pink, and white blooms. I love to get the plants small and watch them grow. I just set the basket in the urn and when they outgrow the baskets, I’ll plant the flowers in the urns. They’ll last until the fall when its cooler and time for pansies. The hummingbirds love million bells, too.

Sat out in the swing after supper to enjoy the birds who come at dusk. Had to put on a sweatshirt because it got cool. Don’t know where these birds stay during mid-day but the red breasted grosbeaks and brown headed cowbirds and the doves and the catbirds show up when the sun starts its downward journey. The cardinals and grosbeaks fight over the feeders, hissing at each other till one flies away. Saw a lone goldfinch late afternoon. He must have missed the migrating air plane!

Oldest brother and his friend came by tonight. Haven’t seen him in a while. Since he’s back in the working world he doesn’t have time to visit every day. I’ve miss seeing them both. We sat on the porch and talked about squirrels and hummingbirds and our gardens. He’s killed ten squirrels this week. He can’t stand the critters getting his bird seed. He killed them off the feeders so guess they left this world doing something they loved — stealing bird seeds!

One of my friends sent me this quote — “If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need,” — Cicero. Books and gardens, two of my favorite things. I have a mini library by every chair I sit in and have bird guides and dictionaries and thesauruses in every pile. When I went to England in college, we toured the library at Oxford University. The Bodleian Library at Oxford is the oldest library in Europe. In its libraries are 12 million printed items, 80,000 ejournals, and collections of art, music, manuscripts, and maps. It was beautiful and so inspiring and very quiet. If I lived in Oxford I would take advantage often of the library’s reading room.

Reid Byers said books “nourish the senses, slay boredom, and relieve distress.” We all probably have our libraries even if its just a shelf of cook books in the kitchen. Research says “1,000 is the minimum number of books in any self respecting home library. Five hundred books ensures the room will begin to feel like a library.” Reading transports us to different time periods and spurs our imagination. You’ll never be bored if books are around you.

Chief and I together easily have more than enough books to start a library. We have a room full of boxes, floor to ceiling, of books downstairs in my grandmother’s apartment not counting all the books and encyclopedias still in our house in Alex City. We also have stacks of books at least three feet high all the way down the hall and around the corner downstairs. One day I hope to have some floor to ceiling books shelves in the lady den to house our favorites.

Chief and I would both be bibliophiles and bookworms. We loved to read and we loved to collect books. He loved reading poetry and political history. I loved the classics and contemporary novels. And I love westerns and historical fiction. He always laughed because I was a voracious reader but couldn’t tell him the name or author of the book I had read the day before. I’d tell him I was reading to pass time. He’d laugh and say, “Mama, sometimes you need to read to learn something.”