The historic neighborhood I live in has a little parade every year to celebrate the holiday and every kid and dog seems to take part. It is led by a fire truck full of waving firemen, and if they don't get called off for a fire, they stay and let the kids check out the truck at the end. There are wagons, bikes, trikes and scooters all completely decked out with red white and blue ribbons and bows and streamers. The occasional dune buggy or convertible, and someone made a crude looking rolling playpen out of wood that had a bunch of kids stuffed into it. It's so fun and only 2 streets long. My house is the 2nd to last house on the route, which ends at the elementary school across the street. My neighbor has parade music piping out from an old jam box to set the mood. Those of us who do not walk or ride in the parade sit in lawn chairs at the ends of our driveways and sip coffee and visit and cheer.
When everyone gets to the end, moms have lemonade and cookies for the kiddos and we all gather to listen to the reading of the Declaration of Independence in front of my next door neighbor's house (the one with the music). The audience participates by booing and hissing anytime the king is mentioned and cheering for all the independence stuff. It's pretty great, always draws a good crowd, and we get giant dose of Americana and neighborly warm fuzzies.
It's my understanding that the parade has been going on for over 30 years.
Sadly I forgot to take pictures. I will next year though.
EDIT: I found the flyer they hand deliver to the mailboxes.
A garden mystery:
THE SWEET SMELL OF SUMMER
There is so much happing in my garden at the moment. Do you remember the post way back about the strange plant I got at an estate sale that I was trying to identify? You can read about it here. Anyhow, my friend Kylie was right all along.
It's a FRANGIPANI!!
The reason I was still unsure is that I looked them up on the googler and I couldn't match the foliage, which is all I had to go by. THEN, a couple of weeks ago, my aunt was visiting from Florida and the plant had just started to put out buds and when she saw it she confirmed that it was indeed frangipani and I told me I should put it outside. So I did and the buds are starting to open and they are beautiful and smell like heaven.
this picture I took a couple days ago
these last 2 I took today, about 4 hours apart.
In other garden news, here's what's blooming:
Did you know that Arkansas is home to the Crater of Diamonds and various crystal mines? It's kinda famous for it and people have found some amazing stones here. You've heard of the Hope diamond?
I've collected rocks since I was a kid. Sometimes fancy polished stones and sometimes ones that catch my eye on the ground, picking them up here and there. So when one of my friends was visiting last month and said she wanted to get some crystals I suggested we go dig them ourselves. It was about an hour and a half drive to somewhere around Hot Springs mostly on long, curvy, country roads, and quite scenic (once we got off I-30). We got there at about 3:30 and they were going to close at 5:30, which might put a kink in some folks plans but it turned out just fine for us. After registering and signing a release :/, we got our bags from a woman who had on the most vibrant turquoise eyeshadow that looked as if it had been applied with a paint roller and her right eyebrow had been smeared up towards her temple. I asked her if she had any tips and she said that most people end up knocking the crystals behind them and letting them fall with the dirt because they don't know what they are looking for. Then she said to stay away from the edge.
THE EDGE???
To be honest, as soon as we got out to the mounds we were totally overwhelmed. We were equipped with buckets and gloves and hand shovels from home and the bags we were given at registration, and not sure where to start. There were only 4 other people there: 2 women sitting together; a man, whom I later realized was with the first 2 women; a women who had brought her own wheelbarrow; and us. We were the obvious amateurs.
In theory it sounds so magical, going to dig for crystals, sifting through dirt and finding huge beautiful clear pointy crystals and amethysts and other big and amazing stones with facets.
In reality, it's dirty and it's hot with not one single speck of shade. We found spots and plunked down and started sifting. I did find a couple pretty nice crystals at first, even if they were kinda smaller than in my dreams. I didn't know what I was doing. JJ ditto'd that. At some point I started picking up any rock that I liked the look of and put it in my bucket, throwing any false sense of strategy out the proverbial window. A while later and JJ headed to the rock shop. Not long after that, we met at the car, changed clothes (the best piece of advice we got was to bring a change of clothes-we were filthy and that red dirt gets everywhere) and left with our buckets chock full of rock treasure.
I can see how the more one goes, the better one's eye for spotting crystals. I can't wait to go again.
purple flox
nasturtium
these tiny lilies
sweet smelling carolina jasmine
day lilies
echinacea or purple coneflower
I've had a couple little tomatoes
and waiting on these tiny yellow toms to ripen
Did you know that Arkansas is home to the Crater of Diamonds and various crystal mines? It's kinda famous for it and people have found some amazing stones here. You've heard of the Hope diamond?
I've collected rocks since I was a kid. Sometimes fancy polished stones and sometimes ones that catch my eye on the ground, picking them up here and there. So when one of my friends was visiting last month and said she wanted to get some crystals I suggested we go dig them ourselves. It was about an hour and a half drive to somewhere around Hot Springs mostly on long, curvy, country roads, and quite scenic (once we got off I-30). We got there at about 3:30 and they were going to close at 5:30, which might put a kink in some folks plans but it turned out just fine for us. After registering and signing a release :/, we got our bags from a woman who had on the most vibrant turquoise eyeshadow that looked as if it had been applied with a paint roller and her right eyebrow had been smeared up towards her temple. I asked her if she had any tips and she said that most people end up knocking the crystals behind them and letting them fall with the dirt because they don't know what they are looking for. Then she said to stay away from the edge.
THE EDGE???
To be honest, as soon as we got out to the mounds we were totally overwhelmed. We were equipped with buckets and gloves and hand shovels from home and the bags we were given at registration, and not sure where to start. There were only 4 other people there: 2 women sitting together; a man, whom I later realized was with the first 2 women; a women who had brought her own wheelbarrow; and us. We were the obvious amateurs.
In theory it sounds so magical, going to dig for crystals, sifting through dirt and finding huge beautiful clear pointy crystals and amethysts and other big and amazing stones with facets.
In reality, it's dirty and it's hot with not one single speck of shade. We found spots and plunked down and started sifting. I did find a couple pretty nice crystals at first, even if they were kinda smaller than in my dreams. I didn't know what I was doing. JJ ditto'd that. At some point I started picking up any rock that I liked the look of and put it in my bucket, throwing any false sense of strategy out the proverbial window. A while later and JJ headed to the rock shop. Not long after that, we met at the car, changed clothes (the best piece of advice we got was to bring a change of clothes-we were filthy and that red dirt gets everywhere) and left with our buckets chock full of rock treasure.
I can see how the more one goes, the better one's eye for spotting crystals. I can't wait to go again.
