It is good to read what all ya'll are up to (or down to:>) in your gardens. Sister Annie jumped in when she was here at Mom & Dad's last week, and between the two of us we have their flower/shrub borders looking good. Dad planted tomatoes and onion sets as soon as I got the little raised bed veggie garden cleaned up and loosened, and Annie got a couple of bags of composted manure spread on them.

Dad, who has everything wrong with his spine from neck to tailbone that a doctor can put a name to, suffers from severe chronic pain, but continues to do as much work as he can in the yard and garden. We were at the hospital today for 5 hours for him to have a lung biopsy done under heavy sedation. He was fairly clear by the time we got him home. He snoozed in his recliner for an hour, then got his cane and walked over to chat with his neighbor while Mom and I fixed supper. I went out to call him a few minutes before supper was ready and found him bent double, leaning heavily on the cane, pinching pansies. I opened my mouth to raise a fuss as he laboriously and with obvious pain straightened up. We looked each other in the eye, I shut my mouth, and joined him to finish the job before helping him step up onto the porch and into the house to wash up for supper.

That pain is going to be there, whether he is bent over in the garden or not. The cancer, which at this point is something new to us and not part of the current pain, is going to be there, no matter what.

Let him pinch pansies to his heart's content.