Magical Yard

It doesn't look
like this anymore!

Very few perfumes come close to the sweet fragrance of red roses blooming in your own backyard.

You can see our gazebo through the buds

 It’s a heady combination of a gift from above blended with gritty soil, hard work and true love. The rain in California helped too.

Hundreds of buds!

 They really exploded this year into a giant infusion of magical, sweet-smelling blooms. Oh and the hard work had nothing to do with me. I’m a writer, not a gardener. I'm grateful for true love.

These roses are called the Mister Lincoln,
honoring our 16th President.

Surrounded by beauty!

 I think I mentioned, last year we had some ducks that enjoyed hanging out in our yard too and they are back—well kind of—you see there’s a sort of power struggle going on between our rescued dogs and the wild ducks. Pinky weighs between 20 and 25 pounds and most of you have already heard me ramble on about my five pounds of terror- Fiona. 

Duck Dynasty?

 Anyway, these two romantic ducks look like they’re over ten pounds and for the most part everyone has been getting along just fine. (You stay on your side of the yard and we’ll respectfully stay on ours.) 

Sorry for the
fuzz--taken from a
window.

The rose bushes however, are apparently out of bounds, because yesterday when I went out to enjoy the aroma of those roses, Pinky noticed the ducks waddling around underneath the thorny bushes. She dived after the large male.  Feathers fluttered and the canard sans à l’orange,  flew up into the air and beyond the fence. Pinky looked shocked. Her eyes followed the birds into the sky and then she looked over at me. “Yeah,” I said. “Bet you’d like to do something like that-- pretty nifty trick, huh girl?” She wagged her tail and sniffed the ground before looking into the air wondering how something bigger than her frightening little sister could become airborne. Still stunned, her tongue dripped with excitement and her eyes became bottomless pools filled with animated question marks. I laughed and reached to pet the top of her head. “Haven’t you ever seen magic before?” I asked before heading for the house.

I took this shot of a double rainbow
--above our yard
 --from an upstairs window, last week.

“We better go inside so the ducks can come back.” A few hours later, they were back. We’ll probably have baby ducklings again this year. Guess they like the scent of roses.

Meanwhile, Fiona wrote this:

Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

Where did the ducks go?

We haven’t a clue.