My posts are often related to the weather, because weather is often the decisive factor to determine whether or not a walk will be taken and how far to stray from home. Will it be hot? Cold? Sunny? Rainy? Sigh … too many variables go into the decision and I usually rely heavily on the weather folks. Too often they’re wrong. Some need to go back to meteorology school. Last night I consulted multiple forecasters from two radio stations and two TV stations. All predicted storms overnight and in the early morn, so I decided to indulge in extra snooze time, only to awake to sun filtering into my room. So, I did some scramblin’ so I could get ramblin’ before I needed to start my workday. I only managed to get in a two-mile walk since I left so late … tomorrow, I’ll just get up and go with the flow. (P.S. – watch it rain.) As a ramblin’ woman, seeking to put some serious mileage on my walking shoes and keep myself healthy as well, I’ve got ultra-possessive of my walking time. It was already difficult and dicey to factor in housework, let alone the inevitable garden chores that must be done. I gritted my teeth yesterday while spending two hours’ time trying to restore some order to the backyard, where wild ivy and creeping Charlie had meandered through the perennials and bushes grabbing on for dear life with a death grip since I’d last been out there two weeks ago. Purple nightshade had invaded as well and woven itself in and out of the barberry bushes and thorny pyracantha. Still other weeds resembling a bean stalk had huge leaves and one-inch thick stems which emitted a milky substance when I lopped them off with my pruning shears and it was stinky to boot. I’m embarrassed to say I filled a yard waste bag to the brim with these wicked weeds before hustling off on my walk. But, if there was a bright spot on Sunday morning, it was admiring my handiwork in restoring my beautiful clematis and bringing my rosebushes back to life after giving them up for dead. Yes, the Nelly Moser clematis has climbed back, kicking and clawing and ramblin’ up the trellis as I crowed about in my June 2nd post about mauve twinkles. On Mother’s Day I cut eight rosebushes down to six inches tall. The stems on the four light pink Bonica rosebushes at least were supple, but they looked sickly; they have revived and are already blooming profusely. The stems and branches of the red Knock Out rosebushes were brown and brittle with many black canes. It was a longshot and I was gamblin’ mightily that they’d even come back at all, and in my mind, I sadly pronounced my four Knock Out rosebushes down for the count after loading nine bags of dead branches into yard waste bags. I lamented their demise in the next day’s post. But I persevered, put blinders on as to how they looked and continued to bury organic rose food around the base and I kept my fingers crossed. It seems that three of the four Knock Out rosebushes are alive and kickin’ … they will not reach the top of the chain link fence for awhile, as you see in the picture above, but on Father’s Day, a mere month after I whacked them back, I observed a dozen blooms and they are thriving. My heart is happy. My faith is restored. Who says you shouldn’t mollycoddle your plants? It’s a tough world out there and a little TLC never hurt anyone or anything.