quintessential summer

This being the official second day of Summer necessitates a post with a picture of a Zinnia.

My yard is not summery without a bed (or two!) of these wonderfully bright flowers.

They are stunning in a bed (which I will show later once the bed is full),

and are great as cut flowers as well.

The Zinnia seeds were given to me by my mother-in-law,

and hand-me-downs are always extra special

(at least to me).

I will say Rudyard Kipling (from The Glory of the Garden)

is right when he says,

Such Gardens 

are not made by singing,

 “Oh, how beautiful!”

and sitting in the shade.

Gardens are a labor of love,

and if you can't keep perspective of the end result

then you'll get discouraged by the labor,

and the joy of the process will slip away.

(I think I also just described raising children!)

Speaking of which,

I read a wonderfully encouraging post this evening

and it was great timing since

I had recently been discouraged about something

but was (am) determined to still be obedient.