Purple Discovery

What's interesting is that in our part of the world we are having very cool mornings and cool evenings and in between close to hot . . .

We are having an explosion of floral displays and (we're old) it is quite fun to watch. Yesterday we sat and watched a solitary bee working the "California Poppies".  Shortly later a solitary Hummingbird came to "work" the geraniums. What's next -- well the bird feeder is increasingly being depleted more rapidly.

Click on the above to get a closer view of the brilliant purple -- what is interesting also is that these flowers open some days and remain closed on others -- we do not know the rhythm nor the reason.

The above flowers are by the front porch and most of the flowers there are purple or white with a few exceptions. This week we actually got up enough gumption to "fix" one of the faster growing plants:

The left picture shows the "Oleander Tree Bush" and the right picture doesn't . . . the Oleander was about 4 years old but far outpaced the rest of the plants AND began to restrict our view to the front street. Much more to our liking now.

The Search This Week

I was again "all-over" the board while searching for "stuff" relating to our family. One of the fun things to do I've found is to search old newspapers. In this case I already had a clipping -- or should I say Gail already had a clipping.

While examining the clipping we discovered something that we had not noticed earlier -- i.e. there are two of Gail's relatives in the 50 year class reunion of the Kent 1915 graduating class.

Originally we had only spotted Frank Bouldron -- and then upon reading the detail we spotted Sadie Calhoun. They are Gail's Great Uncle and her Great Aunt, respectively. It's a small world ...


Continuing Communication re The Stacey William Hiles Branch

It has been great this week talking back and forth with Jim and getting to know more about his family. He has had a chance to view the Hiles Website and has offered additions and corrections which we really appreciate.

In our earlier post it all started with Stacey William Hiles (Rev) and his family. Since then we have gotten to know much more.

Above are some photos that Jim sent and they are of all the kids (6) that Stacey & Estelle had along with a possible picture of Edward & Hannah Hiles who would be the Grandparents of Stacey.

There are others posted on the Hiles Website and hopefully even more in the coming posts.

What is Now on our Nightstand?

We have finished reading the novel by Fannie Flagg -- and that was fun. We are now doing a multi-book try . . .

We are reading non-fiction again and the first book "a Boat, a Whale & a Walrus" is a combination recipe and story book. It all takes place in Seattle by a woman who owns and operates four restaurants there.

It is really fun to read and hopefully on our next trip to Seattle we will visit at least one of the  restaurants. This was a gift from Lisa & Bob on Mother's Day.

The other book is -- back to the biographical -- about the life of Shirley Temple. The opening chapters though are very much about Franklin D Roosevelt which sets up the scenario of living in the "Great Depression". We are finding it too very interesting.

Lastly

Our town has already had it's multi-hour Memorial Day parade and the annual "fair" is in full swing at this moment.

The weather has cooperated and it "feels" like a four-day weekend.

And that is a bit of our week -- see you all in a few!!