Tea With The Dames, lavash for lunch, sunflowers

I don't post often about food, since cooking for one is not that interesting to me, but I discovered Lavash recently, a flatbread, just bought it on a whim. It seems to stay fresh longer than a loaf of bread, about a week. I cover it with grated cheese, tomatoes from my garden, taco sauce, put it in the microwave for 20 seconds, and then roll it up and eat it. Yum. Nice with olives and an avocado on the side. The traditional way to enjoy lavash is to spread it with cream cheese and add things like sliced ham and lettuce before rolling it up.

Above is a native penstemon, which is purple with undercurrent of blue. There are 4 different purple native penstemon, some with a white throat. My five plants are all purple and bees and butterflies and people like them.
After a decade of dropping cable and not watching much TV I have discovered the delights of streaming channels. I subscribe to Hulu and recently watched the documentary Tea with the Dames. Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Joan Plowright and Eileen Atkins (she is Aunt Ruth in Doc Martin which I am watching). I found it delightful as the four actresses shared laughs and career highlights and family and husband moments. Some of the laughs are bawdy. Other Hulu favorite shows for me are Blackish, New Tricks and Elementary.

Below is another photo of the penstemon with some of my new bottle bush plants on the left. I had 11 bottle brush planted on both sides of my driveway and they are the kind that only grow to 3 or 4 feet tall, which is what I wanted. Many bottle brush grow to 6 or 8 or even 10 feet tall and all are gorgeous when covered with their red flowers.

And my neighbors faithfully plant many sunflowers from seed each year and the flowers are blooming now.

I thank their perseverance because last year they barely had any plants survive an onslaught by squirrels and birds as the squirrels dug up the seeds and birds ate the seedlings. Last year they kept planting more seeds and even put netting over the planting area to little avail. This year the sunflowers are back and didn't bloom til September and they are very welcome.

Bits and Bobs

Here is a gathering of recent photos I took.

Above are some heart shaped leaves I found while walking Bounce. The tree is tall, maybe 40 feet tall, and healthy and had been trimmed so there are leaves on the ground. I wonder if it is a type of eucalyptus. The leaves I gathered that are in my photo look like they are made of bronze; one friend said they look like they are made of gold.

Can you see how big these zucchinis are? I put a pair of garden gloves on top of the pile to show the scale. My friend uses large zucchinis for baking, but I don't. I am sorry I let these get too big. I only planted one green and one yellow zucchini but I am not keeping up with them, obviously.

My very old cement sun bird feeder; I like to photograph this and the volunteer nasturtiums that climb up to it.
Two words new to me that I like the sound of, and that I found in a UK blogger's post this week:
Faffing
Pootling
I hope they aren't rude!
I decided to look them up online and they meant what I thought, faffing is doing something slowly, taking your own sweet time, not in a rush. Like faffing about in my garden.
Pootling means moving leisurely without a plan or goal or time frame, like pootling about on a country walk or drive. and seeing what you find. British friends, if I am on the wrong track with these definitions let me know.

Do you like the waterfall cascade effect of these orchids? This orchid is a prolific and dependable bloomer and I bought it for a low price at a big chain food store, Safeway. I am pleased with it. I have six orchids in my kitchen in front of an east facing window.

Here is a closeup of Mary who continues to reign in my garden bringing a peace with her. I used money from payment for a garden article I wrote decades ago, it seemed an appropriate way to spend the money.
So now, if you are like me, let's take some time to do some garden or library faffing and then pootle around the neighborhood. I think dogs are the kings and queens of faffing and pootling and they can teach us well. Be sure and wave if you see me.