I hope I am posting a couple more. Now that I have succeeded with that, thanks to help from Murry, let me explain that I have taken rather close-up shots to screen out all the piles of stuff waiting to be carried out, used, clean up, or planted. I believe I've given you the best of all possible views.

The long promised photos

Here they are. Comments to follow.

procrastination

I have about 40 things that need to be done before I go back to work on Tuesday morning, and it is raining right now. So it is really a perfect time for me to put a dent in these 40 things, but instead I have decided to do some blarking.

My neighbor friends and I have built a community garden. A little background: across the street from my house (photo attached) there are three houses in a row that have consistently been occupied by young couples.

The first young couple to move in was freakishly short - both under 5'2". Their families would come to visit and we found that, as you might expect, the apples didn't fall far from the trees, as the family members were equally short if not shorter than the couple who lived across the street. This couple became known to Jeff Cannon and myself as "The Shorts".

Two houses down from the shorts, another couple moved in. These two are incredibly tall - in fact they make the Adams boys seem average height. The husband is about 6'9" and the wife about 6'1". Naturally, they became known to us as "The Talls".

Lastly, a third couple moved into the house between the Shorts and the Talls. This young, attractive couple have no visible freakish characteristics. Therefore, they came to be known to Jeff Cannon and myself as "The Just Rights".

Today, the Shorts have move to the suburbs where, frankly, they belong. But the Talls and the Just Rights and myself have become friends.

It is a lovely little block and we do nice things for each other. If I go out of town and do not tell them before I leave, I can expect a scolding from either Mrs. Tall or Mrs. Just Right followed by "we were worried about you" when I get home.The Talls entertained some of Mr. Tall's work friends at their home last Saturday night. The next day, upon returning from my Sunday morning run with Mr. and Mrs. Just Right, I found that Mrs. Tall had created a small arrangement of flowers leftover from some she had bought for her prior night's party, and put it on my porch. The Just Rights, having recently discovered the joys and benefits of taking a fish oil supplement, presented me with my own bottle of fish oil capsules.

So, now we've decided to plant a community garden in an empty lot on my side of the block. The Mr's Tall and Just Right built some beds and we've all contributed to the veggies in the garden. We have tomato plants, an eggplant plant, squash, beans, herbs and I just bought some okra plants. We're stealing water from my next door neighbor who makes no other valuable contribution to the 'hood, so we feel justified.

It is too early to harvest anything, but I've included some photos of what promises to be a bountiful crop in a few weeks.

Today's goal

I want to take my camera out into my garden and take some pictures and my goal is to figure out how to post a couple of them here. Let's see how well I do, shall we? I talked to Jan yesterday and blabbed all about it to her.

I'm loving this action, though, in truth, I don't know how to do diddly squat. I haven't even figured out how to put a picture up. I'll take a look at Cristy's directions and see if that helps. In the meantime, I always assumed that Mom and Dad lived in Austin because that's where Bud and I were both born. Was it really San Antonio?

I'm going to be back down in Chattanooga from June 25 through the following weekend. Anyone up to try for another tubing trip while I'm there?

Wanna go?

Since I have finally figured out how to post on this thing, I have a suggestion for a future excursion. We too would be interested in any Clark or Johnson reunions, and we would also be up for a repeat of the tubing trip on the Chattahoochee in Helen, the Pensacola Beach trip, a cookout at Larry and Charlotta's or any other family get-together in addition to Christmas.

But Jef and I have talked for several years of taking a trip to San Antonio for a long weekend to visit the places where Mother and Daddy spend the first couple years of their marriage. We have never been to San Antonio and it's an easy, cheap flight to there for us. We understand it is a neat city all by itself and it is close to Austin and to Hondo, where Daddy was stationed. I don't know exactly where they were married, but there is supposed to be a museum at Hondo and we recently learned that it was the largest air base in the U.S. during the war, so it has a lot of history. Anyone want to join us?

We are probably going sometime in the next year, maybe as soon as the fall, as Texas can be hot. It would be neat to do it around their anniversary in April, but we will definitely go by the time of what would be their 70th anniversary in 2013. What do you think?

What about the Reunion.
Jane you said there was a Clark Reunion I know there is a Johnson any date and time .

Larry

A few pointers

OK, so now we're up and running on this Blark, and we'll just see what happens. Since I've been putzing around on this blog for a bit and just figured out some of the most basic things, I thought I'd share what I know. Now, if ya'll all know this stuff already, just smile politely and ignore me.

To write a totally new post, look up on the right hand corner of your screen, and right there by your email address is "New Post." Click on that and you come to this page that you can probably figure out from there. You can add photos (like this classic Julia and Ralph All Lovey-Dovey photo, video, spell check (useful for Larry) and all the usual stuff.

To comment on something someone else has posted, you can click on "Comment" right below their post and type away. That doesn't show up quite as handily on the Blark homepage, but it lists how many comments are there if you want to check them out.

You can also go to the Dashboard thing (up in the right hand corner sometimes - I'm not really sure what pages have what things showing up), and see all kinds of stuff: Your profile (post a photo of yourself, preferably one with you wearing a bikini when you are about 3 years old), you can sign up to follow the Blark and any other blogs you find, you can even figure out how to post something from your cell phone. Blythe, can total outsiders see our Blark? I don't know the answer to that one.

OK, that pretty much taps out all my blogging knowledge. Let's see some posts!

Home at last!

Hey everyone,

Murry and I just arrived home about an hour ago. There are a couple of things I'd like to say.

1. Blythe, you're the best there is. Thanks for setting this all up for us.

2. I've just been sitting in the dark in the garden with Murry talking about Dave. I dont' ever remember him - even as a little guy - being angry or unpleasant. For that matter, the same is true of Bud. Not so much of me.

3. I think I have the greatest family in the entire world.

The Blarkoduction

Blark away.  More later.