Bright Week is always a bit weird. There’s the huge crescendo of Holy Week and Pascha, and then… normal life. Our mission simply doesn’t have the human resources for Liturgies this week, so it’s like we drop off into space. People have to work and go to school, regular therapy and orthodontist appointments have to be kept. In this secular world there’s no room for keeping festival for more than a day or two. We’ve definitely lost something. Of course, some people are able to celebrate more fully and that’s wonderful.

I’ve been catching the garden up. Yesterday I mentioned the plants I added. Today I dug out a tiny, disconnected scrap of planting bed that recently contained a huge fire ant bed. It was resistant to poison so Father eventually dumped gasoline on it. Well, that worked. I assumed the few, persistent wandering Jew plants would give up the ghost after that assault but they were still looking spritely. I dug out several inches of the soil from around them and around the base of the anchoring shrub (nearly killed by two consecutive years of hard freezes) and replaced it with potting soil. Then I planted some morning glory seeds. It’s a difficult spot because it gets full and unrelenting sun from noon until about 7 during the summer. I’m hoping the morning glories will climb the bones of the shrub and spruce it up a little, and the wandering Jew will fill in the base. I guess we’ll see. I have to keep a close eye on it for fire ants because it is apparently prime real estate.

My youngest daughter’s raised bed in the back contains four kinds of tomato plants (she doesn’t like tomatoes, but is addicted to growing them) and sprouting cucumbers and string beans. There are a few reseeded zinnias in there too.