Anonymous Gifts and Rhododendrons

You know what is odd? Someone anonymous leaves gifts on my porch. The first time it happened was while I was at my dad's funeral. I came home to find two beautiful wooden planter boxes, placed neatly on either side of the porch, filled with flowers. I couldn't figure out who could have done it, because everyone I was close to or who cared enough about me to do such a thing was at the service with me.

Then it happened again tonight. Dale and I decided to take advantage of the good weather and after dinner went outside to pull weeds. On the porch were the cutest little knitted pumpkin hats for the kids. I am touched by the thoughtfulness and kindness and want to express my gratitude...Who are you Anonymous Gift Giver?

So while we were out pulling weeds I got a chuckle while thinking about Story #2:
When Dale and I bought our house in 2003 we had our work cut out for us, yard-wise. We have an acre, and the original owners were rhododendron lovers. Fanatics. Freaks. They planted them everywhere. Most of them, I'm sure, were planted when the house was built in 1951. The many years weren't good to them, either. They had been neglected and were way overgrown.

It would not have mattered, though, if they were in pristine condition, because Dale and I hate them. I hear you Rhodie lovers unite in a collective gasp over our distaste over our state flower and we don't care. We decided they must go!

Now, we could have carefully dug them up and given them away where they would have been loved and nurtured and tended to, but we didn't. Instead Dale took a chainsaw, mowed them all down, and then one by one hooked a chain around the roots and yarded out the stumps with our Jeep. While he was digging out one of the stumps with a shovel out front, our neighbor walked over. "You don't like rhodies, huh?" he asked Dale. Dale was like, "No, we hate 'em." Then our neighbor proceeded to tell Dale that back in the day, our yard was featured in Sunset magazine for the award-winning rhododendrons.

Oops.

I would love to see that article, though.