Don't ask me why – well, ask if you want - but I was thinking about George Gobel while I was trimming back ivy this morning. You young whippersnappers, and you know who you are, probably do not know about “Lonesome George” and “spooky old Alice”. Well then there now, that may be one of the reasons we in the older generation are so much smarter and wiser.

“My uncle was the town drunk – and we lived in Chicago.”

How about this quartet, with Jeff Chandler singing (Don't know who Jeff Chandler is? Your loss. So there.). You don't hardly get those any more.

”I've never been drunk but I've often been overserved.”

Not much of George on this but y'all need to hear Dean, Ella, and Gordon McRae sing “Tumbling Tumbleweeds”. And there is no voice like Ella's.

Well, I'll be a dirty bird.

Love volunteers. If Mother Nature wants something to grow in my garden, then she will get it to grow there. Of course, myself and some previous owners of my Tidewater Victorian have acted as Mother Nature's agents, but that is beside the point.

(Stock picture from Google, Not mine but the same)

Case in point. Two years ago, we went to the local townwide yard sale. It is fun, they have antique and fancy cars, good food, music, lots of junk to look at and resist buying. Happened to be there about two that afternoon and it started to rain. One of the booths was the Master Gardeners of Virginia and they had a big box of iris rhizomes. Sold me the whoooole box for five bucks. Meant to be. The moles and voles did not eat them up like they did my tulips. Turns out there were about thirty iris plants in the box. Planted them in groups of five and more than a foot between each plant. Beautiful blue flags. My Mother, God rest her soul, called them flags. This year, noticed that they are pretty jumbled so did what the book says and dug them up to separate them. Each group that started out as five had thirty rhizomes in it! Love those iris and they seem to love me. They are now all around my yard. Also going to my two sons' yards and the neighbor's yard and to the local handicapped nursery. Plan on getting some more of different colors just to help Mother Nature some more.

One of my dogwoods a couple of springs ago.

When we bought the house, there was one nice big purple crape myrtle in the front. And some pink ones beside the driveway, actually in a neighbor's property. Guess what? They reproduce! Likewise a dogwood at the the corner of the porch. And some pines that somehow got across the street from Jack's yard. And some magnolias from the neighbor's yard. Now have a yard with a bunch of pines, magnolias, dogwoods for spring show, crape myrtles for summer show. Love those pines, crape myrtles, dogwoods, magnolias.

A flower on my crape myrtle.

A phone camera picture of a funny looking guy holding a watermelon

But the best of all was when doing some weeding out by the kitchen window, between my house and my neighbors, noticed something that looked familiar and not like a weed. So let it grow. Turns out it is a watermelon vine. It is taking over the whole yard and about to move in with us. Harvested the first melon from it yesterday and you have never in your life tasted a better watermelon. Heavy and sweet as candy. And full of seeds. And there are at least five more of them growing on it. Plenty to share with the neighbor. Thank you, Mother Nature (plus whoever spit a seed there). Just have to clean up all the unmowed grass and unweeded patches after it goes. Next years vines will not be volunteers, saved a bunch of seeds.

A beautiful creature eating one of my delicious watermelons.

Volunteerism is great.

Duplicate and not right. Removed.

An interesting article in the June issue of Scientific American. I know, this is August and I am reading the June issue. Did you hear about the guy who ran into the bathroom, slipped, and fell on top of the magazines stacked there? He got a little behind in his reading. I know it is a horrible joke. No threats of violence nor nasty responses, please.

This particular article, entitled “The Healthy Type”, is about the neurobiology of blogging. The idea of the article is that it has a therapeutic value. Of course, we all knew that already.

“Self medication may be the reason the blogosphere has taken off. Scientists (and writers) have long known about the therapeutic effects of writing about personal experiences, thoughts, and feelings. ..... Research shows that it improves memory and sleep, boosts immune cell activity and reduces viral loads in AIDS patients.....cancer patients who engaged in expressive writing just before treatment felt markedly better, mentally and physically...”

There are even diseases that result in compulsive writing called “hypergraphia”. The part of the brain that controls writing, the midbrain, controls all compulsions, writing, appetite, sex, etc. So blogging is related to sex! Knew it all along. fMRI studies have shown it!

So keep on bloggin'. It is good for you.

But it has not chased away the purple and orange lizards that keep crawling all over me. Nor the dreams I get after eating tacos. But I want those to continue. Yeehaw!