This is a busy weekend for me with lots of great stuff and few margins (I love my margins). I have a college graduation party for my fabulous niece, I’m hosting hub’s birthday bowl-a-thon, I’m teaching Sunday School, my church welcomes a new pastor and my Sunday School class is having its Christmas party (I’m supposed to bring a crock pot of chili). And just for good measure, hubs wants us to go see one of his favorite guitarists who’s in town this weekend. We’ll have to see about that.
Anyway, I had exactly two unstructured hours this morning and I decided to finish winterizing my roses. According to the calendar I’m right on schedule, but according to the temperatures I’m woefully behind. It felt good to complete the task. And I was rewarded with THIS.
This bloom of Dick Clark survived last night’s below-freezing temperatures. My Dick Clark rose bush is special to me. This was my first rose purchase. Nationally known rosarian Sam Jones sold it to me at a garden festival. At the time, I had no idea who Sam was. As far as I knew, he was just a nice guy volunteering for the Nashville Rose Society. Once I joined the society, I began to learn more about this giant in my midst. We was a patient teacher who loved seeing newbies like me get bitten by the rose growing bug. He was never too busy to take a call. In fact, this spring I called him in a state of panic because I had to prune my roses so severely I was sure I’d killed them. He assured me I hadn’t and about two weeks later little green shoots appears on all of my plants, proving Sam was right.
Sam died suddenly a few months ago. I miss him terribly as do rosarians all over the country. This morning while working in freezing temperatures, I enjoyed this little “hello” from him.
482gr8 
Very nice…Happy weekend!