How cute! Big Daddy is playing the part. Those are seedlings. It must have dropped some seeds last fall. They aren't attached to the main plant. You can gently lift them out and pot them or move them to another location if you want them to continue grow. Pam

My dad died last year May 2 8 days short of 96 yrs old & 2 weeks before he asked me to look at him & he took my hands & said. I have to tell you something, I don't want you to mourn me when I'm gone but it's OK to miss me. I'm so glad he said that it's meant so much to me. I think we all want to remember our dads but I don't think they would want us to mope around. I look at things he made or fixed or his gardens & feel close to him so remember the good memories you have in your heart. Time does make it better Plant something he loved, a rose or vine & everytime you go out & see it you will smile, make a memory book of your good times together, poem he liked, pic of his favorite place to go or eat. Things you most like to talk about ,his hobbies etc.It will help keep him closer.

For the past couple of decades, the ratio of women vs men has not been in the women's favor. Combine that with the real need for women to be self supporting in this world - that is now pretty much fact - to live above "survival" level, to be decently self supporting, they must be well educated, build their career - they can't "take time off" and expect to come back and be on the same track they were - the business world does not accomidate planning a family and Im not sure that it even should. I feel it to be very necessary for women to build up that career because of the high divorce and financiall, child abandonment rate - the women and children end up worse off and the man ends up better off financially. So it's now simply the law of nature that a woman must be prepared to take care of herself and her children alone. NOthing is written in stone anymore. That is a very, very sad fact about our society and the world, but it's simply the fact of life. I hope that mothers today are raising their little girls not on the Cinderella story but on strong, self managing role models. I think it's now basic good mothering and leading their little girls to the best possible life for them. Everyone must learn to live on the idea to be able to financially depend upon themselves, no matter what. It's a new world. So many are building that career that the biological clock gets ignored through necessity. Unlike a man, the woman can't ignore what is happening with her body. So many are now not married yet or the clock is running down and simply can't wait, or even count on, that prince or likely decent father to show up if they want to have the healthiest chance to have a healthy child, so they are choosing to have their family alone. It's sad, but it's now how this world turns. I have no problem at all with these women - they are much more likely to make good and effective mothers who support their carefully planned family well. They have done the work, done the planning and are prepared emotionally and financially. It's the young/younger unwed mothers who have no real source of income which can decently support themselves OR child and is frankly unlikely to ever have a realistic source of income that will enable them to stand on their own two feet and be effective, loving mothers. Or, the mothers who reproduce without worrying about any of this at all because somebody, somewhere will provide the basics and they know this - our taxes at work. The world and women's expectations for their life is very, very different than it was back in the 70's when I was starting out. Adjustments must be made for the best future of these women and their children. I wonder if there will ever be a time in the future of this century where males as a whole will be having the same discussions about family and career and raising a child alone that women now must have. I doubt it, it's built into our DNA. In general, they start them, we raise them. The idea that male "hunting" for the offspring seems to have fallen off the DNA chain *sigh* Sometimes I really ponder this, I wonder if that drive is no longer there because the world is so populated now that the male natural drive to provide simply isn't necessary anymore. There are so very many that his DNA is likely to survive, regardless. Sometimes I over analyze, can you tell? ;)

It is very neat annielu. A unique planter for sure. I saw that you shared it over on Garden Junk too. I guess it won't stay unique for long with those guys. ha Sorry to hear about the lose of your dad. Glad you got to take this home with you. It is a treasure. ~Anj