Making a "theme" from Bahamas, and animals in a zoo, and maybe some color run. In the Ardastra Zoo in the Bahamas, one of their featured attractions is a "precision marching drill" of flamingos. The birds enter the ring and all walk in one direction and then turn a walk the other way. The cynical side of me said they seem to just be running away from the trainer whenever he shouts and waves his arms at them, but it was a fun, colorful experience.

Gazania, our (summer) home is about an hour from Pittsburgh. We rarely get to the city to enjoy its offerings. This is the dark pink phase of a confederate rose flower, actually Hibiscus mutabulis. It starts out as a white flower, turns pale pink then dark rose before it withers.

I love them EVERY day....so thank you all for giving me such pleasure. You all are so talented...it is just like getting one of those "Taste of Home" magazines (no ads) .... I can't remember the name of the magazine...just remember how hard it was to part with them.

I like the shrubby Serviceberries too, I've planted quite a few over the years. One shrub in the sunken garden has to be over 30yrs. old. Is showing some age finally, and has been blown over at least three times, but still blooms and puts out those suckers like you say. I try to keep it more open and bare at the bottom. It was purchased from a nursery that had entered it in a garden show and they had pruned it up so nicely. For the past seven years it's been propped up with a wooden "crutch"! I'm just too attached to it to cut it down, altho I have done some hard pruning in recent years. I have heard the berries are safe to eat, but never tried them. At what point did you pick them - when they are dark red I suppose? Like you say, the Robins and other birds gobble them up even before they turn completely red so I probably would be hard up to gather many of them. What do they taste like?