Sometimes I harbor frustration towards the last owner of our house for all of the stains on the walls.  There are just so many of them!  The stains mean that eventually, every single wall in our house needs a fresh coat of paint (except for the two rooms we’ve already gotten around to painting).  Sad.

Then at other times, I’m overwhelmed with the gifts that same former owner left for us.  Today, I’m thankful for her love of peonies:

These are the first three blooming peonies from the yard, where there are over a hundred blossoms on their way to this stage.  Sure, she left us with a very healthy weed community, but she also left four areas of peony plants, lots of lamb’s ear, and one of the biggest, happiest climbing roses I’ve ever seen. 

Now I just have to keep all of those gorgeous flowers in mind while I try to come up with a game plan of destruction for the weeds in the garden beds.  There are just so many of them that traditional weeding doesn’t seem reasonable.  Hmm.