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A WEEK AGO, when my yard man and I walked in the door, just home from our Southwestern vacation, our suitcases filled with dirty laundry, the house was clammy and damp, the weather outside cool and drippy. There was a stack of mail on the table a half-mile high, and a backlog of messages on phone and computer.

"TAKE ME BACK!!!" I wailed to the yard man.

So today found us once again looking at cacti and palm trees! And Giant Sequoias, too!







WE WERE BACK IN CALIFORNIA!!

















Oh, ho, ho...if you believe that, Dear Reader, I've got some other tall tales to tell...
some
tall,
tall,
tall
tales!


They're true! They're tall! They're tall, but true.
Good grief, I'll just tell you the real facts, fair and square.
We were NOT in California (pfft, I just knew you didn't believe that part!)



But we did see cacti and palm trees and Giant Sequoias.


We latched onto this frabjous day and invited friends to enjoy some scopious outdoor gardens with us!


(I hope that you didn't have to eat your words, Reader Dear! [And if you did, I hope they were as yummy as the food we had with our friends before strolling around the gardens!])




Everything growing at these gardens is "hardy in our area" or else it's growing in the massive conservatories...(not massive enough for those Redwoods, I suppose, but they did have the palm trees in there!)








We spent all afternoon at these gardens, until the place closed down and they chased us out.















We saw all kinds of mind-blowing
flora,




















both indoors and out.













and a teeny bit of fauna, too!



While we didn't see California, it's true,














we DID have that kind of day!


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