Happy Saturday to all! A big thanks to Natalie of Natalie the Explorer for hosting WeekendCoffeeShare this and every weekend.

I am at my dentist office this morning to get a cavity refilled.

Yes, refilled!

Thank goodness my dentist opens on Saturday. I had a cavity filled about 2 months ago and when I felt a sharp pain brushing my teeth on Wednesday, I peeked in the mirror and lo and behold, the filling was missing. I wasn’t looking forward to getting this done when I had to call in to make the appointment and I am certainly not looking forward to today but either I live with the pain or I power through the pain for an hour or so. I have enough long-term pain in my body, I don’t need more.

This little creature paid a visit to my garden this week. I was taking a walk in the garden, as I was about to head back into the house to work, I saw this little guy and almost did a double-take before running upstairs to grab my camera. I don’t think my phone has this kind of zoom power.

It stayed so still the whole time I was taking pictures – one after after. I thought it was dead when it suddenly flew away. I did a dive into my search engine for green dragonflies and it turned out, this is a Green Darner Dragonfly. It’s a common North American dragonfly and it’s named because its tail looks like a darning needle. I believe this is a female because of its brown belly – the part connecting the needle-like tail. Males have blue bellies.

I was a bit disappointed at first, seeing that it’s a common species. I was hoping I would have something rare like a monarch butterfly drop by for a visit or a swallowtail butterfly. Still, it was another new (to me) visitor to my little garden sanctuary.

I also think it has a great taste in flowers. That’s my favorite color of alyssum and it seems like the colder it gets, the more profusely the blooms. My personal meadow is now completely occupied by white and lilac-color alyssum and on cooler days, you can stand by it and take in that sweet-jasminy scent. It’s lovely.

This week, I also amended my berry bed by taking away the mulch and adding a layer of new soil. I’m ashamed to report that I’ve been neglecting this bed much of this season, so much so that I didn’t realize one of the blueberry plants has perished and the new blueberry I put in last year wasn’t doing well. I also didn’t notice the strawberries weren’t happy either, there’s barely any soil around its roots.

Amending this bed was hard, though because I must take great care to not damage the strawberry plants in the process as well as not bury its crown. After all it’s done, I re-set up the drip irrigation for the bed so it would be one less task I will need to do in the spring. Then it was testing the irrigation before putting back a thin layer of straw mulch.

Anyway, I think I’ll stop right here before rambling on for another 500 words. I appreciate you stopping by. I hope you will have a wonderful week ahead.