Gardening Gifts of Love!!

There is a street in Pitman - Holly Avenue - and there is a house on Holly Avenue that is a true gift to all who drive by and take the time to notice.  This day, we saw that the flowers that had filled out the garden by the wall were gone!  What was to happen??  Then we saw the flats of pansies and then we saw a person!!

Truth and honest - in all of the years that we had been appreciating this gardening, never had we ever seen a person out front working on it!  Today we did.  "Stop the car and turn around!"  I knew that it was important for me - the Catch Them Doing Something Right Lady - to go back and talk with the gardener and thank her for all she has contributed to the beauty of life for so many of us!!  Now here is the most amazing information connected to this person and this garden.  SHE DOES NOT LIVE IN THIS HOUSE!  All of the gardening she does - changing the plants at least 2 or 3 times a year - is a labor of love for the people who do live there.  She and they are friends - all retired school teachers and she does all of this because she loves doing it.  She also gardens at her house in a nearby town and at a church in Glassboro.  Meet Janet - an exceptional woman with a giant heart and such a wealth of gardening information.    We learned about a new kind of tiny zinnia -

Now meet Fran - an oncology nurse who helps Janet with the gardening when she can.  So there is not one angel working in this yard, but two. 
So get this.  I, Photoschmoozer, was out without my camera that day IF you can believe that??  I had to go home and get it!!  Just had to.  Now here is the strange thing - by the time I went home, got the camera and came back, the zinnias that were planted along the driveway were gone!  Fran said that if she knew I wanted to take pictures of them, she wouldn't have taken them out.  I felt fortunate to find them still in the trash can and even more fortunate that Little Light was there dancing with me to make the zinnias perfect.  More gratitude!!

    Then we got invited to visit the back yard and who knew!!  There was a profusion of flowers - a plethora of colors - a pallette that would delight any artist!!   So..thankful?  you bet?  and the coolest part of it all besides the gardening and the beautiful flowers is for us to discover that Janet is 85 years young - what a role model!!  What a lesson and gift for all of our lives.  You can't just be complacent and drive on by when there is a synchronicity to be explored and stories to be shared.  My life is richer for having met Janet...and Fran.  I am really full of gratitude!!