Mother's Day In Roseland

I took this picture this morning. It's in what I call the "secret garden" beside the cabana house, completely closed in with a fence, with great clumps of giant bamboo that clonk together in the breeze as they sway. There's a glass-topped iron table with four chairs and there's nothing within that fence except those and jungly plants and oh yes...

This little guy, he's only about a foot tall, if that, is new to me this visit. Google Lens tells me that it is a Swedish armillary Hercules and you can google that yourself. This particular Hercules has lost his armillary sphere but he is still a charming little guy. 

And that blossom? It is the bloom of a bromeliad which I cannot identify exactly but it may be a Aechamea Chantinii, aka "Little Harv."
Excuse me?

Glenn has planted so many bromeliads here and unlike the ones growing even just a few hundred miles north of here, these can live outside year round and grow in great and grand clumps. 

So today is Mother's Day. 
Mine started out beautifully with a cuddle and a snuggle and then a cup of coffee. I found these gardenias and a love note when I got to the kitchen.

Glenn has a bush of them in the back yard which leads to the river and every night I have picked one on my walk back to the house after sunset but my Glen picked these. Those Roseland gardenias and his note are far more precious to me than any store bought bouquet of flowers and Hallmark card possibly could ever be. 

We knew that going out to breakfast would be ridiculous. Anyone who has worked in food service knows that Mother's Day is the busiest and most likely hardest day of the year to work. Everyone and their baby-daddies go out for breakfast/brunch on Mother's Day. And we were going to be two of them. 
We went to the restaurant where we've eaten every morning and yes, it was packed and there was a wait-time but I just got in a sort of Zen state and wasn't perturbed in the least and then I realized that there were babies, many, many babies there. So many babies. And my heart was so happy to see them and their mamas who were adoring them and their grandmothers too who held them and walked them so that the mamas could eat. 

It was all sweet. 

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And now it's hours later and we couldn't watch the sunset because it was raining and lightning was forking across the river. 

I'm tired. And tomorrow we get up and pack and tidy the cabana house and leave for home. 
I cried tonight when I said goodbye to the river. 

I cried when I told Glenn and his husband Scott how much I appreciate what they've done here, allowing me to come home again, in a way. 

We can come back. That is part of the miracle of Roseland. 

Story to be continued. I hope. 

Love...Ms. Moon