mellow Yellow Monday -- Cactus roses

Welcome to another week of Mellow Yellow Monday. Yellow seems to be busting out all over so I have chosen a variety of things to share this week.

Starting with the first blooms on the cactus plants I have on the side of my house. These plants have quite a history as well.
You may have noticed that I did not use the term planted to describe these cactus. That is because they were never planted.

About ten years ago my mother was visiting a yard sale and noticed that the lady had a large pile of cactus plants laying beside her garbage cans waiting for that days pick up. She ask if she could take a few and went home with a about a dozen plants. She did not have time to plant them that day so she laid them on the ground inside the railroad ties trimming the flower bed beside her house and covered them with a wet cloth. Then her world got all shook up and she completely forgot about the cactus. Several weeks later she happen to go out to check on the boy who cuts her grass and remembered the cactus. Sure they had died of neglect she was surprised to fine that they had rooted where they were placed and so she left them alone.

Over the years her dozen plants have multiplied on their own to cover a ten foot area and have climbed over the railroad ties and taken over the space in front. Wanting to get the unruly cactus back into the bed she dug up all the plants outside the walled area. That is where I come in.

I just happened to visit that day last summer and saw the pile of plants she was going to discard. I brought home about a dozen and laid them along the foundation of my house and ignored them. This year they have tripled and are starting to bloom. Looks like I will be digging up a few next summer. Anyone interested in the castoffs?


I spotted this striped tent the other day setting up for the fourths fireworks sales.
One of the comments we get most from visitors to our state has to do with the amount of billboards along our highways. Missouri seems to be one of the last states without many restrictions regarding the large advertisements. Apparently the recession is taking a toll on them because everywhere I go lately I see a lot of billboards that look like these.

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