It was a beautiful day to work in the yard, which currently looks quite manicured after all the work Tom and I put into it today.  Some chance of rain tomorrow, so I'm glad he got everything mowed and weed-eaten and swept today.

  

Here are a couple of pix of the scarlet sage (salvia splendens) 

which is looking quite happy and healthy these days.

There was progress on the irrigation box - at least until Rick ran out of cinder blocks, and Steve, who was supposed to bring more, was MIA at another job.  

Rick really wanted to finish this part today so everything could set and settle before doing the "lid" and then filling in around the box and covering the pipe with dirt; he's as frustrated with Steve as we are!  I'm not sure if Rick actually will be able to finish tomorrow, or have to wait a day or so for the cement to dry before back-filling.  Of course Thursday's deadline IS approaching!

Tonight I watched the documentary My Italian Secret: The Forgotten Heroes, which I heard about on a recent NPR segment.  Some of it I already knew, while some was new to me.

Under the shadow of the Nazi crusade to exterminate European Jews, cycling champ Gino Bartali and an army of his compatriots went to perilous lengths to save thousands of Italian Jews from capture and death, as recounted in this moving documentary.