My sister Marilyn, my "resident expert" on flowers, has identified the volunteer plants out front as  Hummingbird Sage (Salvia coccinea 'Lady in Red'), and a search of salvia coccinea brings up dozens of pix showing exactly what I have.  Good work, Marilyn!  Unfortunately I haven't had any luck sprouting any new plants from the copious seeds along the stems, and this may be why:

Will not come true from seed

Soak seeds overnight.

DS after last frost. 

Reseeds freely but not exactly true from seed.

Amazingly Tom was able to stuff the t-shirt quilt into the "large" box, so I can make a trip to the post office tomorrow to mail both quilts.

At only 11:00 Steve sent the crew home for the day.  He was wanting yet more money (he has asked for, and Tom has paid him some, at every visit, and since we paid directly for the pipe virtually everything else in theory has been going toward labor) but at this point we are NOT shelling out any more $ until the job is finished.  None of our old system which was torn out and is sitting in a pile has been hauled away, none of the final leveling has been done (several times Tom went out with the shovel to start working on that but was told by Steve not to, that the crew would do that), the grate is not yet here, so if that doesn't get done before irrigation we will be standing over the water to lift the baffle, etc.  

Steve kept trying to wheedle more money out of Tom today, saying he's "good for it" with respect for all the stuff left to do (hard not to laugh at that one) and insisted he'll do all that this week when he finishes his regular job - but since he didn't keep ANY of his promises about showing up to work when he said he would Tom stuck to his guns, just repeating that he's not going to pay out any more until the job is fully complete. Tom's planning to head to Flagstaff tomorrow to rendezvous with Steve-from-Colorado for their postponed grubbing trip, and I certainly have NO intention of paying Steve anything since Tom has all the paperwork about what was agreed upon and what has already been paid.

This reminds me of all the broken promises housing nightmare 

in my dealings with the Havasupai tribe back in the 70s.

Tom spent considerable time out there breaking up clods (which would have been easier when he wanted to do it, when it was all wet from the rain), fixing berms, and leveling the dirt.  Even wearing  gloves he raised quite a blister.

* * * * *

I'm back from the gym (made it through the first half of Boot Camp) and now plan to relax the rest of the afternoon. Latina is on her way over to 'help'.