Diana and I have been so fortunate to travel and see "Daylily Friends" in such different regions of our great Country. On Sunday morning, Oct. 16, 2016, we drove to Mississippi to visit with the Hattiesburg Area Daylily Society. We arrived about 45 minutes early and so we looked around the area, and indeed it is a beautiful place. It felt like August in north Georgia. The sun was warm and the temperature was in the mid and high 80s. At the meeting we happily greeted Barbara and Earl Watts, two of the best members of our incredible National Daylily Society. We also met Gary Campbell, the Hattiesburg President, and then just saw more and more friends. Later in the day, after the Club meeting was concluded, I took a Club Picture. Then, the Club took Diana and myself to a Seafood Restaurant. The meal was so, so good. Thanks to Earl, we stayed overnight at a brand new Hampton Inn Hotel. Got a good night's sleep and the next morning we returned home. Thanks to Barbara and Earl and to the Hattiesburg Club Members for a wonderful time!
The first part of the Battlefield that I wanted to see was Little Roundtop. For a while we handled ourselves well at Little Roundtop, and we were fortunate that the Union troops ran out of bullets. But even though they had no more bullets, we ran away when they charged at us with just bayonets. I mean we marched across the Applachian Mountains to get there, we are basically successful in our efforts, but then at the last minute we run, and so we lost this important encounter. Then, looking at the area our forces held, and understanding what happened at Pickett's Charge, just made me so regretful. Our men, my relatives included, dying in the open field and being shot by Union forces across a battlefield that was so large. I just can't believe that General Lee thought that we could have done such a stupid thing. It was bad, but then the whole war was bad. I understand that 50,000 men were killed, wounded or captured at Gettysburg.
We did see the location of General Lee's headquarters, and I took a picture of General Lee looking over the Battlefield. In my thinking, General Lee must have thought that our Cannons had done serious damage to the Union lines, but I understand that our artillery fire just sailed over their heads and no harm was done. So, then, as our men moved across that wide, wide open field we were just easy targets for Union bullets and cannon balls. There were even "fences" in the field and we had to crawl over them. We were then much easier targets, being higher in the air as we tried to get over the fences. After seeing the Battlefield, I was glad that we had Lilyhemmer ahead of us for the weekend.
At Lilyhemmer we were privileged to see many more friends, including Rich Howard from Connecticut, Michael Miller from Virginia, and Carol and Anthony Haj from New York. Diana and I watched the programs, enjoyed the wonderful meals, and soon I presented our program. During the evening we attended the plant auction, and it was very competitive. We even found a little time before the auction to visit Hershey's Chocolate Factory which was nearby. We couldn't have visited so many places without the car that Diana rented. Soon it was time to return to Georgia. Thanks to our friends at Lilyhemmer for inviting us to your annual daylily adventure.
Diana has also had blooms on her red marigold that is named "Cinnabar," and also on her white Cosmos. These are two of the flowers we admired when we were on Vacation in the Northwest this past Summer with Georgia Gardener Walter Reeves. I'm showing a close-up picture of both the Cosmos and also the Cinnabar. Having these flowers to bloom now will make it possible to gather many more seeds for use next spring. Diana had only three (3) seeds of the Cinnabar, and ten (10) seeds of the Cosmos. Diana even has a Cinnabar growing in a one gallon bucket which we will probably keep in the Greenhouse.Tomorrow morning I'm flying to Indianapolis, Indiana, to speak to the Hoosier Daylily Society.
Bill
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