Not much time for working in the garden this weekend as we were across Puget Sound at a Whidbey Island event yesterday with a terrific bunch of high schoolers from Port Angeles. Today is rainy and our mountain home is in the mist. I spent time gathering piles of discards from around the gardens — but not the usual greenery clippings.

These items are a small portion of some truly unfortunate  garden “art” left behind. Although art is a very personal judgement call, these items are just sad plastics to me. Maybe they were gifts from grandchildren and were treasured, so they weren’t sad before. Now they are broken, faded, and  begging to be removed to make way for more glorious blooms. The bulgy-eyed frog in a hat takes the cake.

What I am hunting for are 3 or 4 simple birdbaths to fill the spots where ones were removed and taken along to a new home, or where plastic ones need replacing. The elaborate faux roman fountains and birdbaths available at most garden stores aren’t my favorite, so I will continue hunting for simple ceramic, metal or even cement  birdbaths. We are a wild bird haven, but more on that another day.