Party Prep

Mom and I agree that we aren’t sure what we enjoy more, preparing for a party or the event itself.  Any party, even a small family gathering, is a good excuse for us to clean house, polish the coppers, renew the flower beds and make sure everything is in order.  The upcoming Farm to Table dinner I am planning is serving a different purpose for me and my Mom, though.  It is a needed distraction.  This week I finally got my Dad scheduled for the surgery he needs, so next week is our big week.  One very early morning rise, and one overnight stay in the hospital and we are praying for a good result.  So while I have been running him around to specialists and pre-ops, in my mind I am also counting plates and planning party details.  I think I am going to use most of the plates in my china cupboard for this one.  Gold rimmed dinner plates, 8” plates for dessert, and a small plate for appetizers that guests will find at each seat.  I am even going to use these fine little Japanese plates that I have had forever~

Each place setting will have a menu, silverware, and a French linen napkin; still have to decide how to tie these up~

We will be eating here, under the loggia.  I dug up the dirt between the rocks beyond and planted new dicondra, at Mom’s request.  I hope it will be ready in a few weeks!  I am starting to look at seating…I think I can squeeze all 40 guests in here but it will be tight!

Guests will enter through a pair of white gates, and I am sending these out to get a little repair, a sandblast and a new powdercoat, to last for the next ten years~

And Monday I had Adan help me trim the Phoenix palms and help me with a little selective tree trimming.  I saved the flowers from the palms, they are giving us a little extra color for a few more days~

Elsewhere in the garden, I have a handful of jobs to get done.  First up was to see who had dug this hole into the rock wall in the citrus~

I like to encourage them to go somewhere else, find someone else’s garden, please!  My first pass is to try to flood them out, and flood I did, but no critters emerged.

I am spending all day every day with my parents, and that means my work and order filling is done late at night and early in the morning.  I can’t wait for Dad to get his procedure done, and hopefully that will be another reason to celebrate.  There are parties and then there are parties, this one is going to be great!