first water lily bloom

Blossom, smile some sunshine (rainclouds) down my way
Lately, Ive been lonesome
Blossom, its been much too long a day
Seems my dreams have frozen (dried up)
Melt my cares away -James Taylor

So, another great thing about the new little pond (besides being a lifesaver for me and the critters) is that it is something like a garden to look at, growing and changing every day. It distracts me from looking at the depressing remnants of the real garden, which has long since given up the cause. Its a brown and shriveled ghost garden, except for the few tomatoes and kale that I have been hand watering with collected bath water (we do have our priorities, I just try not to think about bacteria and all)
In the spring, after the "big tragic late freeze" Lowes had lots of damaged plants on sale, very cheap. (At the time, in the face of the tragedy, I had to scold myself for being gleeful over the sale, but hey, I just couldn't help it!) This water lily was one of them, marked down to 50 cents (otherwise, water lilies are way out of my price range) I got three, of unknown colors, and this one has bloomed ! It took it all summer to recover and grow, I was kinda hoping that the native one would bloom first (that sort of sums me up in a nutshell) but this fancy one bloomed first.