Neighborhood dresses up again

I had just completed watering the herb, vegetable and flower gardens in our backyard the other day and was making my way to the front when I noticed the red, white and blue wind spinners standing proudly in both of the rouge-red potted begonias that grace the entrance way to our house.

"Oh, that's nice," I said to myself. "I wonder who did that?"

I finished watering the plants and then stepped inside for a moment to get some relief from the steamy summer heat. When I came back outside, there were some Stars and Stripes bunting on my front porch railings. They hadn't been there 10 minutes earlier.

The Fun Fourth Faeries had targeted our domain.

Our house all dressed up for the Fourth.

And it wasn't just us. Bunting began appearing on the house across the street, next to the house that already had its colors on display days earlier.

By the end of the week, the houses of the Thornhills, Stricklands, Dillards, Cudes, Sanows, Colemans, Wests, Wehrles and Zannis (yes, actually I live in a neighborhood where some of the folks are perhaps a little bit squirrely whirly and maybe a touch zaney), were duly decorated.

The entire block. All of us. Red, white and blue.

This should come as no surprise, however. Back in December, ours was the neighborhood that was voted Best Decorated for the second straight year in the City of Lexington's Light up the Block contest.

If truth be told, I know these magical faeries. Kristi Thornhill, Stacy Sosebee-West and Pam Zanni were the irresistible forces ramrodding this project of patriotism. Perhaps not coincidentally, all three are educators who, no doubt, grew up surrounded in construction paper, crayons, glue pots and original ideas.

For this week, at least, they're real firecrackers.

And thank you.

(Here's a glimpse of the rest of the block. Click on each picture to enlarge):