My Examined Life

Some Time Off

2008-08-03T18:57:00.002-05:00

Hi everyone! I wanted to let you know that I've decided to stop blogging for a while. Even though I only post once a week, it's become a chore and I'm not looking forward to it like before. My heart just isn't in it right now.

But I will visit you all and post comments so it's not like I'm dropping off the face of the earth! Hopefully, this Fall I will be able to get back into the blogging routine. I will leave you with a picture of my first two red tomatoes. They are nearly ripe and in a few days Steve and I will be able to try them!

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The question of the meaning of life in general is meaningless
because life has a meaning to anyone who has interest in it.

Sidney Hook - "Living Philosophies"

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Bye for now,
Alyssa

Deja Vu, All Over Again ......

2008-07-13T20:14:00.043-05:00

This week's post, as the title suggests, is quite similar to the previous one. I felt it was pretty good so I thought I'd stick with a winning format.

Mid-July is the "bloomingest" time of the year and with all of the good (sometimes not so good!) rain and moderate temps we've had, the gardens are especially lovely this season. The Main Garden is rather carnival-like with all sorts of colors and textures vying for attention. I love it that way!

Here you can get the feeling of celebration and fun of a carnival in our yard.

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No fun here !

I'm getting disgusted with those Kinsman window box planters! They are starting to look shabby and watering them isn't working the way I was led to believe. The directions said that the roots of the side planted plants would quickly fill in and the soil would not fall out. Well, truthfully the soil doesn't fall out - the water does! I feel the holes are too large and there is no way that you could get around the watering problem. Next year I'm going to cover the side holes with extra coco fibre and just plant from the top. The planters are a nice depth but I think the capacity and capability of these planters was way overstated. Or, possibly I've done something wrong - I just don't know. But I do know that in another week or so these planters are going to look hideous!

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The rest of the flower photos look great and I've got nothing to complain about.

What's a carnival without balloons??? Balloon Flowers, that is...

Gooseneck Loosestrife is such a graceful flower.

An Unwin Dahlia that I started from seed. This is in one of the petunia barrels.

These Dianthus (I also grew these from seed.) are under the Willow Tree Garden and are super hardy!

Isn't this just the most beautiful Hollyhock?! It's called "Queenie Purple" and is also in one of the petunia barrels. The plant is miniature, about 2 - 3 feet, but the flowers are extra-large.

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Tomato Tree Update !

Well, the tomato tree is hangin' in there - all legs in tact. The foliage is hanging farther down and the tomatoes are getting bigger and bigger! I just can't wait to taste the first one. They are no where near turning red, but I can dream ...

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Lily Pics

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This lavender Trumpet Lily looks great paired with the Cone Flowers.

I must have been really taken with yellow Trumpet Lilies a few years ago, because I planted all kinds of them. I don't remember doing that, but it's a nice surprise.

All the Trumpets smell terrific!

These orangy-apricot Trumpets are my favorite. The camera picked up the color very well which is not always the case.

An un-named Asiatic and an LA Hybrid Lily. The LA Hybrid are a special and very hardy version of the Easter Lily - there are various colors, too. It looks as if it were made of wax. Very neat!

There are tons of these blooming in the Willow Tree Garden as we speak! I have their name. It's "Connecticut Yankee".

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I promise that these Daylily pictures are NOT repeats from last week.

Look really hard at the center of this beauty and you'll see the back end of an earwig snuggled up for his daily sleep. Daylilies are a convenient place for them to hide from the sunlight.

"Prairie Blue Eyes". Isn't that a wonderful name....

"Hall's Pink" Sort of a bland name ...but a sweet, blooming- mad flower!

This flower is fairly small...

..but this is smaller (it's called "Pardon Me!") and ...

and this is even smaller! "Siloam Lady Bug" is her name.

These are also bloomin' fools - to bad I don't know their name.

These two different yellow daylilies are huge - at least 6" across.

This is also a big red flower, but on a tiny plant. I think there is actually something wrong with it - it may be a mutant or something because that doesn't seem normal.

These next two are from the Siloam daylily farms. They breed some wonderfully beautiful daylilies.

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Begonias in the three-tiered planter near the entrance. They remind me of old-time delicate ladies!

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Visitors, Again!

The turkeys have made our backyard one of their open-air restaurants down our street. They visit at least twice a day. Now there are two Moms with their babies. One Mom has 3 small ones and the other has 8 larger ones (about the size of a small chicken).

First they all run to the birdfeeders and eat what's been dropped by their smaller cousins.

Then it's time for Mom #1 and the 3 young ones to relax on the swing. We are completely surprised that the very little ones can fly that high.

Mom #2 and the bigger babies keep chowing down!

Then Mom #1 and Mom #2 eat mulberries while the kids watch from the park bench and the frame of the gazebo. (We've been waiting to put the fabric top on the gazebo until the mulberries have all dropped. Steve was concerned about berry stains. I surely hope the turkeys don't decide to perch on the gazebo after we put the top up! Ugh!!)

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See, I told you this would be a "deja vu" moment! I promise you my next blog will be quite different. I can say that because next Saturday I'm leaving for a week's vacation in Crivitz with my sister and her family. So I'll have all kinds of non-flower type pictures to post. I won't be posting next week but I will see you all on the 27th. (I may even try a little gambling for the 1st time! Wish me luck!!)

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I am sorry I have not learned to play at

cards. It is very useful in life: it generates

kindness and consolidates society.

Samuel Johnson (1709 - 84)

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Bye for now,

Alyssa

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Seems Like Forever ! !

2008-07-06T19:18:00.043-05:00

Well, I'm finally able to pull myself from the problems of the "real" world and create a blog. First, I want to thank my friends who expressed concern and well-wishes during my absence. Kind thoughts always help during stressful times.

I won't go into detail, but will say that my daughter had some setbacks in her on -going struggle with addiction and anger. It has affected all of us who are close to her and she's been relying on me, particularly, for guidance and strength (as well as professionals). Needless to say, it can be somewhat draining and my thoughts have been pretty scattered.

But, things are smoothing out a bit and during the past week I was able to appreciate my garden and all the beauty around me. As I wrote before, we had plant shutdown this week and I had lots of time to do work! I know, it should have been a relaxing time, but I wanted to organize things indoors that I had been neglecting this Spring.

It wasn't too bad working inside because until the past few days, the mosquitoes have been awful. With all the rain there has been a record hatch and the dark woods around our house is an ideal hiding place for them.

Here's Ashley in a bugsuit taking a walk with the pugs and me (also in a bugsuit). If there was one for the dogs it would be called a "PugBugSuit"! Steve doused himself with spray but that stuff gets me sick so if I was outside working it was in a bugsuit! And you can't see very good with them on - it was like working in a fog! And taking pictures wearing one is really weird. Luckily, now they've calmed down and I'm able to take you all for a walk though the gardens.

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A Gaillardia that I started from seed. I hope it is as perennial as they say.

Star-shaped flowers from the Hen and Chickens. I just thought they were so neat looking!

A variegated Lysmachia - I'm a little disappointed with it since it's staying about a foot tall. The tag said 36" so I planted it behind some taller flowers. I really have to search for these!

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It's Lily Time!!!

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First are the bulb lilies:

I don't know the names of any of these, so you can just enjoy the pretty pictures.

I picked a couple of smaller stems of these white Trumpet Lilies and brought them inside to enjoy. They release their scent at night and are giving me kind of a sick headache as I write!!

They smell good when you walk by and catch just a quick wiff...

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(Blogger seems to have the flu tonight 'cause I'm having a very hard time with it!! Thank goodness it's free!)

Now the Day Lilies

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This giant pale yellow is my favorite and the other one is called "Beppo" and is very tiny. See the insect inside it ?

I wish daylilies lasted longer than one day! I've got them scattered all over the yard and sometimes miss a particularly nice bloom.

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Tomato Tree Update ! !

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Hasn't this grown! I'm just amazed - and look at the tomatoes. I've counted 7 now.

I have an interesting story about this. I received a letter from Gardener's Supply saying there has been isolated incidences of the legs popping out and the whole thing falling over. So they asked if I'd take it apart and throw it away and I'd get a full refund. I was supposed to sign a paper saying I destroyed it - nothing very legal looking - and then I'd be refunded. Well, the plants are doing so well and no one is around it except me so I didn't send in for the refund. The design of the legs is sort of poor - they are pretty much held in place by the upper weight of the soil-filled bag. I can see how a child playing around it could present a problem.

Look at the petunias! Another interesting story with these. Remember I said they were tippy?? Well, one morning I opened the shade and the planter on the right was laying below on the lawn! I wasn't even surprised. Steve attached a wire around very thick ivy stems on either side and it holds the boxes up just great! Next year I'm going to put the most porous soilless mix in them I can find because they do dry out fast since there are so many plants in such a small space. The directions said that amount could be planted, but I find that there are so many roots already that I can't seem to get it completed saturated. The water runs right through in some areas. It is a real pain. But you can hardly tell that they fell...

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I just had to get a close-up of the "Black and Blue" Salvia.

Another mass of petunias with the violas in the foreground.

Steve especially likes this planter because it's not completely obscured by flowers and foliage. I prefer the lush look!

Like with my barrels - pretty soon you won't be able to see them! That's Cleome that is growing so tall in the back barrels. (Looks sort of like dope, hey!?)

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And most of the front entrance looks over flowing!

This is looking down at my Main Garden - all bulbs and perennials with shrubs and evergreens across the lawn. It's on the south side of the house so I have to stand on the counch to see it. I think the picture turned out well having been taken through the window.

Thea follows me everywhere and had to supervise my picture taking from the couch!

Isn't she a funny little dog?

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Steve's Latest New Planting Area!

I can't keep up with that guy! He decided to make a pretty little garden at the very north end of the property next to the Day Lily Border. He got rid of the weeds and laid stepping stones and other neat rocks down. Then he bought 6 Echinacea (they are covered by the grass in this picture), 3 Salvia, a couple varieties of Rudbeckia, 3 Sedum "Autumn Joy", and a Helenium. He then planted them all and put down a nice hemlock mulch. It's very charming! I just love it and he's only just begun (as in the song!). He has plans for the rest of the area and explained them to me today. It will be so pretty. He then said we'd never see the garden unless we walked way up there. But, I reminded him we'd pass it every day on the way to work so we'd see it more than a lot of the rest of the yard.

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Visitors !

Look who were enjoying the swing one early evening. There was another turkey standing to the left as well as one under a bird feeder. These two sat up there for over an hour and I thought it was so cool. But ...

they had just enjoyed a meal of the fallen mullberries and left us some presents!!

Now the wood is stained purple ! Oh well, it was worth it just to see them relaxing on the swing!

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The trouble with the world is that the stupid

are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.

Bertrand Russel 1872 - 1970

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Bye for now,

Alyssa

Not Able To Blog This Week

2008-06-23T11:33:00.003-05:00

Hi Everyone!

I'm sorry I'm not going to have a blog this week. Some family problems came up (don't worry, they are being taken care of) and I just didn't have any time to write. I'll be visiting you this week and will write soon. We've got an entire off next week so I'll have no excuses !!

Alyssa

Another Walk Through The Gardens !

2008-06-15T22:18:00.034-05:00

After seeing what has been happening through out the rest of the Midwest, I feel very sheepish about complaining about a few inches of water in the basement last week. Thousands of people forced to flee their homes with no idea when then will be able to return. Flood waters up to the stop signs. Millions of dollars of destruction. Wildfires out of control. Searing heat and months of drought. Jobs lost. Lives lost. I could go on and on, but I'm sure you are all aware of what has been happening .

So, I will not act like I have some big problems because compared to lots of others, I'm on Easy Street.

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Instead of complaining, I'll take you through the gardens again.

My petunia barrels. The one in the fore ground, farthest to the left is a fiberglass half whiskey barrel. Wooden barrels tend to rot after a number of years so Steve thought he'd buy one of the other kinds. They are guaranteed for a very long time but cost twice as much. What made me mad was the fact that if you tap them with anything hard the color immediately scratches off. The color isn't incorporated into the fiberglass, it's painted on and is very easily scratched. What a disappointment. I don't recommend them.

Here are the plants from the hanging basket my daughter, Adeena, gave me for Mother's Day. They fit perfectly in this barrel and I'm hoping that some of the ground cover will take root in the area surrounding the barrel.

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This begonia is just so big and bright I had to show it off. It's in the three tiered planter and sort of dominates the entire scene. Next year it'll be in it's own separate pot not trying to steal the show from everyone else.

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An update on the Kinsman window boxes. Well, as you can see, the petunias are thriving and the planters are just about covered. I have no idea what these will look like in another month. I just wish I'd been paying attention when I was planting and put a fuchsia petunia in the other box too. Just to balance things out!

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A bumble bee enjoying the catmint along the rock wall.

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I have a few roses in my gardens. Most are survivors from my neglect, so they are very hardy.

A cabbage rose - Madame Hardy (perfect name). This one smells wonderful - delicate and old fashioned.

A trailing, landscape rose along the rock wall - Iceberg. Super hardy!!

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The rest of these roses have names, but I've forgotten or misplaced them.

A little shrub rose I started from seed.

I love this rose because it reminds me of the wild roses that grew around my home when I was a child. This also smells great and even survives in the shade. Isn't the foliage a pretty light green.

I should take better care of this guy! It has such unusual colors.

A wild climbing rose that will take over if you let it. Unfortunately, it has no scent which is odd for a wild rose.

Here is a very unique miniature rose. It is extremely tiny. Look at it in comparison to the straw! The teeny flowers are about an inch high. People are surprised that miniature roses are so hardy - most colors are. That sounds odd, but the mini roses that are within the lavender color range aren't hardy in the North!

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Speaking of tiny, here are some more little flowers.

They are dianthus and I think called "Micro Chip".

Below is the entire plant. It's very neat and spreads quite a bit but is easy to keep under control. Isn't it strange that the same plant has different patterned and colored flowers?

Another dianthus paired with the chartreuse feverfew. A surprisingly good color combination.

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What an exotic peony! Actually I got this for a few dollars the year before last at the very end of the season. It didn't bloom last year so I didn't know what to anticipate. Needless to say, I'm not disappointed. No scent though.

An early day lily. I love the brick colored brush marks on this.

Here are my Tradescantia. The bottom one is called "Osprey". That blue fuzz and the little yellow balls remind me of something a clown would have pasted on!

Salvia "May Night". Kind of lost among the others....

The bellflowers are just beginning to open. Such a nice blue.

Meadow Rue looks so delicate. The little "hairs" move with the slightest breeze.

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Impatiens are one of my most favorite flowers. Here are some of them that are blooming in the window boxes I can see from the living room window. They are very bright!

These two are Accent Star varieties.

These next five are Tempo Butterfly Mix. I do like the little butterfly in the center.

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Update on the tomato tree !!! Look how much those plants have grown in just a week! I'm very pleased at how they didn't miss a beat after I'd planted them. You can't see from the picture, but they are blooming. I think I'll remove those flowers so they don't form fruit so soon. Give the plant a chance to build itself up.

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Today I finally put the fish out into the pond. There are only 4 fish left now - it was a hard winter for them in the basement. I didn't include any pictures of the pond because it doesn't look too good right now. The petunias I planted around it haven't filled out yet and the water plants look incredibly bad. I don't think the garden center where I bought them knows anything about water plants. The container they were in barely had any water in it. Duh! ! So they have a long way to go before they get on this blog...

I've planted in containers or tossed into the compost bin any stragglers left today so there is only a small flat of impatiens to plant in Steve's Area. The ground is still too wet for planting so next week will have to do. I feel relief that I'm nearly through and now I can concentrate on my daughter's birthday party next weekend. She wants Beef Wellington and a chocolate/pistachio cake. This will be fun and I'll have pictures to show everyone.

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A man enjoys the happiness he feels, a woman the happiness

she gives.

Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

Les Liaisons dangereuses (1782)

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Bye for now

Alyssa

Weather Or Not! !

2008-06-08T22:19:00.031-05:00

Like a lot of people in this country, we are experiencing some bad weather in southeastern Wisconsin. Since yesterday we've had storm after storm come through. There has been hail, tornadoes, lightening, and flooding.

We live on a hill but there is also a hill behind us and the water has rushed down it and soaked around our house. The basement is covered with a couple inches of water and it just keeps coming! I timed the sump pump and it comes on every 10 seconds! We've always had a leaky basement and have everything down there set up accordingly so nothing is ruined. And there have been other times when we've had some flooding, but I can't ever remember the water coming in so fast and for such a long time. The forecast says after tomorrow there will be better weather so I hope we can start drying out here.

The gardens and containers are doing OK and only look a little battered and I picked out the best looking flowers for this blog! I feel bad for Steve. Before the storms came through, he had worked all morning and afternoon weeding and mulching the Daylily Boarder with hemlock woodchips. Yikes! the Border is on the sloping north end of our property and here is what happened after the downpours:

Tomorrow he'll have to fix this.

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I found some neat mushrooms that popped up right after the rain.

The first ones look like bread dough that's been left out too long. The others I call Brownie mushrooms and are all over the place.

This is a weird conglomeration of shelf mushroom and a slime mold. Doesn't it look like someone threw up ??!

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As I said, I found the best looking flowers to post. Here are some of them:

Double Impatiens and Double Petunias - I started both indoors.

"Baby Duck" Petunias

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Next are various Alliums

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The Peonies have begun to open!

Isn't the last one fantastic! I had to hold it up for the picture since the rain has knocked them down. I'll take a nice bouquet to work tomorrow - I can enjoy them all day then.

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Fancy Poppies that I planted.

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Sweet Sweet Williams ! !

These have just begun to open and don't even look real to me.

Siberian and Tall Bearded Iris (still standing!)

Old fashioned fragrant day lily. These were here when we moved in.

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Beauty Bush and Lady's Mantle

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Once the soil has dried out a bit we've got some things to plant.

Steve bought six Rudbeckias and two of the"Forest Flame" Pieris.

We've never grown Pieris and wondering how they will do here.

When I was at the garden center last week I couldn't resist this Japanese Maple. The one my sister gave me last fall died back to the roots and has a long way to go until it's a "tree" again. But I really liked it so ....

This is called "Garnet" and is very delicate looking.

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Here's a neat thing I ordered. It's called the Tomato Tree. There are holes for 3 full size tomato plants and the bag holds 40 quarts of soil! Steve said it looks really bad and he wanted it somewhere were it isn't seen too much. This spot on the west side of the house is perfect. Even though you see a door there I have to explain that we never use it. It's right off of the living room (don't ask me why but the living room has 3 doors that lead to the outside!) And it's on a solid surface next to the hose. I'll let you know when the tomatoes start to arrive!

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Even though the weather has been damaging , you could practically swim in the basement, and I hear thunder again, this was a very good weekend.

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This is the weather the cuckoo likes,

And so do I;

When showers betumble the chestnut spikes,

And nestlings fly.

Thomas Hardy

"Weathers" - 1922

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Bye for now,

Alyssa

Back To Blogging

2008-06-02T19:57:00.029-05:00

If I never see another bag of potting mix it will be too soon! Finally! I've gotten nearly all my containers, window boxes and half whiskey barrels planted. The Vegetable/Flower garden is finished and Steve's Planting Area is 98% finished!

Thank you all for being so patient with me. This year's weather created a situation where I wasn't able to plant gradually, over a couple month's time. Suddenly we were nearing June and I'd gotten very little done!

So Memorial weekend and this weekend (with a vacation day today) were my "crunch times" and I think I'm getting way too old this sort of thing. But I must say, I'm really sleeping soundly these nights!

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Since my back (and the past few weeks, my shoulders!) is "touchy", Steve put the bags of mix in the back of his truck which was at the perfect height for me to do the window boxes and some containers.

These are the new Kinsman window box planters that I'm trying for the first time this year. As you can see, I've planted petunias in the front and sides as well as the top of them. I'm hoping for a "mass of color" in a month or so. The only negative is that they are a tad too big for the ledge and are kind of tippy. Steve put some wooden shims under them but we may have to do something more substantial later in the season. The planters are higher than standard window boxes, hence the tippiness.

Here's that giant planter I showed you on a previous post. I packed it full of Proven Winners brand petunias and within a week it already looked great. I'm sure this will be breath taking by mid Summer.

My other new Kinsman planter with a "Black and Blue" salvia, bacopa and feverfew. The pig also has bacopa in it. Sticking out of the big container is a Christmas present from sister Sue. It's a flying dog decoration that is just beginning to get a nice rusty patina.

Remember this guy from last year?? I put in begonias that I started indoors, caladium (they are an experiment since I've never had very good luck with them), impatiens, a fern, Tradescantia fluminensis, and the shocking pink New Guinea impatiens in the middle tier.

This would have been fairly easy but last Fall Steve had gotten busy one morning and was cleaning out all my planters. Never thinking, he tossed the coco liners out into the woods with the dirt and I didn't realize it until this Spring! So, instead of quickly ordering the correct size, I bought long rectangular pieces at the local garden center thinking there would be "no problem". What a mistake! Have you ever tried cutting that damn coco stuff with a scissors? And since the baskets are round it was like fitting a square peg in a round hole!! I was piecing them together as best I could - the seams are toward the wall - swearing all the while. I've learned my lesson.

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This is an Asian pitcher plant Nepenthes that I bought last Fall and it's doing really well. The pitchers form at the end of the leaves. During the winter feeding isn't necessary but now it's saying "Feed Me"! I generally put a fly in one of the traps but since I'm always finding ticks on me lately, I put one in that trap on the left side of the picture. He was floating in some fluid (ugh!) last time I looked. (The ticks are so bad here that I'm about ready to put Frontline between my shoulder blades like we do with the dogs!!)

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I'm posting this picture because to me this is one of the coolest things to have. I don't know about you, but I truly hate dragging miles of heavy dirty hose all over the place! This rolls so nicely over our very uneven yard, doesn't tip, and holds all kinds of hose. The reel is very smooth and easy to use. I highly recommend it.

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Around the yard there are some pretty flowers in bloom.

I have no idea how this double Columbine ended up in the little garden next to the house. The parent plant was across the yard by the birdbath .

Wild Geraniums that I also did not plant.

The good old fashioned orange Poppies came up when we cleared away the brush when we moved in. Here is another surprise this year! The Dame's Rocket reseeded near the little pond and smells so sweet in the evenings. It's listed as an invasive species, as bad a garlic mustard they say!! Luckily, it stays under control here, in fact we used to have a very nice stand of it in our prairie, but it has dwindled over the years.

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Some things I DID plant:

Borage and Allium bulgaricum. The Borage is nice but I should have it in full sun - it gets so tall and flops over. The Allium is about 3 feet tall and has a rather subtle and elegant look about it. And after it blooms, the foliage fades and can be pulled up.

One of my favorites - the Gas Plant. It has such a neat and tidy look about it - like a small shrub. It's said the flowers emit a gas that can be ignited! I'm going to try that this week. It blooms for a long time and the foliage smells like lemons - I couldn't ask for more!

Lamiastrum "Herman's Pride" and Star of Bethlehem. There is kind of a funny story about the Star of Bethlehem. A work mate had given me a bunch of the bulbs and told me the name. I looked it up on the internet and as well as Star of Bethlehem, it's also called Sleepy Dick. Well, we all got a big kick out of the name and all kinds of comments were directed toward my friend! It also said that these can be invasive! So, I'm not sure he did me a favor or not??

This is such a pretty picture with the peony buds in the back ground. This iris was from sister Sue also.

Another view of the iris but notice in the back ground that yellow iris at a completely "uniris" angle? And to the left is more fallen yellow iris. They are the rescue iris and I just hate them because they fall all the time. I'd thought that I'd yanked all of them out one year but I didn't get every piece of root. So after a few years there are tons of them again. I'm definitely going to do some thinning this Fall.

Bluebells and Amsonia. These plants are both so pretty and take little or no special care. My kind of plants!

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Gina, of My Skinny Garden had a post about some things she'd found in the ground while building her pergola. Last week, while working in Steve's Garden, I found some odd things as well. His garden is located where the previous owner had a burning barrel - they aren't allowed here anymore.

There was this long bent rod, the ear piece from glasses, and I think part of some metal circular thing. Who knows..

But what I did find that was interesting was this:

It's 3.5" in diameter and has a book with a genie's lantern stamped on the center of it. Stamped around the edges are the words "American Numismatic Association" and "Originated 1891". It has 3 holes equally spaced as if it were attached to a book or box. Someone must have collected coins! I'm going to write the ANA and see if they would have any history about it - maybe they might want it.

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The piglets getting some needed shade but . . .

the chickens are heading up the path into the woods! Hope they are very very careful; I saw three raccoons in the yard last night!

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Precisely the least, the softest, lightest, a lizard's rustling, a breath, a breeze,

a moment's glance - it is "little" that makes the "best" happiness.

Friedrich Nietzsche - Thus Spoke Zarathustra

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Bye for now,

Alyssa

Sorry, No Blog This Week

2008-05-26T19:41:00.003-05:00

This weekend has been so hectic that I just don't have it in me to write a decent blog. I've got all sorts of pictures and interesting things to tell but it would end up being a chore. So, I'll post these nice pictures from my garden and makeup for this next weekend.

Bye for now,

Alyssa

Springtime ! !

2008-05-19T23:15:00.028-05:00

So far this has been a long and cool Spring. There are still a few daffodils blooming and the migrating birds have decided to stay in our gardens for weeks. Here are some of the most colorful.

The petite Indigo Buntings and graceful Catbirds.

A couple of pairs of Scarlet Tanagers - what a fantastic color combination.

And the Baltimore Orioles - all kinds of them. I wish I had a camera with better zoom because these pictures don't do justice to these lovely creatures. And what they all love to eat is cheap grape jelly! We've gone through jars of it, filling the empty orange halves.

Apple Blossoms on an old tree that has only a few limbs left. Each year another part of it dies and I had my doubts that it would bloom again. But, the little bit that is left is gorgeous!

The harbingers of Spring! I didn't plant any of these and they have been here for ages. Most of the lilacs are the size of small trees and are mixed in with all sorts of other trees and shrubs. They also smell great but are nearly overpowered by:

The half acre of Lily-of-the-Valley. The scent is so strong that sometimes I get a sick headache if the wind is just right and I'm working in the Vegetable garden nearby.

These flowers are some that you wouldn't normally notice. They are tiny Barberry flowers and smell wonderful. The color contrast is very pleasing.

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Remember last Fall I'd purchased grapes and berry plants only to find out via the Internet that they weren't hardy in my Zone 5? I planted them anyway and am so pleased that all of them survived the winter. There are 3 types of grapes and a thornless blackberry.

The grapes are growing very slowly and I can't imagine that they will become mature enough to bare fruit by the end of the season. But I know absolutely nothing about growing grapes, so I'm going to let nature takes it's course.

The Thornless Blackberry is coming a long really well and I have a feeling it will have to be "managed" closely.

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This weird collage was my way of laying out a planting scheme for some daylilies and lilies

that I'd ordered on a whim in late winter. As usual, I'd no idea where they would go but decided on the lower tier of the vegetable garden. They are all mostly pink or close to it because they were in a special Siloam collection. Siloam is the name of a lily breeding company which has bred many of it flowers to sport darker "eyes".

I got the idea to cut the pictures out of the Gilbert Wilde catalogue, separated them according to height - the four pictures go into the top box of the garden - and made a pleasing design. I don't think the yellow colors would go well with the pinks so they, and the very dark purple daylily were put up near the rock wall.

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The green onions look great!

These showed up on an old compost heap. I planted these parrot tulips in the Main Garden ten or twelve years ago and thought they died out! I have no idea how they got way over to the other side of the yard. But aren't they pretty!

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All three of these plants are in the mint family. The first is Catmint, the second is Lamium "Yellow Archangel" and the last is the dreaded "Creeping Jenny". That's what I call it but I'm sure it goes by lots of other names - some that are unprintable!

********

My Spring Viola show. They are so cheerful after this long winter.

Here's Thea licking Garm's face and Garm saying "Get this goofball away from me, Mom! She's driving me crazy!" Thea had her checkup today and was a pretty good girl and tomorrow is Garm's turn. Thea is on a diet now and has to lose 5 pounds and in a few weeks has to go in to have her teeth cleaned and a loose one pulled. A yearly checkup with lab work, etc. can sure add up. And the dental visit will cost quite a bit so we are going to use our "stimulus" checks on the pugs. I can't think of a better use for them!

**********

A few more plants I got at the garden center:

A blue (annual around here) Salvia, and some pretty petunias,

white Impatiens for Steve's planting area and Pony Tail Grass.

***************

It is still very cool here in the evenings and I don't want to plant the Impatiens or Coleus just yet, but this upcoming four-day holiday weekend I'll get most of my containers done and maybe go on a Family Outing. I'm surely looking forward to the time off!

*************

If all the year were playing holidays,

To sport would be as tedious as to work,

But when they seldom come, they wished for come.

William Shakespeare - Henry IV, Part 1

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Bye for now,

Alyssa

A Happy Mother's Day To All ! !

2008-05-11T22:22:00.026-05:00

The weather may not have made for a good Mother's Day, but we still managed to have a great time here. My daughter and family came over for a spaghetti dinner and an exchange of gifts in celebration of being Moms.

I was given the fantastic hanging basket of maroon coleus (one of my most favorite foliage plants) and lysimachia nummularia "Aurea" and the rustic three-decker bird condo. It's for decorative purposes and I liked the fact that the craftsman had used porcelain insulators (once used on transformers) for the perches. We are not sure where it will be placed this summer. I also received a cute little fuzzy teddy bear from Sierra and three wonderful cards from Adeena, Tony, and Sierra.

Outdoors our yard has brightened considerably. On my photo-walk I came upon a small amount of these guys:

They are morel mushrooms and are considered by many as a gourmet treat. I picked a small bowl full and sauteed them in real butter with a touch of salt and white pepper. Ahhhhh - just excellent!
Here they are soaking in cold salt water for an hour or so to get rid of any debris or critters hiding in the intricate folds of the caps. They are so odd to me because they are completely hollow - not like other mushrooms I'm used to.

*********************

I've a tiny little garden under a willow tree called strangely enough, The Willow Tree Garden. (My gardens don't have cool names like the British seem to come up with for their gardens - mine are just mundane and are descriptive of the physical location.)

Anyway, the Willow Tree Garden has pretty much escaped the ravages of deer and rodents (so far!) this year and have a lovely showing of tulips.

The Lamb's Ears and Artemesia set of the green foliage and bright tulips nicely.

Growing all through the little garden is Lamium maculatum "Chequers" . It's very pretty, but has to be controlled or will take over the world! The bees and pollinating insects do love it.

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Most of the daffodils in the back yard have faded but there are others to take their place.

Some of the few Virginia Bluebells I have growing against an old woodpile. In the background are Lily-of-the-Valley nearly ready to bloom. Aren't they a very fresh green color?

Above and below are two types of species tulips that I have no name for.

On cloudy days they close up and show another color.

*********

The Back Garden (see, another very imaginative name!) and paths have wilder flowers...

Trillium don't even look real! Just too perfect!

The leaves of the Bloodroots are so unique that they wouldn't even need flowers to be noticed.

White Columbine, Jack-In-The-Pulpit, and could someone please tell me what this yellow-flowered shrub is? It looks like Honeysuckle flowers but the berries are light green and striped and look like a gooseberry, but taste awful! The shrub is about five or six feet tall and covered with flowers.

***********************

In Steve's Planting Area (someone please find me a Thesaurus !!) the Pulmonaria doing very well.

I especially like the different colored flowers on one stem. And when blooming is over, the speckled foliage looks great all summer.

Emerging stems of Tradescantia "Sweet Kate". The grass-like leaves take on a chartreuse color and sport blue-purple flowers.

Yikes!, I know another daffodil photo. It was just to pretty to pass up!

***********

This is what's ahead of me. As you see the "tiny seedlings" have gone nuts and need to be planted in their respective containers. Some of the ground cover Petunias are blooming. Trouble is the weather is not cooperating. We've had touches of frost lately and I've been taking these in and out of the garage. Or, if there is a strong north or northeast wind, which seems worse than anything, they are easily battered. I'm hoping by next weekend the temperatures will become more steady and I can get going with my containers. I can't wait!! (Weight loss update: 28 pounds and counting!!)

******************

The healthy being craves an occasional wildness,

a jolt from normality, a sharpening of the edge of appetite,

his own little festival of the Saturnalia, a brief excursion from his way of life.

Robert MacIver

****************

Bye for now,

Alyssa

Really "Interesting" Things About Me

2008-05-04T18:51:00.002-05:00

Last week Gina of http://myskinnygarden.blogspot.com/ tagged me (among others) to answer a few questions about myself. I asked Ashley (granddaughter) to give me completely unbiased help with some of them. Sometimes another pair of eyes can make things clearer - or should I say more honest?

We had a lot of fun with this and hope you will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

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1. What were you doing ten years ago?

Working where I work now, but doing probably the worst job there. I ran a large shear and cut and fabricated fiberglass barriers for the internal workings of the transformers. I had to work 10 hours a day and the 4 X 6 (some were bigger) sheets were really heavy to lift and got heavier as the day wore on. After they were cut to the specific size, I'd have to punch holes in them according to a print. I also had to work with 4 X 6 sheets of pressite (it's like heavy cardboard) a lot. The job was (and still is) the lowest labor grade in the shop! The worst thing about this Insulation Fabrication (fancy name for it!) job was that I screwed up my lower back and right sacra joint permanently. I was off on medical for a month but they really have never been the same. Ugh!

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2. My "to do" list./What I've actually done.

Reply to my penfriend, Jane, who lives in Bristol, UK. Give the pugs a bath. Take back to Pet Land the $100 worth of FrontLine I bought without realizing we already had some in the refrigerator! Move the plot along and build up my character's stats on my latest video game.

Well, Jane's letter is still sitting in my imagination, the pugs are smelly, PetLand still has my $100 but ...... as of 4 a.m. last night my character is kicking ass!! Priorities???

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3. Snacks that I enjoy?

Big Macs (yes, to me they are snacks - that's why I'm on a diet!) . Diet Coke - doesn't drinking one cancel out the Big Mac??. and peanut butter (natural, of course). Sometimes I just take a spoon and eat the stuff right out of the jar when I wake up during the night! (Ashley says she does the same thing too - I think there's a genetic predisposition.) Oh, yeah, can't forget: anything sweet - I have dreams that I'm in a room that has tables full of cakes, pies, bars and cookies!!?? and I'm trying to eat them without other people seeing me. Sometimes I'm just stuffing them into my mouth with two hands. (Oh, that is a really embarrassing thing to divulge!)

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4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire.

Pay off our house, take care of all of my family members, buy a home in England, Wales, or Scotland (or all three!) and live there part time, fence in our property, have a pond dug with a stream and waterfall, get more pugs, finance all kinds of animals rescue programs and sanctuaries, make sure all of my charities and organizations (PETA, Greenpeace, ACLU, ASPCA, Farm Sanctuary, FFR, Animal Defense League etc. etc. ) get sizable donations each month (and set up a trust of whatever it's called for them when I'm gone), hire a full time chauffeur, add an addition to our house (two bedrooms instead of one!), fix the fireplace, get new carpeting, and hire someone to install a railing on the basement steps!!! - my sister is sure Steve has taken out a huge insurance policy on me since he can't seem to "get around to doing it. " (Oh yes, have a nice room set aside for playing video games.)

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5. Three bad habits. (Ashley was very helpful with this one!)

Being too quick to anger and jumping to conclusions (I'm working on this, really I am!). Acting like a know-it-all and getting on my "high horse" (this particularly bugs Steve! Ugh it would bug me too!!) And lastly, like Gina, I swear too much. Because I work in a factory (27 years) and am only one of three females that work there, I've tended to pick up all the nasty talk. It does come "trippingly off the tongue" much too easily with me. It's kind of unseemly on a 57 year old Grandma!

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6. Five places where I've lived.

I've lived in Muskego, New Berlin, West Allis, Milwaukee and Waukesha. They are all in Wisconsin and in about a 15 mile radius! I wonder what Freud would have to say about that???

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7. Jobs that I've had.

Oh boy, I had to get into the "Way-Back" machine (any one remember the "Rocky and Bullwinkle Show??) for this one. A summer stint at the local, very small grocery store (hated it 'cause my mother had set the whole thing up without even asking me.). Order typist at a metal fabrication plant (first "real" job and I liked it). Clerk at the fancy YMCA (fun and got to use my artistic and literary skills but the pay sucked, big time - it's non-profit). Accounts receivable clerk at a diesel truck dealership (it was fun meeting all the drivers but I am really bad with numbers. My cashbox would never balance at the end of the day and I'd toss some of my own money into it to make things "right".) Accounts receivable clerk at a steel tubing factory (my father worked in the office there for 40 years - that's how I got the job. Hated it! - Numbers Suck!! You'd think I'd have learned that by then.) Secretary at a printing company (loved it, but was mysteriously and very unceremoniously fired - to this day I can't figure out why but it sure threw me for a loop (those SOBs!I refuse to let go of the anger!).

And now - drum roll - the last 27 years at Cooper Industries: secretary (boring), material handler (fun, just got divorced and guys were falling out of the sky into my lap!!) , insulation fabricator (see above), final assembler (fun and challenging but not made for a short, out of shape, woman in her 50s! Lots of great workmates though.) and lastly Utility Operator (an office/shop job perfect for a short, out of shape (but getting better) woman in her late 50's who has 6 more years until retirement!! Yeah!!!)

*******

So, this post is a lot of my "outside" life as I think of it. Hope you like it.

*************

Life is a "zero-sum game"; we are gamblers playing with limited

stakes against a house with infinite resources. We must eventually go under.

We can only strive to hang on as long as possible, have some fun while we're at the table,

and, since we happen to be moral agents as well,

to stay the course with honor.

Stephen Jay Gould

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Bye for now,

Alyssa

It's Begun ! !

2008-04-27T20:16:00.028-05:00

My first expedition of the year to the garden center was very profitable. I wanted to find some shade-loving perennials for Steve's new planting area as well as getting some violas for the front entrance.

Here you see three Pulmonaria "Roy Davidson", two Siberian Iris "Caesar's Brother", various colors of Violas and three Ferns. (My camera really is beginning to suck at pictures taken from a distance! There is no sharpness at all!! Sorry. Maybe I'll use Bush's stimulus check to get a new one.)

Notice the name !! I thought this was really funny - not to be sexist, but I'm assuming that a man named this ??!!

Here are the three "manly" ferns inside a great big, 26" planter I could not resist. Keep in mind that the ferns are each in 3 gallon containers! I'm not sure where this will be or what will be in it. Maybe the backyard - if so, I may as well hang a sign saying "Wild Animal Feeding Station" on it!

Lastly, I found this "Triple Bin Party Feeder" bird feeder to hang outside the breezeway picture window in the back yard. At least that was my original intention until Steve immediately noticed it was too large for the hook on the shepherd's hook that is out there. Guess it's going somewhere else....

************

Speaking of Steve, we had another birthday celebration for him this weekend. My daughter and family came over with cards and presents for a belated, but fun party.

Here's Adeena with Tony (Sorry Sierra, I didn't get any pictures of you. Bad Grandma!!) and Garm. I'm not sure what Adeena was explaining, but this captures her personality just perfectly. I just love it.

Steve is a huge NASCAR fan and Jeff Gordon (Number 24) is his favorite driver. He's wearing his new birthday gift. As well as that they got him this really funny figurine.

I figure this has to be the Yeti of whitetail deer! Notice the size of the trussed up hunter in comparison - Wow!

The shot of this isn't the best, but I think you can see that it is a mirror shaped like an arrow head framed with a wooden laser-cut deer placed over it. It also has the little clock, which is removable.

It's quite pretty and Steve hung it under one of his mounted heads. He also got a neat little deer night-light.

*******

Even though our weather turned quite cold and blustery, we had a quick walk around the yard so Adeena, Tony and Sierra could see how pretty everything looked. The following is what we saw:

A view looking down the hill in the back garden.

Blue and white Grape Hyacinth.

Pathetic Forsythia that blooms once every 5 years.

Mayapples on the back path.

Pheasant's Eye and Apricot Trumpet Daffodils.

Ever popular Bleeding Hearts and a study in textures with Variegated Solomon's Seal, Species Lily "Henryii", miniature Goat's Beard, and Meadow Rue in the background.

*******

And two tulips that escaped the ravenous ungulates.

Actually I have a lot of this great species Tulip "Tarda". These close up when the sun isn't shining on them, but when they are open, they are really cheerful. They are very short 5 to 6" and are one of the most inexpensive species Tulips you can buy. I highly recommend these!

******

Even though our walk was more like a forced march because of the cold, we warmed up inside with subs from Cousins and had a lot of laughs playing the latest video game Tony and Adeena had gotten.

I think we should celebrate Steve's birthday every month!!!

*********

Thea and Garm sharing a little patch of warm sun. Looking pretty sleepy the day after the party ....

*******

Cheerfulness gives elasticity to the spirit. Spectres

fly before it.

Samuel Smiles (1812-1904)

*****

Bye for now,

Alyssa

That Was Fast ! !

2008-04-20T22:08:00.026-05:00

Well, here are Sparky and Gidget. They arrived a few days ago - Gardener's Supply sure was quick this time!

And with them was a flock of chickens . ..

who don't have any names. Actually, I'm glad because the names Gardener's Supply gave the pigs is kind of stupid. I can't imagine what they would come up with . . .

for six chickens. Steve said they were a "bit much" in the back garden and there are "just so many". I said that you don't have just one or two chickens - you have a flock. And, six is a good number for a flock.

************

I picked up another "Welcome Dog". He's made of metal and has sort of creepy yellow marble eyes. From the picture he looks like a skeleton-dog -- it must be the angle because he cuter in real life!

*******

Besides the metal pigs and chickens, Spring came very rapidly. Within the past two days everthing has popped! Just what I was waiting for. Here are some of the flowers that are blooming ...

This is Corydalis. They self-sow all over the place and are blooming in huge masses. When they are done the foliage quickly yellows and disappears. Neat little plant.

Everyone recognizes Hyacinths. Sometimes they aren't reliably hardy in my Zone 5, but I've been lucky - these have been coming back for years.

In the rather hot afternoon sun today, their fragrance was almost over-powering! I was planting green onions nearby in containers, and was getting a headache from it! (Sweet smells bother me a lot - I can't wear perfumes and get sickish when someone who's around me does. What an awkward sentence!!)

I just love these Chionodoxa (Glory of the Snow). I posted some last week but they are so pretty I had to do it again. These are growing all over - in the lawns, the vegetable garden and on the woodchips. I don't know how the seeds get around - animals or the wind probably. They are such a surprise each Spring.

At the front door are the wonderful blue flowers - Scilla bifolia. They are another bulb that reseeds like mad. I'd only planted a few here a couple of years ago and now it's completely full. In Summer a Hosta is right in the middle of this planting area.

This is a close-up them. Isn't blue a great Spring color!!

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I thought the deer had eaten all of the tulips in the Main Garden but I see they missed a couple. I took these pictures for posterity because I'm not sure if they will be here when I get up tomorrow morning.

These are species and kaufmanniana varieties. I especially like the tiny species tulips and have planted hundreds but the deer, voles, squirrels, chipmunks, woodchucks,and rabbits have made short work of them. Sometimes I feel like I'm just setting up dinner for the wild animals. If all the countless bulbs I'd planted in the Main Garden had survived, it would be jam packed and look like a kaleidoscope!

Notice the bee coming in for a landing at eleven o'clock. Totally unplanned!!

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Spring wouldn't be Spring without lots of Daffodils. I've planted hundreds of these also, and here are some of the different kinds ...

These are my latest addition. They are an extremely miniture trumpet variety. I used my hand to show you how small they are (you probably don't believe I lost all that weight from the look of my chubby, short-fingered, man-like hand - but I have!)

What's so unusual and endearing about these daffodils is that there are multiple stems and each plant is like a little bouquet. They are ultra-mini. I'm sorry I don't have their name off-hand and when I find it, I'll post it.

Good old yellow trumpets .

Rip Van Winkle is this guy's name.

This is a favorite mini - Jetfire.

A fragrant split-cup variety that I don't have a name for.

Don't know the name of these etheral beauties either.

These are Ice Follies and I highly recommend them. They have lots of flowers and don't decline over the years like some do. They are eye-catching and sturdy too. Oh yes, they are really cheap as well.

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The temps are supposed to be in the 60s and 70s this week so I brought most of my basement grown seedlings outside. This is a shaded spot at the front entrance and good for hardening off.

The ones that are especially tall and/or sprawling are my ground-cover petunias. They grow so fast once they "catch", as I call it. The smaller more uniform plants are impatiens. Notice on the far left are some Quaking Grass seedlings.

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I'm glad we were able to get most of the gardens cleaned up when we did. Once the weather warms, everything grows so rapidly that your "window of opportunity" is very small.

In a few weeks I'll get the pond scrubbed down and put out the fish. The last white fish I had just died (in fact I can't find the body.) She (I don't know why I always think something albino is a "she"??) was laying on her side at the bottom of the pool for a week. I'd touch her every day and she's swim away. I just can't toss out a live fish and she didn't look like she was suffering (it's hard to tell with fish, isn't it?) so I was on a sort of death-watch. Well, now it's a moot point because I can't find her - dead or alive! Probably under the rock shelf that Steve had constructed in the Fall. I just don't want to reach under there with a bare hand -- icky.

******

So, this week will be another vacation Friday and I'll work up the soil in the vegetable garden and then all that's left is to wait. Wait to do the things I like the most - find some new and unusual plants at garden centers and get my containers planted.

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Come to the edge.

We might fall.

Come to the edge.

It's too high!

COME TO THE EDGE!

And they came

and he pushed

and they flew . . .

*****

Christopher Logue (1926 - )

***

Bye for now,

Alyssa

A Good Weekend

2008-04-13T20:31:00.018-05:00

This was another Sunday when I wondered what I was going to blog about. And, again, I found all kinds of "little" things.

The first are a couple of things that came in the mail this week.

These are little painted metal pigs from Gardener's Supply Company. As a nod to Gershwin, they are named Porky (striped) and Bess (flowers). I'm very pleased with these and ordered their siblings - Sparky (snowflakes) and Gidget (polka-dots).

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This is not my house (would never have slate-grey siding!), it's a picture off the Gardener's Supply web site and it is called the Tomato Tower! It's 74" tall and holds 40 quarts of soil and 3 full grown plants. It's in a box in the garage at the moment but next week I'm going to put it together for a dry-run. I'll bet you're wondering why, with all our property, I don't grow tomatoes in the ground. Except for the Main Garden (perennials), there isn't enough full sun in any of the gardens for successful tomatoes. So I'm going to try this - the only reservation I have is that it won't be on a hard surface. We don't have a patio or deck so this will be on the sunny lawn - I'm sure Steve will be able to figure something out.....

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This is the grave of our late cairn terrier, Buckley-Rose. Steve chose these pretty rocks especially for her and dug the hole in our back garden. And I thought the fat dog statue looked like her.

This is Claire, our late cockatiel's grave . Claire died in the winter and the ground was frozen then so we kept her in the freezer until the ground thawed. Actually, we forgot she was in there (wrapped in a piece of pretty cloth in a box) and didn't bury her until two years later! Ashley never stops reminding me how "rude" that was.

This is the last resting place of my sister's "wonderful, sweet, and special" cat. She called crying asking if she could bury Darcy in our yard. Of course we agreed and Steve went around the paths with Sherry trying to find just the "right" place. Darcy was really big for a cat and most of the ground along the paths is rocky so it took him a very long time to dig a deep enough hole (we didn't want Sherry to visit and suddenly see Darcy hair scattered around the yard because some animal had dug her up!!). Steve is so thoughtful he even planted a wild phlox from the garden to make it special. You want to know how many times Sherry has looked at or even mentioned the grave??? You guessed it - - Never!! But at least Darcy has a pretty spot for the Big Sleep.

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That's it with the graves. Hopefully, it will be a very long time before we have to bury any more beloved companions.

***

I'll bet you can't tell that this is a rather weather-beaten pig statue that has been toppled by a nasty digging squirrel. That's his snout at "six o'clock".

I righted him and as you see, his ear was broken off in the tumble. The statue is pretty fragile because he was only rolled over - squirrels aren't that strong.

This is the stump from a black walnut tree Steve cut down. Since the roots and leaves of this type of tree produce a substance that kills any other plants around it, this one had to go. The day lilies and daffodils nearby were slowly fading away so we decided it would be cut. I counted the rings and it was 20 years old. What a shame. But not far from this stump is a full grown, 40 foot tall black walnut raining down hundreds of nuts every Fall.

A dumb thing I did. I left this terra cotta bowl with twig handles outside all winter. The sides just flaked off. It is still quite thick so I guess I'll clean it up and leave the shells in there for one more Summer. Sierra loves to go through the shells.

Aren't these neat trails that some insect left under the bark of a dead tree. Looks like modern art.

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This is pissing me off!! The dark spots are deer tracks and they have eaten nearly every tulip in the Main Garden! There are tracks on all three levels of the garden and we've spotted them (3 does) close by when we come home from work at night. Ugh!! I thought that I had it made when I realized that the voles were gone. Nope - just much larger, long-legged voles have moved in. We didn't get the Hinder sprayed in time.

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After surveying the damage in the Main Garden, I vowed to notice only the what was pleasing during my "walk about". And I think I succeeded.

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Begonia Update ! ! !

I felt the mildew problem would be solved if I brought all the begonias up into the breezeway. There is natural light and more moving air. Look how big these two varieties have gotten - red and white ones blooming!

The "Cool Whip Lite" variety of begonia ("Braveheart") compared to my favorite violet. They both have fuzzy leaves.

*****

Weight Loss Update ! ! (Again)

Total of 26 pounds vanished as of today! !

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You know I just realized I seem to post the same things every few weeks. I should call this blog "Variations On A Theme"....

******

I must get going because I want to play "Elder Scrolls: Oblivion" on my XBox 360 tonight and I've still got to take a bath and fold clothes. It was a good weekend for me; I did some shopping, had Ashley over for a few hours, worked in the vegetable garden, listened to some good Stan Getz, cooked a nice chicken dinner, took care of my seedlings, bounced on the rebounder, and played video games. Doesn't get any better than that!

******

The real secret of how to use time is to pack it

as you would a portmanteau, filling up the small spaces

with small things.

Sir Henry Haddow

******

Bye for now,

Alyssa

Happy Birthday, Steve and Springtime ! !

2008-04-07T21:18:00.022-05:00

Tomorrow, the 8th, Steve will turn 60. So three of his brothers, his mom, and his niece decided to have an impromptu birthday party for him this Sunday. They brought over the dinner, cake and a card that one of them had designed and made at his office.

It says: Q: "How can you tell that Steve turned 60 ...

A: The "rack of his dreams" went from this .........to this!" If you look closely at the picture of the deer, it is two sets of antlers superimposed on each other. We all got a huge laugh out of it because, as I've written before, finding shed antlers IS Steve's passion.

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In fact, when he went out looking for sheds he found this trophy today! It's quite a fantastic find even though it looks a bit grotesque right now. The head is in the garage at the moment and tomorrow Steve will boil the skull in peroxide to remove all of the left over hair and flesh. (At a rummage sale some years ago I found the perfect things for getting out bits of brain etc. - a set of dental tools! They work great for getting into tiny spaces!)

This buck must have been hit by a car or died of an illness late winter. Other animals have cleaned him up pretty good, but as I was taking pictures it still was beginning to smell pretty gamy! I wish Steve's brothers would have been here today to admire this big guy and congratulate him on his find! ( Actually, they would have been grossed out - they don't quite understand the attraction to dropped antlers or smelly skulls with this kind of a nice "rack" on them!)

This is the best present Steve could have gotten!

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It was a busy weekend all around for us. Friday we both took a vacation day and worked in the yard and have nearly gotten everything cleaned up! The weather Friday and Saturday was perfect - not too hot, and not too cold - for doing yard work.

******

Remember the picture last week of the Main Garden?? Well, here it is now:

All raked up and ready to go. You can barely see by this picture, but there are all sorts of things coming up. There don't seem to be any voles this year (at first I thought there were) but the deer have already walked into the second tier and eaten some of the few tulips I have.

These are so beautiful I had to post them again! The voles didn't leave me too many a few years back , but what I do have I really cherish. They are iris reticulata and are bulbs, not rhizomes like bearded iris are.

I walked around today and tried to get a sampling of all of the plants that were blooming.

Glory-of-the-Snow or chionodoxa are such wonderful flowers and reseed everywhere. They show up in the most unusual places . .

like between the cement slab and the glass doors into the house! I was amazed at this little thing!

This one found a nice home under a burning bush with a laid back frog.

Our first very first daffodils! These minis are being watched over by dour Mr.Toad. They are situated not far from the dryer vent and have a little head start.

Every morning I wake up expecting these to have been eaten by the deer or rabbits.

They are growing within the hosta border in the back and I have no idea how they got there.

Maybe this little angel had something to do with it??

Yes, she's back from a long winter of being buried in snow - and not too worse for the wear! Doesn't that look like an odd horse shoe around her? Actually it's an old chewed (by the small rodents) antler casting it's protective magic spell keeping her safe.

*****************

Now to go inside and downstairs to take a look at how my little plants are doing:

The bigger seedlings are ground cover petunias. They spread a lot even when tiny. There are other types of petunias in there and farther back are the impatiens and a couple hollyhocks.

The last three pictures are of the various begonias. Haven't they gotten huge!!

Notice this wax begonia is beginning to bloom! Yikes, slow down. There is some type of mildewy problem going on with some of the leaves on the begonias, so I have a fan freshening the air. It's not blowing directly on them, but off the the side - just to get some air movement.

That is good for all the seedlings - it toughens them up.

*************

As I said the weekend was very busy and it flew by! I keep thinking today is Sunday! Great, this will be a short work week for me and if it warms up (it's windy and cold now) next weekend I'll be able to take care of the vegetable garden and maybe put in some onion sets.

***********

I "pass the time" when it is unpleasant and disagreeable; when it is

good, I do not want to pass it; I savor it, I hold it tight.

Michel De Montaigne - 1588

*******

Bye for now,

Alyssa

Finally ! ! Maybe Spring !

2008-03-30T20:38:00.012-05:00

Well, there is finally a little evidence that Spring is nearly here. We still have some solitary patches of snow, but that should be gone in a few days. I walked around the gardens and found a few brave souls that had been buried by the recent snowstorm. It's amazing how resilient these early spring flowers are.

******************************

Miniature daffodils ready to "pop".

Sturdy bleeding-hearts.

Snow-drops

While taking this picture of crocus, I never noticed what one of the bunnies had left nearby!

Ha, ha. Coming up are some other pretty crocus:

Below is a miniature iris - they are only about 6" tall!

And here is the Main Garden. What a mess!! I didn't do any Fall cleanup so this is what I've got ahead of me. There are all sorts of bulbs trying to grow up through that dead stuff so I'll be taking some days off later in the week and get my rear in gear.

Steve started some yard clean up and projects this weekend. He cut down a small dead tree and did a lot of trimming of various trees on the north end of our property. He loves working with his chain saw and extension saw. And he also raked some of the gardens along the house for me. He said it's so nice to finally get outside and be able to work. I had all kinds of errands to run and attend a party at my sister's house and then plant some more seeds in the basement.

I had ordered two brand new petunia types from Burpee this year. Normally, I don't order too much from them 'cause I feel their prices don't match the quantities. But, I just had to have "Baby Duck" and "Tie Dyed" - and planned to plant them in the new window box planters I've gotten from Kinsman. Most of the time I don't have a specific place in mind for plants when I sow them but "Baby Duck" was going to be what I saw out of my bedroom window this summer!

Some petunia seeds are quite small and companies will "pellet" them - coat them with a light colored water soluble substance to make them easier to handle. When I opened "Baby Duck" all I found was powder. They had been crushed in shipping and the same with "Tie Dyed". Boy was I pissed!! I had paid $5 for each package of 15 seeds. Rip off!! To make a long story short, Burpee sent me replacements and that's why I'm planting them late. They'll be a little smaller than the rest, but they'll catch up quickly. I can't wait to post pictures of my new planters filled with petunias!

*****************

Weight loss update ! ! Now I've lost a total of 23 pounds! Only 17 more until I reach my goal.

************

Some sad news. A few weeks ago "my" elephant, Delhi, died at the Sanctuary. She was very old, in her 60s, and died peacefully with her caregivers and sister elephants surrounding her. She was in hospice since January and with all the great care she got, suffered no pain.

Here she is, looking good and loving her last years at the Sanctuary. When writing about her, the people at the Sanctuary said she had "a gramma spirit" and was always gentle with her sisters. I'll miss hearing about her and seeing what she has been up to. ( Today I received an e-mail from the Sanctuary saying "Queenie" another elephant, had died suddenly, yesterday! Quite a shock! No illness or symptoms - what a sad month this has been.) But I'm happy that they both got to live out the rest of their lives in freedom, peace and dignity.

****************

All animals, except man, know that the

principal business of life is to enjoy it - and

they do enjoy it as much as man and other

circumstances will allow.

Samuel Butler (1835 - 1902)

*************

Bye for now,

Alyssa

Back In The Land Of The Living !!!

2008-03-23T20:16:00.027-05:00

Before I begin my post, I want to thank everyone for wishing me well. Your good vibes must have made their way to me because the worst of the cold was gone by Wednesday. It stayed in my head - which is usually the case - and my voice is still down an octave, but except for being tired, I feel pretty good.

*****************

As most of you probably know, this Good Friday's weather was anything but good. A small area from Milwaukee out through Waukesha County (where I live) received an amount of 15" of blowing, drifting snow! The rest of southern Wisconsin got lesser amounts. That was surely disappointing for me since almost all of the previous snows had melted and I had crocus and snowdrops beginning to bloom. There were also daffodils and tulips as well as hardly perennials showing. I planned on doing all sorts of garden clean-up this holiday weekend. Now, everything looks like this AGAIN:

I took both of these this afternoon.

Looks pretty familiar . . .

*******************************

Our Family Outing last Sunday was great. As I said before, we went to the showing of "Body Worlds" at the Milwaukee Museum. Here is an explanation from the web site:

Each exhibition features more than 200 real human specimens, including whole-body plastinates, individual organs, organ configurations and transparent body slices. The specimens on display stem from the body donation program that Gunther von Hagens established in 1983.The exhibitions also allow visitors to see and better understand the long-term impact of diseases, the effects of tobacco consumption and the mechanics of artificial supports such as knees and hips. To date, nearly 25 million people around the world have viewed the BODY WORLDS exhibits.

This plastinate was showing how different areas of the skeleton can be replaced with stainless steel prosthesis at the hip, knee, elbow etc. It's really amazing the amount of screws that are needed for each operation!

*******************************

Here is a good description of plastination:

Invented by scientist and anatomist Dr. Gunther von Hagens in 1977, Plastination is the groundbreaking method of halting decomposition and preserving anatomical specimens for scientific and medical education. Plastination is the process of extracting all bodily fluids and soluble fat from specimens, replacing them through vacuum forced impregnation with reactive resins and elastomers, and then curing them with light, heat, or certain gases, which give the specimens rigidity and permanence.

This "Man Astride A Horse" was something - and it was huge! The horse must have been a very large breed. I know by this picture that it looks like two people are riding, but one of the legs is only the bones, the other is the musculature separated to show each area of the body. That procedure was done quite a bit and was a little disconcerting at first, but once I got used to it, it made the exhibit even more interesting. Other times the muscles were pealed away from the skeleton to expose the organs too.

We weren't able to photograph any of the exhibit, so I got the above pictures off of the "Body Worlds" web site. These two lungs are eye-openers! I wish I could have enlarged these even more but this was as big as they got. Obviously the ones on the left were from a smoker!

And the ones on exhibit looked just like that! It's pretty sobering and am I glad I quit smoking a long time ago.

************************

I enjoyed seeing the individual organs in the display cases and was really surprised at the sizes of them. The liver is so big!! And the bones of the inner ear are so tiny!! I saw a heart after a heart attack, a brain that had a stroke, a stomach ulcer, enlarged prostate, lung cancer, breast cancer and damaged liver. There is nothing gory or gross about it at all - just amazing. The most wonderful were the blood vessels. They are as tiny as thread in our hands and looked like beautiful red (dyed for viewing purposes) sea weeds. The exhibit made me appreciate what is under my skin and realize how little we know about our bodies.

********************

Last Saturday I began my indoor planting of annuals. You can see a week later they sprung up and are on their way to looking beautiful. I planted a total of 13 dozen pellets!

Double hollyhocks . . .

"Lady In Red" salvia

"Sundance" gaillardia . . .

Quaking grass . . .

Various impatiens and petunias . . .

As you can see, I've got the light fixtures very low for the new seedlings. I also like to hang pretty things from the 2 x 4's that hold the lights. Some are Christmas ornaments and some are silk flower garlands.

*******************************

Remember these from previous posts? They are coming a long nicely.

The fibrous begonias had to be segregated for a while 'cause I thought they had some kind of fungal disease on the leaves. They seem fine, though.

**********************

Nameless African violet that I started from seed and just love!!!

*****

This impatiens reseeded itself last summer in a pot that had another African violet in it. The violet has since died but the impatiens did well and is really nice to see at this time of year. Did you spy the Halloween crow in the background?

**************

Two beautiful and lovely Easter flowers. Sierra looks so cute posing with the lily and was thrilled that Grampa gave her an antler to keep. She's wearing an arm load of bracelets that Gramma had in a tiny Easter basket for her.

***************

I guess this was a tough week for Garm too!!

***********

I found these lines in a poem I was reading yesterday and thought I'd share them with you.

The poem is Chinese and written by T'ao Ch'ien who lived from 365 - 427 and is entitled

"One More Fields and Gardens".

*****

My private rooms are quiet,

And calm with the leisure of moonlight through an open door.

***

What a picture those words paint . . .

Bye for now,

Alyssa

Sorry, No Blog This Week

2008-03-19T00:33:00.004-05:00

Oh, I came down with a rotten cold over the weekend and I'm just dragging myself

to and from work. But there is lots to tell so this holiday weekend I'll make a nice entry.

*********

Sometimes I go about pitying myself,

and all the time I am being carried

on great winds across the sky.

--Ojibway Dream Song

**********

Bye for now,

Alyssa

Slow Week for News ???

2008-03-09T22:32:00.019-05:00

This was one of those weeks that we seem to plod through occasionally. A week when nothing seems very interesting and we are just going through the motions. It's during times like this (and yes, there seem to be many), that we've got to make a real effort to realize that there are millions of neat, tiny things going on in our lives. The secret is to recognize them.

That's what I like about blogging. Since I live a rather insular and predictable life, some weeks I must wrack my brains to come up with anything that I feel others would like to hear about. This is the "examined" in the title of my blog. Besides the great people I've become friends with over the past year, this blog has made me really look at myself and my life much more closely than I ever have before. One thing I've found out that is somewhat comforting and somewhat disconcerting, is that I'm not very different from lots of you out there. I guess most of us want to stand out a bit from the crowd, but that can be a little scary too.

Oh, I'm getting way off the track now. What I'm trying to say is that after "examining" this past week I'm glad to say I found things that have brightened that time and will continue to do so.

As you recall, I've been dieting for a number of months and as of today have lost 20 and a half pounds. I've cut way down on carbs and sugar - both which I love but are obviously my downfall. On a low-carb website I found out about coconut flour which is low in carbs but high in fiber. There was a receipe for peanut butter/cocoa muffins which I made as healthy treats for the week.

Here they are. I used mini-cupcake liners so I'll get a good taste of them, but not gorge like I usually do. The solid red and green liners are silicon and the others, paper. This is the first time I've used the silicon ones - I just can't get past using "plastic" in the oven. Anyway, they work much better than the paper. The muffins come out clean and weren't burned on the bottom. The coconut flour tastes faintly like coconuts but when it's with the other ingredients you can't even tell. The texture is a little lighter than wheat flour, but, all in all, they are excellent.

When I've got the time, I enjoy cooking and baking very much. I also enjoy trying out different and unusual spices and herbs. So having a spice collection is one of the things with which I indugle myself. This is some of the spice part of my open pantry.

Penzey's Spices is the brand that I prefer and as you can see, I've gotten alot of their products.

They have nearly anything you can imagine and I buy the smaller jars just to experiment. I also love ground pepper and have picked up different types of peppercorns - black, red, green, and white. Until I became familiar with Penzey's catalogue, I had no idea there were different kinds of pepper or salt for that matter.

The salt you see below is called Fleur de Sel which is French for "flower of salt". It's an expensive "finishing" salt that has a clean taste and is used at the end of cooking so as not to loose it's wonderful taste. It really does taste different from other salt! The "flowering tea" was a Christmas gift from Ashley.

Here, laying with the soon- to -be -frozen -'cause- they- are -becoming -inedible, bananas is a glass vial holding three vanilla beans that I also picked up at Penzey's. They smell so good and I'm going to make vanilla sugar (with my sugar substitute) with them. Don't they look like the dried worms you find on the sidewalk some times!!??

Very long worms ......

Since winter refuses to leave this year, I went out to the breezeway and found some "green" out there. (To cheer myself a bit, I bought this spathiphyllum - it was cheap and was at K-Mart begging to be rescued!)

The breezeway is a nice peaceful room and has pretty plants and knick-knacks (isn't that a wonderful word?) and I'm glad it's the first room I see when I come home. The amaryllis is now open and is lovely - the little Buddha looks as if he could contemplate it's beauty forever.

The bonsai, Moses-in-the-Cradle, and a tender pine (I got from work that was used as a Christmas table decoration in the lunchroom) all are doing nicely in that cool, well-lit room.

Garm and Thea came in to investigate why Mom was laying on the floor taking pictures. As usual Garm looks startled and Thea looks vaguely interested - sort of aloof. (Kind of like Cate Blanchette in "Elizabeth - The Golden Age"! don't you agree?)

Thea admired the bonsai . . .

....but failed to find anything to her liking!

The bright pink heart toy was more to her taste. There is just no accounting for taste. (I know, her nails need to be clipped - bad!!!)

******************

Actually the coming weeks will be filled with things to look forward to and enjoy: I must begin my indoor seed sowing in earnest next week, our Family Outing will be to see Body Worlds next Sunday, I'll be taking a vacation day or two,

I will be having Family Video Game Night with Adeena, Tony, Sierra, and Ashley on Good Friday evening, there are some Celtic music CDs coming in the mail, I've got a new video game to play (Assassin's Creed - a neat stealth game!) and I just know Spring will be here soon. I have been hearing the cardinals calling outside, high in the willows - a sure sign the weather will be warming and the green is coming.

But the most important thing is this very moment - it is the only real one we have!

************************

Looking at everything as if for the first time reveals the commonplace to be

utterly incredible, if only we can be alive to the newness of it.

Ruth Bernard

************************

Bye for now,

Alyssa

I'm Baaaaaaaack!

2008-03-02T22:19:00.016-06:00

Yes, I'm back and feeling much better. I want to thank everyone for sending their good wishes. They cheered me up a lot. A woman I worked with from the Philippines summed up really well how I felt. She would say her husband (she was NEVER sick!) stayed home from work that day because of " a general malaise". But, my malaise has disappeared and here are some updates on my seed sowing and a real surprise.

Below you see the my first glimpse of Spring. Outside the breezeway doors is a little rectangular garden. It's on a west wall and, helpfully, near the dryer vent. Steve pointed out the very first daffodils coming up there! I was amazed since there is still a foot and a half of snow all over the rest of the yard and it hasn't been that warm (except today it was 49 degrees!).

You won't believe how happy this makes me. After seeing these few patches of green shoots, I tried to drag the pugs through the snow around the yard looking for more green! Garm gave up and I put him inside, but Thea and I did find a few more coming up against the south wall of the Main Garden. Spring will be here soon!

Meanwhile, in the cozy and warm basement the seeds I sowed last month are doing great. I took pictures last weekend and some today. You can see the dramatic growth......

These are the red and white fibrous begonia plants last weekend.

And today! These seeds are the size of pepper grains and they came out of the packet like water when I was planting. I've been doing some thinning the past few days . . .

The African Impatiens.

Transferred to an old strawberry container because they were hitting the plastic cover on the flat. They are a very tricky impatient to grow since they aren't like the traditional ones. I'm a little concerned with the pale color of the leaves and their not-quite-normal shape.

Another type of begonia. It is supposed to get up to 24" high - it's new from Burpee called "Braveheart".

I love this picture of the perfect heart-shaped leaves and the tiny white roots. Begonias are typically slow growing, but this big one is fast and you can see that they will be larger than the rest of the pack. They already look like braves little hearts :-)).

This is the potato-like tuber of my cream and apricot colored begonia. If you look very closely at about 2:00 (or nearly 3:00) on it you'll see a speck of what looks like sand or something. That's the first bud starting. Please ignore that tiny green plant on the left side - that seed must have been stuck on the side of the tuber.

Look at that! (I turned it around.) Today there are now 3 buds (at 9:00, 1:00 and 3:00). These buds will become stalks with leaves and flowers. It's best to only allow two or three buds to mature on a tuberous begonia - that way you'll have larger flowers. Like these:

All this beauty from a lowly potato look-alike. Sort of like "The Ugly Duckling" story.

Just about ready to pop! Look how tall this is - 24" Amaryillis always seem like some kind of alien plant to me. I should use my head right about now and stake it before I get up one morning and it's either on the floor or flopped over and broken. Tomorrow, maybe . . .

My book of quotes is not at hand so I won't close with something witty. Just

Bye for now,

Alyssa

No Post This Week

2008-02-25T20:28:00.003-06:00

Hi Everybody,

I'm not feeling too good, am really busy and I won't be able to make my usual post this week. I'll try to make one later on but, if not, I'll see you next Sunday.

Bye for now,

Alyssa

Things That Made Me Smile This Week

2008-02-17T20:32:00.022-06:00

This Monday I had a vaction day and started sowing seeds for the far, distant spring and summer seasons. For the first time I began "Winter Sowing" which is mimicing the conditions seeds go through over the winter. For many seeds this enables them to sprout. Winter Sowing uses recycled containers whenever possible and I'd saved yogurt and cottage cheese.

Poke drainage holes in the containers, fill with potting mix, moisten and place the seeds down.

Cover the containers with plastic and cut slits in it.

Put containers outside and wait for the seeds to come up in Spring. Really easy!

I also did some standard indoor seed sowing. Here is Thea examining my expanded peat pellets.

There are pelleted begonia seeds and African impatiens planted here and as of this Sunday they've started to sprout.

And this is a begonia tuber that I'm starting. It looks like a shrunken potato now but later it will have beautiful apricot flowers with white edging.

Can you see the two deer bedding down on the hillside behind our house??

(To the right and left of the big tree.)

I had forgotten about this amaryllis and found it growning in the basement.

A Christmas present angel that will be sitting in the garden this Spring.

Valentine's Day flowers from Steve.

A little grouping on my bookcase. There is a framed poem from my sister, a picture of our late Cairn Terrier Buckley-Rose, high school picture of Ashley, and one of my many spheres. I pick them up whenever I see them and have a little collection. Here are some of them:

Besides ceramic spheres, this basket has rustic acorns made with dried leaves and tiny real acorn tops.

Spheres from various natural and man-made materials as a center piece in the breezeway.

The oblong "sphere" is actually a painted gourd but it still can roll a bit. I just love the colors of these.

Marked way down at Target a few weeks ago.

This lovely lady hangs from a lamp in our bedroom. She is actually a Christmas ornament.

Isn't it amazing how real silk flowers look!

Some cute pug pictures:

That's an empty dogfood bag that Garm is longingly gazing at.

"Daddy's lap is a wonderful place to rest and I look soooooo cute on it."

"I love Garm most of the time even though I snarl and try to bite at him a lot. He's nice to me no matter what I do! "

*****************

Bye for now,
Alyssa

The Last Dome And Cabin Fever!

2008-02-10T19:25:00.000-06:00

Before explaining the last Dome, I thought I'd let you all know what other things have been going on in my life. As you see from the title, this endless winter is getting to me! Since early December there has been storm after storm and I want to see some green - as in leaves! (The Domes only helped for a little while . . .)

The snow is piled in heaps over 10 feet high in the parking lot at the grocery store, the mail box is just about buried, the pugs have a very limited area that they can use as the bathroom, and the snow is up to the resident deer's knees. The plants that I grow for "winter interest" have been crushed by icey snow long ago, and I traverse the driveway like one of those old ladies who is afraid of "taking a fall and breaking a hip". (Truthfully, I AM afraid of falling and breaking something!!)

Tonight the temperture is -4 with a windchill of -22 and after being outside for less than a minute, the pugs begin to hold up their frigid paws and limping toward the house before finishing their business. And I'm beginning to dislike being inside my cozy little house day after day - or being at work. Ugh! and I had the gall to write on some Canadian friends' blogs how "wonderful and introspective" this time of year was and that I "looked forward to it". I take all of that back - at least for now.

To help ease the pain a bit, I've scheduled a day of vacation tomorrow and am going to plant three varieties of begonias. I'm also going to do some "winter sowing" - starting seeds in recycled covered containers and setting them outside to sprout at nature's whim. It's a new experiment for me and should be very interesting.

I have been enjoying my interest in jazz and have become enamored with pianist Bill Evans, saxophonists Paul Desmond, Jerry Mulligan, Stand Getz and the great John Coltrane. The first three horn players have a much more mellow, "cool jazz" sound while Coltrane is quite intense and climbs to the statosphere at times so they fit any of my moods. Bill Evans' style is varied, smooth and remarkable - cool one time and then hard be-bop the next and always clean and easy to listen to.

My love of learning is being filled with my latest audio course entitled "Human Prehistory and the First Civilizations". It's 36, half hour lectures with a professor from the UK who makes the subject fascinating. I'm already on lecture 32 (dealing with the rise and fall of the late central-American cultures) and I'm going to miss Professor Fagan.

My weight loss efforts are working better than I'd expected. As of today, I've lost 18 pounds and to celebrate I went out and bought 2 pretty sweaters. The rebounder is an excellent exercise tool for me and I have no problem at all with my feet and knees hurting. I actually enjoy working out! And to vary my routines I bought two "Dance Off the Inches" DVDs that contain short sessions that have fun and easy dance routines. I have yet to master either of them because I've got to take time and learn the steps. Cindy and I tried them and were laughing so hard we couldn't accomplish a thing. When Ashley tried them she said they were a lot of the same steps she used when she was a cheerleader! This will be a little bit harder than the "Senior Rebound" . . .

***********************

OK, now about the last dome. It is called the Floral Dome and is used for seasonal and holiday display. Every year, after the Christmas display, and until the Easter display the Model Railroad Association sets up their little trains. Usually it looks pretty tacky with the potted flowers and shrubs half buried, limp, crooked and with no kind of theme whatsoever. Well, someone must have woke up and realized how very bad it was because this year there was Gulliver presiding over a really nice display of azaleas, pansies, stocks and various shrubs. As you see they finally did a good job:

"Behave you tiny peoples or I will step on you!!"

See those little regiments coming from the castle.

A rather humble castle, it is.

A nice little farmstead.

These azaleas are beautiful.

Near the train staion.

The man who kept it all running smoothly.

An excellent varigated, braided ficus.

Don't know the name of this, but it was magnificent!

This was also a large shrub. The berries look edible.

******************

If Winter comes,

can Spring be far behind?

-Shelly

***********************

Bye for now,

Alyssa

The Arid Dome and a Teaser

2008-02-02T18:20:00.000-06:00

After looking over all of my "Domes" pictures, I've decided that there must be 3 blogs on them since there is so much to see. I've put a little "teaser" at the end of this to show you what will be coming next.

First, I forgot to mention that there will be Chinese New Year's celebration at the Domes next week. Below you see what was set up at the entrance with a table nearby explaining the exhibits, workshops and performances that were offered. To the left of this was the Arid Dome.

This Dome housed many desert and semi-arid plants. You'd assume that there would be only cactus but there was all manner of plant life that could flourish in this habitat. And another surprise was that the temperatures were somewhat cool - not hot at all. Much more bearable than the ultra-humid Tropical Dome!

The next picture is of the palm itself.

The parakeets especially liked to nest in the above palm.

Guy looking for parakeets ????

What is amazing to me are all the various adaptations to minimum water conditions that have evolved over the eons. Such diversities of form but all succeeding in the same function! Our world is truly wonderful!

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HOLY SMOKES!! WHAT IS THIS????

I will explain Gulliver in the next post . . . .

********************************

Seeing my birth-cord

Kept at our old

Native place . . .

New Year's Day I wept.

********

Basho

Happy Chinese New Year Everyone!

(I know, Basho was Japanese, but it is still a lovely poem for Chinese New Year.)

******************

Bye for now,

Alyssa

January Family Outing - Part One

2008-01-27T22:24:00.000-06:00

It's time again for the monthly family outings!

The past few weeks have been sort of scarce concerning good blogging material - at least that's how I felt. But not this week!! In fact, I had so much to show you that I'm going to divide it into two parts and the rest will be posted next week.

The destination for the Outing this month was the Mitchell Park Conservatory or more well know in the Milwaukee area as "The Domes." I have been going to the Domes since I was a child and they are wonderful.

The Conservatory was first built in 1898 and originally was a "greenhouse" setting and was used until 1955! Not surprisingly by that time it was considered unsafe and was demolished. After a design competition, the winning local architect introduced plans for 3 beehive-shaped (not geodesic) glass domes. They are 140' in diameter at the base and 85' high containing 15,000 square feet of growing space for display.

Each Dome has a distinct climate and exhibits plants in their natural settings. These are Tropical, Arid, and Floral Show domes. It was finally completed in stages in 1967. Although they are showing some wear and like most park systems, need more money, they are still a wonderful and awe inspiring place to visit - especially in the dead of winter!

Today's blog I'll be showing the Tropical Dome. Most plants I can't identify, but the orchids are easy to spot, and palm trees too. As you might have guessed over time, I like to include pictures of signs - so there are a number of them that are unusual and interesting.

Sisters Cindy and Sue were there and Kelly, Maiko, Jess and Guy also came along. After the Domes we went to a great Italian restaurant called "Bravo" (very original Italian name...) ,enjoyed a delicious meal and then checked out Guy's new condo he just bought. What a wonderful time I had!

We had an excellent time and what I've shown is just a drop in the bucket, but you can surely see what I mean. There was a lovely waterfall and two ponds as well as fish and a few birds that had gotten in or had been illegally released. We also saw some cabbage moths!! The other two Domes are very interesting too and you'll see those soon.

*************************

Beauty is not caused,

It is.

Emily Dickinson

*********************

Bye for now,

Alyssa

Sir Lawrence of Britain

2008-01-13T23:47:00.000-06:00

I've decided it's time for another mini art show. The artist I'll be presenting is Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema. He was born in the Netherlands in 1836 and died in 1912 one of the most renowned painters of 19th century Britain and is considered a Victorian painter.

Actually he was named Laurens Tadema but to create a "more English" name, he changed it to Lawrence and incorporated the "Alma" (from his godfather) into his surname. This was also done so his name would appear at the beginning of painting exhibition catalogues, under A, rather than T. A rather shrewd man.

Much of his work was that of ancient Egyptian, Roman, and Greek life. The Victorians loved this sort of thing and his superb detailing earned him the title of the "world's foremost painter of marble and variegated granite". He also earned handsome sums painting portraits for wealthy

patrons.

And about his personal life, here is a quote from Wikipedia:

For all the quiet charm and erudition of his paintings, Alma-Tadema himself preserved a youthful sense of mischief. He was childlike in his practical jokes and in his sudden bursts of bad temper, which could as suddenly subside into a most engaging smile.
In his personal life, Alma-Tadema was an extrovert and had a remarkably warm personality.[15] He had most of the characteristics of a child, coupled with the admirable traits of a consummate professional. A perfectionist, he remained in all respects a diligent, if somewhat obsessive and pedantic worker. He was an excellent businessman, and one of the wealthiest artists of the nineteenth century. Alma-Tadema was as firm in money matters as he was with the quality of his work.[16]

As a man, Lawrence Alma-Tadema was a robust, fun loving and rather portly gentleman. There was not a hint of the delicate artist about him; he was a cheerful lover of wine, women and parties.

A Self-Portrait

Welcome Footsteps

Water Pets

Vespasian Hearing From One of His Generals

of the Taking of Jerusalem by Titus

The Triumph of Titus

Unconscious Rivals

The Favorite Poet

A Coign of Vantage and The Way to the Temple

Pleading

A Kiss

A Dedication to Bacchus

The Flower Market

The Finding of Moses

The Egyptian Chess Players

A Birth Chamber, 17th Century

Cherries

The Roman Potter and Spring

Miss Alice Lewis and Mrs. George Lewis and Her Daughter Elizabeth

These are just a few of examples of his works, but you can see why I like them so much. They are all so interesting to look at and seem very personal in some way. When I view one of his paintings, I want to know the story behind it and guess at the symbolism or just enjoy their sheer beauty. I hope you do too. (And there is just something about that Roman Potter . . . . .)

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Art is a shadow of Divine perfection.

Michelangelo

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Bye for now,

Alyssa

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P.S. My favorite of the pictures I've shown is "The Finding of Moses". Notice the delphiniums in the foreground of the painting. Close up, they look real - all of his flowers do.