Pretty Things

I imagine you all thought I was kidding when I said it was nice to have the chair so Badum would have a place to sit...so I thought I'd share this image with you. I'm sure if I'd gotten there first, things might have gone differently.

But I was hard pressed to sit still last night, trying out the new Swiffer, playing the sliding tile puzzle game with all the boxes, cartons, milk crates and laundry baskets full of stuff, so I could Swiff (is that that proper verb form here? I'm new...), rearranging furniture, etc.

Anyway, he looked too comfortable to move and when I did sit down, I had color swatch charts spread out on the floor around me.

What fun to have carte blanche with colors! I think I've come up with the Plan of Attack, and might even be getting a start on the painting this evening. It just makes sense to try to do as much of it as possible before actually unpacking too much.

Of course, once I was reminded on the radio of the good possibility that the world as we know it might be sucked into a black hole when they turned on that particular accelerator in Switzerland, I did settle down a bit. No point being all exhausted when I get to the Hereafter, I figure. Considering I'd just found a great apartment and paid rent, it made perfect sense that the world might come to an end, at least according to the laws of Murphy.

Still, I was quite happy to see this morning that it had not. Hopefully, those scientists will be able to learn incredible new things about the birth of the Universe without all the trouble of those pesky black holes or dark matter. I can get all that in comic books, for gosh sake.

Considering the last few days, though, I am a little tired and not sure I have loads to say today, so I thought I'd give you a break from all that (and me, too), and just share with you some pretty flower pictures, which have been a bit minimal for the last few days. There are some nice shots from my visit to the garden on Monday that I think you'll all enjoy.

Oh, but I did want to show you first, one of the cool features of the Gardener's Nest I hadn't shared with you yet: this cool, plaster light fixture on the living room ceiling. Not having a supply of spare bulbs, I've not had the chance to see if it works yet (on the list of things to do this evening), but I sure hope it does.

Purty, ain't it?

Sunday Garden Report

I have completed the Dragonfly Trifecta!

In July, Patrick danced with dragonflies and Joe had cocktails with one. Today, one of these garden visitors decided to stop teasing me and posed on the faded head of a plantain flower. And what a chance to see what the new camera could do.

Do click to embiggen and admire those wings!

Yes, there's a new camera. It's been a tax-free weekend here in Massa chusetts and I'd been saving up some money saved from not smoking (30 days today!!) and such since my old camera went on to its reward back in the spring.

So now I'm experimenting with something new, an Olympus FE-310. So far, I'm having a great time with it, though I'm not sure I'm interested in the photo program that came along with the camera...my PhotoPlus 6.0 does all I need it to for developing purposes.


The first tentative photos were taken at that house party I visited last night. To the left are Vera and Chicao, two of our hosts...and down below is the whole bunch of us.

There had been other guests earlier, whom I unfortunately missed, but it was still fun to hang out for a while with everyone who was there when I arrived after a long night at work. Good tunes, a little dancing and Vera's special Brazilian potato salad!

Mmm mmm.


Here's me with Maria Paolo, Rocio and Katerin, who are all here on work visas from Columbia this summer.

By day, they are working as chamber maids, but in the evenings, the make the best team trio of dishwashers our restaurant has known in years! Plus, they're funny and sweet and great to party with!!


Despite the late night (it was around 2 a.m. when those pictures were taken!), I was up pretty early this morning, since I couldn't wait to get the new camera out for a spin in the garden.

A fresh round of bachelor's buttons provided some nice camera fodder. These little flowers - each one's about an inch across - just keep coming and coming...and in a great assortment of colors.




I just love the blue ones, but there are many of them up and down the fence garden. Naturally, I'm being won over by the purple ones in the color range, which were part of a range of about five different colors, so they are fewer in number.


The dappled sunlight behind this pair of purple pals is pretty delicious, too.



There's lots to learn about the new camera, so eventually I will have to sit down and have some quality time with the manual, to make sure I'm making full use of everything.

But I'm happy to say that its also pretty intuitive, and I've been having fun exploring some of the different settings.

As you might guess, my favorite, and one of the most appropriate to the Midnight Garden, is the macro-focus...and this camera also has a super-macro focus, and to celebrate I managed to stalk a few bees who were visiting the border this morning for your entertainment.


As you can see, sunshine made a full return to the Cape today and it really felt like summer. Looks like that'll be staying with us a for a few days, which is a comfort, since it's clear now the summer season is in decline.

In a moment typical of the sort of Charlie Brown-y moments which punctuate my life, last night I finally discovered my official cocktail for the 2008 Summer Season.


It's light and refreshing and mellow enough to enjoy more than one without falling down on my face. Being a frozen drink, the only real danger is a brain freeze from speedy consumption.

And no sooner did I victoriously hoist that Midori Colada in the air than leaves began falling from nearby trees, signalling the end of the season.

; )



Howdy, pardners! Life brought a straw cowboy hat my way this afternoon at work, when we hosted the annual un-birthday celebration of a local family.

This year's theme was cowboys and they were all appropriately attired, a wonderful Cape Cod mix of cowboy boots and flip-flops...and there were hats for all the staff who worked the party, too!

And just in time for Carnival Parade.

As I tried out the zoom feature, I caught this sunset-illuminated jet plane high overhead. It was flying east, out over the ocean, so I assume it was an international flight, though it occurs to me it might just have been circling around to approach Logan Airport in Boston from that direction.

In between pictures, I managed some serious dead-heading of the garden tonight. As always, lots of spent marigolds to remove, some more allyssum to trim back...a few faded bachelor's buttons here and there.

More of the daisies had gone past, so they were taken out and some of the coneflower rudbeckia was thinned a little, to encourage some late season reblooming.

I also took shears in hand and addressed the business of the now- tower ing spikes of evening primrose, pruning them back to something lower growing.

We'll see how well they respond to this sort of treatment; my suspicion is they will get bushy and stay a little shorter--I wish I'd thought to cut them back earlier in the season.

Once again, I unwound a great many morning glory vines around the re-captured flags on the fence, so for at least the next few hours, they should be able to flap with abandon on the occasional sea-breeze.


With nightfall coming just a little sooner, the deadheading turned into lighting candle lanterns in the garden and before long it was dark, leaving me free to head inside to sample that first Early Girl tomato.

There were two, actually, but I discovered that the second one had a nasty patch of mold growing on the bottom of it, so that one was jettisoned, but this one sliced nicely and was very tasty.

It would've made a nice tomato sandwich - the kind I've been craving all summer - if I had remembered that we had no bread in the house. But it was yummy just as it was...and tomorrow I'll make sure I'm stocked up to make a proper sandwich with the next couple in the harvest schedule.

It's not quite a full moon anymore--that was last night, but that just means I have a whole month to figure out how to take a great moon photo (no wisecracks, you lot...oh, ha ha...cracks...yah, whatever...) with the camera.

This one's not bad, but you can't see Jackie Gleason's face.

Discoveries, Some Unpleasant

Morning came a little suddenly this morning. It was a day off and an overcast one at that, so I had designs on staying a-bed a little later this morning, enjoying the cool feeling of the pillow against my face as I dozed a little longer. But there were dreams bizarre (Years ago I kept a notebook beside the bed and would write down all I remembered the moment my eyes flicked open. It was always amazing to re-read them later on, when the thin memories would be gone like morning mist. I always recognized my handwriting when I'd read back that night, but the dreams recorded were brand new to me by then. I must start doing this again.) and an over-eager neighbor's car horn, which conspired together to have me awake by 7:14. Sigh.

Fortunately, there was one of those blue morning glories I like so to greet me out on the fence.

Here's another glimpse of these pretty purple flower stalks known alternately as gay feather or blazing star (liatris spicata).

This was a plant which pre-existed us here. I haven't grown this before, but I do like what it's doing so I think I'll make an effort to always have some in the future.

Plus, gay feather? Between that and the purplyness, clearly, it belongs in my garden. It is, by the way, related to the sunflower, 'though you might never guess.

After a little watering and the usual review of the garden, I had an enjoyable long distance "cawfee tawk" call with Mom, in which we discussed the house she and Dad are buying in Connecticut and what new gardening possibilities it may bring, among other things.

While we were chatting, a hummingbird made a quick visit to the lantana hanging overhead on the porch. But the camera was deep in my pocket, so that'll be an image for another day.

Our corn stalks are all growing steadily. A few of them shot up their tall flower tassels last week, and this morning, the first wild spray of silk appeared lower on the first of those cornstalks.

It's always such a cool sight, but I'm not sure I've seen reddish-pink silks like this before. I just love the chaotic beauty of it, all these different varieties of plant sex to admire. : )

Owen's got a vegetable patch going strong on the side of Mount Dump-it. I've been remiss in sharing photos of it, but there are wonders to be seen. The Roma Tomatoes are pacing the still-green Early Girls in the front garden. Squash and zucchini vines (nursery purchases) have already begun producing fruit and the eggplants are starting to do the same.

Most remarkable, however, are the watermelon vines, where already three or four golf-ball sized fruit have appeared.

Here's that morning glory vine that escaped from the fence post and is rambling its way through the garden. It's made a nice trellace of a pair of shasta daisies, but it will be disappointed when these flowers are dead-headed before long.

Down at the "wild end" of the border, where more native species are planted, the first of many delicate thistle blossoms opened this morning.

Aren't they lovely?



As I mentioned yesterday, the dianthus are returning for another round of flowering in the lower front edges of the fence garden. I just love this pink flower. At a distance, it doesn't look so remarkable, but when you get up close and look at the detailed pattern, it's just a little amazing.




Of course, I think that about these red guys, too.

Down below is my tiny agastache plant. It's actually a side shoot rescued from a much older plant, now deceased(we bow our heads), which I bought about eight years ago.

These guys are related to mint, I believe, though share none of that plant's aggressive nature. The leaves and flowers are scented of licorice and the bees just love them.

When this plant's ancestor was fresh from the nursery, it grew to an astounding and unexpected height of about eight feet. I don't think I have to worry about such from this young-in for another year or so. But I'm pleased to see it doing so well.


I enjoyed the day off, getting to spend a little extra time tending to the garden and some house chores, as well as just relaxing and reading a little more.

It was, by the way, Day Five of the no cigarettes thing...and while I had an urge or two, they were easily pushed aside and it was another good day in that respect.

A sign of the time of the year, there was still plenty of dead-heading to be done today. I cut out about a third of the daisies, which had passed their prime, among assorted other things.

But it was careful work, since I was getting to do so around mid-afternoon, when I am usually at work, and the garden was just swarming with pollinators of all shapes and sizes. I think that's a wasp on the daisy there, but I'm not entirely sure from the angle.

This pair of flirty frittelaries fluttered a pas de deux all along the fence and through the breeze-bouncing blossoms there.

I saw a monarch butterfly, but he didn't stay very long, perhaps because of the breeze...but it could be he was just casing the neighborhood for the first time, too. I imagine he'll be back on a less breezy day.

There were bumblebees everywhere. They are quite fond of the sunflowers, and there seems always to be at least one of them on each of the current flowers.

At one point, a large sphinx moth flew up from the grass near my feet and zig-zagged his way through the fence, landing briefly on a sunflower before darting off into the sky.



This wasp (or is it a hornet?) was eager to taste some of the cone flower's wares, but seemed to know that the bumble had been there first and it's always polite to wait your turn.

And then, as I bet over to trim a few faded pansies, I heard it.

It's funny, you don't realize how well you know a particular sound until you haven't heard it in a while...but my ear keyed in on the different sound right away and I was quite happy to spot what turns out to be the first honeybee I've seen in this garden, who was happily drinking of these tiny wild mustard flowers.

The Queen Anne's lace, as I mentioned last night, has really come into its own this week, with new flowers appearing daily on plants that grow fuller each day.

Their delicate-looking flowers are always a great addition to my chaotic border, being so different from everything else there. If you want some, they are easy to welcome--just cut a few of the challis-shaped fading flowerheads from roadside plants and drop them into the bed where you'd like them.

It's really that easy.


"...so the Mole drew his arm through Toad's, led him out into the open air, shoved him into a wicker chair and made him tell him all his adventures from beginning to end, which Toad was only too willing to do. The Mole was a good listener, and Toad, with no one to check his statements or to criticize in an unfriendly spirit, rather let himself go. Indeed, much that he related belonged more properly to the category of what-might-have-happened-had-I -only-thought-of-it-in-time-instead-of-ten-minutes-afterward. Those are always the best and the raciest of adventures; and why should they not be truly ours, as much as the somewhat inadequate things that really come off?"

--Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, copyright 1908, 1999.
Tonight, I feel like I need to offer a disclaimer. When I started this blog, I really didn't know much about "blogging" or exactly what I was hoping to do. I knew I wanted it to be about my garden...and so I started there. Back then, any personal content was minimal, since I'm not a plant and so didn't quite fit my own initial criteria for blog-inclusion.

But to think that a blog about the Garden wasn't also about the Gardener was really sort of silly, I've discovered...and as little bits of me have crept into the narrative, I find it's become more enjoyable to write. And so you know plenty of assorted things about me and my life (although only one of you has ever noticed or at least mentioned that I failed to include a #26 in my Hot 100 List!).

But I also still believe you come here for the garden and so I try not to wear you down with too many of the assorted less-than-rosey things Life tosses my way (as it does to each of us). After all, we all have our own reasons for what draws us to the Garden. I spend a bit of time "developing" the pictures, to make sure you get the best photos...and the garden provides the rest of the good stuff.

But no one's life is all rose-scented air and fluttering daisies, and like Mr. Toad, I may sometimes exaggerate a little for the sake of entertainment, or occasionally gloss over (or omit out of hand) the annoying or unhappy bits.

But I can assure you that all I have presented is more or less accurate. These are pictures from today, not last year...and not someone else's blog. The morning glory is really blue, the lightning really was purple. The sun truly was a fleeting visitor today.

I was sadly informed by a fellow blogger this evening that "Nicky Cooper" of the blogs Cooper's Corridor and more recently Nico's Niche, has been plagiarizing content of another blogger...and boy, is she pissed about it. And understandably so.

I will admit there were times, reading both of Nicky's blogs, that the whole business felt "too good to be true" somehow, and I found myself involuntarily wondering if it wasn't all a fiction. And you know, if it had all been entirely made up, I'd have been okay with that. I'm all for creative writing. But there are few things I find more heinous than stealing another writer's ideas and words...and photographs...and claiming them as your own. Anyone who comes by them honestly knows how difficult and precious it can be to tease just the right ones from one's mind...and to do so before you've managed to miss an entire night's sleep for blogging.

But you see, more than angry for being played the Fool (along with others), I'm a little sad, because Cooper's Corridor was a gateway for me to a host of wonderful bloggers who feel to me at times like some sort of extended family...and I think I wasn't alone in feeling like Cooper was the hub of our wagon wheel. The optimist in me believes that the internet has the potential to make our Big Bad World a smaller and friendly place...and getting to know so many of these people bears that out.

And I'm sad because I think (tho I also concede that in light of all this, "Nicky Cooper" may, too, be a fiction) at the heart of the re-constituted material was a real guy, with real heart who loves trees and the natural world...who didn't realize that we might've loved him for who he was, and for what he chose to write about from his own life.

If he is a real person, then real, original and sincere apologies are owed(even tho it must be assumed that some if not many will question that sincerity)...first and foremost to Kate at Sweet/Salty, but then also to the many loyal readers who regularly clicked in to visit his world and so vehemently defended him in the face of faux bullying last winter. And one last apology is due, to Joe.My.God, for letting him believe that a post on his blog had been responsible for the cancelling of Cooper's Corridor.

With all this on my mind, I found myself at First Encounter Beach this evening, hoping for perspective as I walked the shore in the burning rays of the setting sun. Ah, well. It's a beautiful a spot even on an overcast evening. If you "embiggen" this, you might be able to find the one tiny patch of orange light in a sky of gray.

Doodle Garden

T'was another lovely summer day here on the Cape, temper atures in the mid-70s, not especially humid, not too windy...you know, just about right.

Today's surprise in the garden came when I discovered that this particular daylily plant appears to be a double-flowered variety, with all manner of extra petals. Pretty fancy, eh?

I couldn't resist another chance to show off the verbena bonariensis today, too, as it continue to flower quietly down by the Three Sisters Garden. In fact, it grows right beside today's daylily of note.

An interesting thing about the verbena B: it just continues to flower and the tiny purple flowers just drop off when they're through and flutter their way elsewhere into the garden below. As a result, I have, on a few occasions, thought that my eyes were detecting some new plant with minute blu-ish flowers...only to discover they were the "discards" from the towering verbena.
And now, as they say across The Pond, for something completely different.

Claire, of A Little Piece of Me, and her pal, Laura, have declared this to be Doodle Week. A whole week dedicated to celebrating the little bits of random art we make and discard all the time. When I heard that Wednesday was to be Doodle Garden day, how could I not participate?

Sadly, it only occurs to me now that I ought to have photographed some pages from my daily log and datebook at work, as I am forever drawing daisies and other flowers whilst talking on the phone to people. However, that didn't occur to me while I was actually at work today, so this will have to wait for the next go round.

However, way back when I used to be good about keeping a daily journal (we're talking the 90s here, kids), I used to do little drawings/ doodles/ random designs all the time... sometimes to seperate entries, or to initiate a new notebook ...or of course, just to procrastinate from writing about things I wasn't quite prepared to face.

Sometimes, it was a little celebration of the world around me, though. I think, if I were to look back, I'd find that my best botanicals actually happened in the winter, when I wasn't out in the thick of the garden by day and exhausted by all that at night.

So today, I thought I'd grab a few random volumes of my old journals (there are about 70) and flip through for a few bits of old Doodle (there's no rule for Doodle Week saying they have to be current, tho perhaps I'll have replaced my old dried out Crayola markers by next time!) which I might share with you to celebrate the occasion.



My "media" of choice, to get all pretentious about it, were the Crayola magic markers I mentioned before...as many different colors as I could manage. And I also had a cool little tool that allowed me to blend those markers a bit, which created the watercolor sort of effect you see in the flowers above.

Still, they were just silly little doodles and I'm happy to finally share a few of them here, where someone besides me might actually see and be amused/entertained by them.

The sunflower below is a good example of one of those winter drawings. It was done on January 27 of 2006 and the accompanying journal entry talks of a heavy snowfall that night while I was sketching.

I haven't had success with sunflowers really before this season, so this was really just one born of my wishful imagination and not based on anything I'd actually grown. But as it turns out, it's especially appropriate to include here today...


...because, while I was at work today, my tallest sunflower (about an even six feet now) opened with no fanfare or warning, to greet me with its smiling green and yellow face when I got home this evening!

This bumblebee was apparently drunk with happiness at having this whole massive flower to himself, as he didn't even think about flying away as I moved in for some pictures. He was just crawling, sort of sleepily, around the perimeter of the great flowerhead.

There's still a couple days left of Doodle Week--if you like to draw or sketch or scratch, you should check out the themes for the days remaining and get to posting!