Nature Calling

Thinking back on the weekend and my evening walk to the beach with Patrick, I can't believe that we stopped to slip our noses into any variety of rosebuds along the way and came away with disappointing results nearly every time...but never thought to stop for a sniff at the pink roses in the front yard here at the Nest, which are quite fragrant.

Java and Birdie have both posted about insects recently, and they reminded me that I've had a few encounters of the bug and insect variety in the past week or so, which I've been remiss about sharing with you. I've uploaded each one of the following to BugGuide.net in hopes of learning more about each of these...and as always, I'll try to update as information warrants.

As we began the painting project in the dining room on Saturday, we discovered two of three of this kind of spider. This one, I'd say was maybe almost the size of a quarter...but it's possible it's grown larger in my memory, too.

Each one I managed to coax into a plastic cup for transport outside, where they were tossed gently off the deck, once I'd checked to be sure no Miss Muffet sat below.




This nasty lookin' little buggy is, of course, an earwig. They always give me the creeps, though they are, apparently, mostly harmless.



This jumpy little spider dude lives in my car, or at least that's where we recently encountered one another. He seems to enjoy running around on the ceiling in my Saturn.

I'm wondering how jumpy I should feel about him being in there, since he seems to be good at hopping and jumping, himself, darting back and forth overhead.


I'm not sure what this gangly thing is. Of course, I see them every year, are they some kind of mayfly or midge or something. It was a couple inches in length, at least, and we crossed paths a while back, the night I painted the bedroom Cape Cod Gray.

I was a little concerned for its welfare, as I hadn't discovered it until after I'd begun painting, but it managed to stay clear of the wet paint, but was never far away from wherever I was working as I made my way around the room.

Of course, these encounters with Mother Nature are all pretty harmless. My friend Heidi writes me this evening from Texas:

"you know we had a little dust up here right? Ike? Or did the news not cover it so much because Bush is from here and it wasn’t Katrina? Or was it? Have a look. We are about 80 miles away from Galveston and we still have neighbors waiting for power. Some did get flooding and some more got trees though their houses...the mosquitoes down there are the size of your hand and outnumber the people about a thousand to one!"

And it occurred to me that I really haven't been hearing very much about the wrath of Hurricane Ike. I mean, I watched the CNN coverage when the storm hit, but I haven't been in the loop about much of the aftermath...and I'm not sure if that's just me being off the grid as far as TV what with the unsettled nature of Life just lately...or if it really isn't getting much coverage because of the idiocy of Sarah Palin as a Vice Presidential candidate or the bail-out of the collapsing Wall Street...which I certainly HAVE been hearing enough about.

And so in case I'm not the only person out of the loop on this one, here's the link Heidi sent along to some of the absolutely amazing and awesome photos coming from Galveston and Houston in the wake of this powerful storm.

Kinda makes an itsy-bitsy spider not seem like such a big deal, you know?

Pink and The Tracks to Nowhere In Particular

Well, I'm running consistantly a little behind lately, what with deciding it might not be a totally horrible idea to get myself some extra sleep now that summer's drawing to a close.

So, these are actually yesterday's photos, but still an enjoyable bunch, I think.

The pale pink morning glories are coming on strong now, which is fun, as they are a nice addition to the color range of the species. Actually, as you'll see, Pink seems to be something a theme today.

Of course the hot pink and blue vines from earlier in the season are still going on like crazy and now leaving the fencepost (yes, there really IS one in there somewhere...a garden lantern, too) to twine and vine their way around some sky-bound sunflower stalks.

The weather's a little cooler now. Yesterday morning I almost wore a flannel shirt (albeit with shorts) for the first time since spring. But after I got dressed, it felt like a warmer-than-necessary choice and I changed to something lighter. I shouldn't have second-guessed, though, as clouds moved in to make it a pretty cool afternoon, with temps in the 50s; the flannel would've been just right.

The cooler temps are encouraging the dianthus to another round of flowering for September. This will be convenient, as I was pricing plastic flowerboxes today with a thought toward transplanting these guys to the balcony at my next location. That they are flowering again will make them easier to find in the current chaos of the fence garden.

I'm also considering one of those clay strawberry pots with assorted planting windows (they are on sale at the local nursery) as a new home for my sedums and hens and chicks, but I don't know how well this sort of planter might winter and what I'd have to do to encourage that sort of survival.

I'm thinking maybe some sand inside, below the dirt, would be more "flexible" during winter freezes and thaws, but I'm not entirely sure.

Here's a variety of sunflower I've shown previously, but didn't include in yesterday's full array of the sunflowers. This one's located down at the very far end of the fence garden.

Behind it you can see that large planting of boneset I featured recently when it was just starting to bud.

The later part of the morning had me venturing up-Cape, on newly-vacated local roads, as I headed for the Registry of Motor Vehicle, as t'was time to renew my auto registration.

On the way, I found this lovely and massive planting of impatiens. It's one of my favorite flowers, but I had no shade for a change this year, so we didn't get to play together as we have in past years.

I'm happy to say it was not the Waiting Room To Hell that the RMV can often be (actually, they are pretty efficient there and I've rarely had complaints, of course, part of that comes of being properly prepared with something enjoyable to read, in this case, one of James Patterson's Alex Cross novels, Cat and Mouse.).

On the way to work from there, I made a stop by a favorite spot of mine, along the abandoned tracks of the Cape Cod Railroad.

Almost all of the rails on the Outer Cape (my standard stomping grounds) were long ago removed and turned into bike trails...which is lovely and fun, but a little sad if you're a rail fan, as I am.

This spot is accessible from an old rest stop parking area from Route 6, and the old railroad bridge that crosses the Bass River is a popular fishing spot, although no one was around when I visited.

There is still some freight service in the Yarmouth area, but the tracks to this remainder of the line have recently been cut...and as you can see, are pretty seriously overgrown.

I've been trying to identify just what these little wildflowers are growing along the trackbed, but to no avail. They are also growing pretty wildly on Not Wisteria Lane, so I had hoped to figure out what they were...but have not been able to narrow things down much further than this family, which frankly, I could have guessed without benefit of a detailed Google search.

As I mentioned, the weather caught me a little off-guard yesterday, as the forecast had a great big orange sun icon all across it. However, there's a storm out in the ocean that's swirling around and occasionally backs some cloud cover in overhead, which helped to keep our temps on the cool side. There's no rain in forecast to benefit us, but the occasional cloud thing is continuing again today.

I was wandering the garden at work later in the afternoon and noticed that the kousa dogwood's berries were coloring up nicely. Like the other dogwoods, this one is a beauty when it blooms in late spring, but I think I like it best for these "dogwood crunch berries", of which the local crows seem quite fond.

I noticed, too, that the cooler temperatures of this end of the summer seem to be encouraging some of the roses out there to another flush of blooming.

As always, I wish I could share with you the fragrance. It was a small pleasure that helped perk up a low moment in my afternoon and I know you'd have enjoyed it, too.

Listen To the Garden

"What a pity flowers can utter no sound!
A singing rose, a whispering violet, a murmuring honeysuckle,
oh what a rare and exquisite miracle would these be!"

- Henry Ward Beecher

More Things In Heaven and Earth...

I hardly know where to begin. It's true what they say, that old saw about Truth being stranger than fiction. There's absolutely no way we could've seen this one coming.

Last night, I was annoyed with my friend Nicky for issues of plagiarism, but even that was out-weighed by my concern for what was troubling him so that he'd stoop to such a thing. Today was a lot about worry for him, as many of you came by and read the news and shared your own feelings. Aside from the initial anger, there's been so much kindness, so much love and concern. Nicky really brought together an amazing group of people.

For those of you who may've missed this evening's stunning revelations, I direct you over to the blog of Father Tony, where you may learn - as Paul Harvey used to say - the rest of the story...or at least a great deal more of it.

Tonight, I'm at a bit of a loss about what to think. On some level, it feels as though Nicky has died and I should mourn him, though that's not really true. He only ever really lived in the journals and the blogs of a 52 year old woman who had long felt she was truly a gay man in a woman's body.

I have only the briefest familiarity with transgender issues, so I'm not really prepared to discuss that much at all. I'm open to it and accept it and have recently been trying to educate myself a little better on the subject, but I don't fully understand what it must feel like. I'm not really sure that's even the issue here.

The thing is, he also lived in my imagination, and in yours. We wanted to believe that there was a guy like Nicky. A wonderful, sweet, compassionate guy who loved trees and nature and gardens and wrote like a poet (though we know now that wasn't always his writing...or hers, as the complicated case may be) and was doing his best to raise his two adopted children.

In hindsight(an annoying thing, isn't it?), I can remember flipping back and forth between different photos of him, trying to reconcile in my mind that they just didn't look exactly like the same person. A trick of the light, my willing-to-believe mind told me, different camera angles, the way our appearance changes as we age.

And there was that surreal business of how much like "him" those two adopted children looked, not to mention little niggling concerns at the back of my mind that someone so young and on his own would be allowed to adopt two children. But like I said, I wanted to believe. The audience's willful suspension of disbelief is what the success of the Theatre requires...and apparently, it's no different with blogging.

The children, we have learned, are real. He was the fiction(and even that statement doesn't feel entirely true: he was decidedly real to his creator). And to think just this morning, I was afraid it was the other way 'round. Oh, what a difference a day makes, indeed.

This evening I received a short email from "Nicky," directing me to Father Tony and apologizing for the deception. Surprisingly, perhaps, I don't find I'm at all angry about it, though I'm not entirely sure what, if anything, to say in response. I remain concerned for Nicky's creator and what she must now face.

It's my wish for her that she may learn to accept the fact that she/he is not alone, not the only one of her/his kind in the world. Many of us remember what that dreadful feeling is like from our own early experiences as gay people. I hope she/he will seek out some sort of assistance, counseling, something. And that she/he will, through that, be able to find peace in her/himself and in the world, with her feelings and what she has done and how it's effected other people.

But I do feel like I've lost my friend Nicky and he will be terribly missed. I remain grateful, though, for the connections I've made through his two blogs, with a terrific variety of people whom I've discovered - independent of Nicky's world - are supporting, loving and wonderful folks who I'm proud to call friends. Part of him may always live on in each of us and our friendships.

Sometimes the hand of Fate, or God, or Whomever, works in truly strange ways indeed.


Now, before I fall over dead from lack of sleep(but I still don't want a cigarette!!!), I'd like to show you a few photos. As distracted as I was today, I found at day's end that much of my photographic efforts for day were a little uninspired or distracted, so there isn't much.

But here, look at these purple plants. I'm not sure of its identity, but I believe this is some variety of blazing star, a cousin, perhaps, of the gay feather I showed you just yesterday.

I've shown you a close up of another one earlier in the season, with it's delightful star-shaped flowers climbing up the stem.

It was a discovery/rehabilitated plant at the last garden and I was too fond of it to leave it behind. I'm just amazed with what it's doing in a fresh garden bed with room to grow.

To further make my point, I'll offer another photo of that first plant I photographed.

It was only as tall as the two above back when I took those photos, but as you can see, it too now towers toward the life-bringing sun (which seems to be making only cameo appearances this week) and stands taller than than fence and is now flowering on side branches, as well.

I'm just amazed...as I find I so often am in the garden.

And I just love the way the Queen Anne's lace flowers are pink just before they fully open up. It's delicate, and certainly not something you notice in plants you only see along the roadside. But when it's in the garden, it's easier to see the subtle details...and they just tickle me.

Pink, even.



"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

- William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act I, Scene V.

Face To Face

Sometimes, you just can't go wrong with some beautiful zonal geraniums for annual color. These are potted up in the greenhouse section of the restaurant dining room, where Leslie's been doing a great job of bringing some seasonal color to the decor with container gardening.

It was a long restaurant day today, too, with a breakfast event getting me there at 7:00 and a lunch to follow shortly after that. No worries though, really: it wasn't one of those weather days you minded missing particularly, what with the damp, almost-raining-all-day quality and the temps barely hitting 60 (It's 55 now...).

I'm not sure if I've never noticed these two doing this before, but I had it in my head that the roses and the azaleas didn't bloom at exactly the same time, usually. I suppose I ought to have been paying better attention.

The day went well and fled before too long. I made a sidetrip to the nursery on the way home. I needed (not wanted, but required really...)a sixpack of portulaca for a particular spot and since I was there, I picked out a young golden sage plant to replace the one that passed on last winter...and they actually had a pot of verbena bonariensis.

I'll hit you with some photos of mine later and no doubt throughout the season - this is another of my Top One Thousand Absolute Favorite(you can make me choose, but you can't make me choose just one) Plants, with it's squarish stems and pointy jagged foliage and lovely little deep purple blossoms! I squee a little just thinking about it.

I countered the grey weather with some showtunes in the car: Showboat today, and it was "Old Man River" that had me taking the long way around our circle to get to the house (you just don't shut off OMR before its through!), when I had to stop short for a pair of cardinals...possibly juveniles, who came crashing onto the roadway, seeming to wrestle with one another, more at play, I thought, than any real show of agression. There was a tiny purple finch on the scene, too. A referee, perhaps.

It was positively Disney-fied.

Which perhaps set me up for what would come next.

As I was changing, I looked out the bedroom window and saw Him. My Nemesis. The Nibbler By Night. The Hungry Hare. The Bunny Bane of my tulips and crocuses.

And damn if he's not adorable. Of course, I knew he would be.

However, he also wasn't in the garden itself, except in the way that British folks refer to the whole yard as The Garden (which I rather like, while we're being tangential and all...), but peaceably grazing on the diversity that is our "lawn". I snapped the first photo through the window, but then finished changing and went out to sit on the front step.

He (again I'm assuming gender...but what's wrong with boy bunnies, anyway?)regarded me with frozen concern at first, retreating to be closer to the shelter of the hedges if things should turn ugly.

After a few pics, I set the camera down and let him see my hands were empty and I meant him no harm, because really, I don't. Provided he's not eating all my bulbs, it's kind of an honor to have him visit. It didn't take him any time at all to dismiss me as a harmless rube and return to the grazing.

Perhaps there's something to this "Liquid Fence" stuff after all. Or maybe there's just something really tasty growing amongst the grass. I'll have a look-see in the morning.

After he'd gone and I got something cooking for dinner, I went out to plant my new additions, and also to do some more weeding and seeding, this evening adding the rest of the everlasting strawflower seeds, a packet of Pacific statice and teensy pack of red poppy seeds.

As for earlier seedings: the allyssum seedlings, the first to be scattered in early April, are now approaching blooming size, and are adding more tiny white flowers to the lowest edges of the garden bed. There are sunflower seedlings popping up all over the place and possibly the first of the bachelor buttons. The seashell cosmos have now begun presenting their true leaves, so they are well on their way, as the garden as a whole seems to be.

May Makes Way For June

Wahoo!

Another lily emerges this morning, at the feet of a clump of nibbled crocus foliage.


So reports of their death, as they say, were premature.

On a similar note, they say the cicadas are still going to grace us with their presence this spring, though no sign of them has yet appeared around this end of the Cape. They say a lot, as it turns out.

Meanwhile, the dianthus are starting to bloom. Most of these were new nursery plants last spring, so they are big healthy spreading clumps now. A few are a couple of years old. I just love a little plant that is inexpensive, spreads itself around and blooms more or less all season long.

It had been predicted it would rain all day for us today, so it was a surprise to wake up and find a, well, not exactly sunny morning, but certainly not a rainy one.

This gave me the chance to get some tall marigold seedlings (the varieties are tall, the seedlings are about three inches high just now...) planted along the fence.

There's two kinds: the ones on the roadside are all yellow, and from the tiny picture on their nursery tag, they appear to be single-flowered...or at least only partly double.

The other kind is a mix of orange and yellow and will feature the fully double, pom-pom marigold flowers. Those are on the house side of the fence.

I love these tall varieties; they really help to fill out the garden as the summer wears on and various other plants' bloom times come and go. I tried to be sure and stagger them, so they weren't planted directly opposite one another across the fence.

I've also now identified the best spots for the tomato plants. They are doing well in the bedroom window and getting rather tall and strong. This is fine with me, as I'll carefully pinch off the lower branches and plant them deep, so they develop a good strong root system along the buried part of the stem. This should give them a strong footing against the wind that seems to prevail on our street...and of course, they'll be well-staked, too.

Of course, it will be a day or two still before those get into the ground, but I'm not worried about them.


The rest of the day was spent at work, but I did find a few moments late in the afternoon (just before it did finally begin to rain) to nip off to the garden for a look at what was blooming there.

The siberian irises are going full strength now. Most are the white variety, which make a great background for those purple bearded irises. The blue ones are a little taller than the white, so they'll really create a nice drift of color as they grown around one another.

Divisions of each of these and also a purple variety from the meadow live in our border at home, but they also seem to have suffered from nibbling.

Nestled amongst some evergreens, this rose's first bud is a pearl about to unfurl.