Thursday

The day here started out gray and rainy. Not much encouragement for getting out of bed and turning on that coffee pot, honestly. But that's okay...we need wet mornings like this one and meanwhile, every time I look at the forecast for the holiday weekend it looks a little better!

These red begonias are in a stone planter outside of the bank. I should have taken a picture of them earlier in the season when they were a little fresher looking. But they caught my attention this morning and so here you go.

There was a little upheaval at the Nest this morning, but nothing particularly monumental. We had suspected in the last couple of days that perhaps there was a leak in the gas line that comes up to the apartment, as there'd been the occasional whiff of the stuff. Today, Lenny pulled off the facing boards on the step ups from dining room to kitchen and bathroom, since the gas is piped in between floors there.

Naturally, it was only once that destruction had been done that it was discovered that the new stove was actually the source of the leaking...and it has apparently been a lucky thing that we've been sleeping with windows wide open so regularly lately. Anyway, the problem is all fixed, there's no more leaking and all is well.

In fact, I like the photo above not for the destruction (and that's no big deal--haven't painted ANY of the trim in the apartment yet...), but I like the way it shows off the red-orange-yellow progression from kitchen to dining room to bathroom.

Dykewife calls my string of lights "cheer lights" and I love that name, though I've never heard them called that before. I've always been a fan of the indirect light cast by these little lights and have often incorporated them in my living situations one way or another for years now. They ARE cheery, though. And another thing I wanted to point out, are the little balls made of grape vines. I got them on one of those novelty strings of lights years ago and love the way they make these great shadow designs on the walls. The shadows do something to the painting on the wall I really like.

I'll try to get some better pictures of what I'm talking about as far as detail of the painting work in the days to come. It's pretty late now and I ought to already have been in bed...but there's a few flower pics to round out the day.

On the way back from the bank, this bed of furry-flowered ageratum and yellow marguerite daisies called out to me from one of those traffic island gardens and so I stopped for a photo or two.

I'm pretty sure this fuzzy topped stuff in ageratum, though I've not grown this variety before. They ought to call the particular strain Animal, after the Muppet Drummer it so reminds me of.

These petunias are showing what end of the season it is, but I still couldn't look away from the rich purple flowers. Next summer I want to do more with petunias.

And here's some of our fall foliage, a blend of pretty Virginia creeper and sneaky poison ivy, climbing the side of a pine tree across the street from the traffic island, at the path entrance of one of Eastham's conservation areas.

Gardener's Blues...and Other Colors

Just checking in so you don't worry, but I'm not sure I have so much to say. Actually, I think the opposite is closer to the truth, but I don't trust I'll find the right words just yet. For now, a few random notes:

* I've gotten lots accomplished in the last day or so, not all of it at work or in the garden. I feel kind of good about that.

* The Olympics are winding down and due to work schedule, I'll only catch the late night stuff now 'til the end. Ah, well, only two years 'til the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver.

* 2010. That sounds a little weird, huh? Where are those flying cars and rocket jet packs, anyway? I'd happily settle for a few more windfarms.

* It turns out that two weeks of somewhat immersive coverage of the Olympic Games, enhanced by substantial sleep deficit was just the right combination for me to have committed to memory the entire NBC Fall Schedule of programming. Well, at least I've made note of when HEROES is starting up again. I really like that show.

* Thirty-five days since my last filthy cigarette. I know I've probably made it sound easy this time around. Nobody's more surprised than me. I attribute this both to my blasted optimism, which annoys even me sometimes, but also to no small sense of determination. I don't want to be a smoker anymore. (All of your encouragement and cheerleading hasn't hurt, either...so thanks for that.)

* Now that it's been a while since I took the smoke, I am noticing some improvements in me. I'm breathing easier, and I find that singing's a little easier, too. Well, the act is. I'm not feeling lately like I have a lot to sing about...but that's also possibly the reason I've been doing so much of it.

* Unexpected Carnage! A moldy and long-forlorn mousetrap in the cabinet beneath the sink here in the computer room sent a good-sized mouse off to his reward just moments ago. (We bow our heads and wish him well.) I'm blogging about it now, but it will be less creepy to address the larger issue of actually removing the body by morning light.

* I don't find that I like the wintergreen Altoids as much as I do the spearmint.

* As always, I find the garden awfully good for what ails me. Lately, there is almost always an undersong of crickets, but especially in the evening. There's quite a buzz at noontime as pollinators of all shapes and sizes ply their way from one flower to the next.

The goldfinches have been visiting the sunflowers regularly. I saw the hummingbird again this morning. And the bunnies are never far away, it seems.

Each day there are new colors, or fresh combinations of different flowers grown together. As I explore, I slow down and breathe a little easier, as a piece of my stress burns away in the golden sunshine. I can think of no better things than these tiny wonders and it's nearly impossible to be glum in their company.






"And that evening, while he was playing, a brown leaf, the first leaf of the fall, blew into the station and landed right next to the cricket cage. Now this leaf had come from New Jersey. A playful gust of wind danced it over the Hudson River, and up Forty-second Street, and whisked it down the subway entrance."


"Chester was in the middle of a song when the leaf came down. It was such a shock to see this little reminder of all that was happening in the country that for a moment he couldn't continue. But then he realized where he was and forced himself to go on."

- The Cricket in Times Square, George Selden, 1960.

July's Half-Way

Ahh, morning breaks. With coffee in hand, I head out into the front yard. I didn't hear it rain again in the night, so I'm watering as usual...about ten to fifteen minutes of deep soaking from the soaker hose, and then some careful above spraying with the nozzle for the spots outside the realm of the buried soaker.

In their hanging basket under the eaves, the fuschia ballerinas dance in dawn's early light.

After I connect the soaker hose and turn on the water, I wander along the border, sipping my coffee and looking to see what the morning reveals.

For not the first time, I wonder about the true identity of the two or three plants I've been referring to as rudbeckia. The thing is, I dug these out of the meadow at our old place when they were single flowered seedlings, so they didn't come with a nursery tag.

For the last three years, I've started off the season referring to them as rudbeckia, but then, as I watch the flower petals take on a droopier form, I wonder if they aren't something from the coneflower family, instead. But a flower by any name is still a beautiful thing to behold, so not being a botanist, I don't worry too awfully much.

However, as a garden blogger, I really ought to be telling you the right names for things, so I'll try to be diligent and do some further research to see which family of plants these guys are most similar to. Rather than find yourself troubled by this whole identity crisis...take a look at that sunflower upstage. That one's also as tall as me now.

Now, I'd been watching the bachelor button seedlings carefully, and noted a day or two ago that the first buds were forming. So this first blue blossom today was not truly a surprise, but still. I just love these flowers. They are so simple and old fashioned and delightful and blue.

I'm pleased to have so many of them, as I think they will bloom throughout the summer if I can keep up on the deadheading. Of course, if I can't, I know there's a host of little birdies in the neighborhood who'll happily munch on the seedheads as the summer progresses.

So captivated with this first blue beauty was I, that it was a complete surprise to see that Joan Senior, my white daylily, was blooming for the first time today. It's not one of the tall daylilies and so this plant had sort of gone into stealth mode as the rest of the garden grew up around her.

This morning's buttercream blossom was completely unexpected. I knew there were two of these plants somewhere in the border, but to be honest, I really wasn't sure just where.

Here's that sport of the other "rudbeckia" or coneflower...whichever they turn out to be.

I noticed only in "developing" the photos this evening that this first blossom has suffered from some chewing of the petals, probably from some insect or caterpillar.

Fortunately, I don't get myself too worried about that. After all, I'm not using any kind of pesticides in the garden and if the plant provides some nutrients for something, then there's a natural reason for that and I've no business messing in the process.

Anyway, the first flower would've concealed the second flower too much if it'd still had those missing petals.

The garden is a real joy this time of year. Things that were dry little seeds in my hand not at all long ago have burst forth with these little green miracles everywhere I look. The second and third waves of sunflower seedlings look even more robust than the ones currently blooming, having done all of their growing outside in the heat and the sun.

The first class of cleome are coming into bloom all along the fence. In other places, a second wave of them are growing a few weeks behind. I noticed tonight that some are taller than others, as they are shaded by things which will pass as these continue to grow around them.

All of the cosmos plants--there are a couple different varieties, all told--are getting bigger and bushier every day and I'm sure before long they will join the fray. There's an assortment of seashell cosmos, as well as at least one plant of the regular variety. I also planted a whole packet of sulphur cosmos seeds, which should add a taller note of orange and yellow to echo the marigolds down below.

These cherry tomatoes are showing the first signs of coloring up nicely. I can't wait to pop the first sweet one into my mouth so morning not far off.


And I must sing the praises of the Pansies once more. They are, especially in the summer heat and bright sun, some of the hardest working plants I've got out there this year.

I can't believe this blue variety, which Coop loved so back when we were celebrating Spring, Glorious Spring, are still doing so nicely this far into July. I'm absolutely thrilled, though, since they are my favorite of the lot of them, too!

That said, I can see that some of the pansy plants will require a somewhat severe cropping back to help them continue on into August. I also try to slip them a little extra water via watering can now and then. It's really the least I can do for such an effort.

The morning glories are continuing to offer their cheery trumpets every morning, tho I am amused by the fact that I either grouped all of the same colors together on each post, by chance, or else some morning soon, I'll come outside to find that the other vines have joined in the show and brought the rest of the color range in the packet to the table.

The vines are growing like mad lately. Every day, sometimes morning and evening, I have to carefully peel them off of whatever errant place they have decided to explore, and cautiously weave them through the string trellaces I laced up the fenceposts in the spring...or more often lately, as they become more overgrown (which I mean in the best possible use of the word), I simply weave and braid them around the other stems. The leaves almost entirely conceal one or two of the posts, and in a few cases, the twining stems have tried to work their way up assorted little flagpoles.

The colors on this lantana are so hot I'm having trouble getting just the right picture of them. This is the first one that I've been happy enough with to share with you, and even here, I had to remove about 50% of the color saturation before you could look at the image without burning your retinas.

Which is funny, because I could look at the actual flowers with their variegated tones all day long. I hoping that some hummingbirds will feel the same way, too.

Freedom

And so here we are, the Fourth of July. It's the big celebration that kicks off each summer. Parades have always been a part of the day for me, having grown-up in an Elks Club family. I remember those humid New Jersey mornings when we'd rendezvous with family and friends to stake out some hopefully-shady spot along the parade route, where we would sit...and stand...and pace as kids do, impatient until the first police car siren was heard, until we caught the first glimpse of that flag waving in the morning light. The crash of cymbals, the drum cadence, the blare of trumpets, the thrilling sound of marching steps in unison. Of course, I never realized any military implications in all that, though it seems so crystal clear today.

Things are simple when you're a kid...there's balloons and bands and funny cars and clowns (I've never been afraid of them, despite Tim Curry and Steven King's best efforts), fire trucks and who knows what else. No doubt it was a thrilling couple of days, usually with any number of opportunities to see the fireworks displays of various townships and organizations, outdoor concerts on park greens, and all the picnicking or barbecuing with family and friends.

We'll be working through some of this holiday weekend, but hopefully there'll be time to squeeze a few of those traditions in here and there--I think our schedule will work out nicely to allow that. I'll try to share some of those moments with you, as time allows. And I've made a switch with the playlist for the weekend, choosing a few things that feel appropriate to the occasion.

Meanwhile, the garden along the fence is offering its own version of a spectacular fireworks display, though it is a bit more slow-motion than the traditional skyrockets. Today, this second rudbeckia flower opened...completely different from the first, but bursting forth from the same clump.

Not far away, a tall pink garden phlox has opened its first sweetly-scented flower, and more are swelling, their bright pink petals slowly spiralling open. A little lower, the small yellow flowers of coreopsis echo the shapes of the stately Shasta Daisies, while brilliant orange and red daylilies airburst all along the fence.


I hope your weekend brings you oppor tunities to explore your world, like this young cowbird who was off on his own, foraging in the lawn this morning.

'Tis true, Independence Day is an American holiday, celebrating the birth of a new nation on the shores of a New World two hundred and thirty-two years ago today. Although this sounds quite old by human standards, when held against the yardstick of the other nations of the world, we are quite young, a whippersnapper, really...and perhaps can be forgiven for some of the brashness we have shown over the years. It's also possible we ought to be sent to reform school. I feel myself scraping along the side of politics and that's absolutely not where I want to go.

Independence Day is more than a birthday party. It's a celebration of freedom, though typically, we don't ever seem very certain what that should mean, exactly. We say all men are created equal, but we don't always act like that's true. We believe in Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness...within certain guidelines, of course, as to what Happiness might actually be, and who's Life we're talking about, and it's quite possible Liberty's just a pretty statue in the harbor.

Silly homo sapiens, thinking we have all the big ideas and the answers.

Wherever you are on this big planet of ours, I hope today finds you with a nice sunny day, or at least partly so. One that teases, its big green finger beckoning, enticing you out the front door, down the street or through the woods, or along some glistening shore...into some place that's green...where you can get a glimpse of what freedom really looks like: through the soaring birds in the air, or the squirrels and chipmunks who dart and dash about, fish who break the surface of the water, the fluttering butterfly, a basking reptile. Take a deep breathe and try to put yourself in their lack of shoes for a few minutes.

"Freedom ain't a state like Maine or Virginia
Freedom ain't across some county line
Freedom is a flame that burns within ya
Freedom's in the state of mind!"
- Shenandoah, Gary Geld and Larry Udell,

The Groundhog's Day

Happy Candlemas, everyone! It's 43 degrees here this morning and the sun is a nice golden color, with n'ary a cloud in the sky. The garden has flooded once more with all the snowmelt.

So naturally, everyone's favorite weather hog, groundhog Phil of Punxsutawney, PA has predicted another six weeks of winter. Everything about Phil is here.

Poor Phil, I hope they let him crawl back into bed when the party's over. Otherwise, he'll be asked to take a side in the big Presidential throw-down. It might be hard for a simple groundhog to get back to sleep though, once he realizes its also Mardi Gras weekend.