August Wrapup.

How did that happen?  We were just complaining about it being August too soon, and now look.  No more white shoes. 
In the “good news” department, I have the following:

Tomatoes and cucumbers sufficient for the makings of a tomato and bread salad.  Mmm!  In addition to the very cool summer we’ve experienced here, it appears that [...]

Meandering.

August is moving way too fast.  I’m having trouble keeping up. 
I heard through the grapevine that this week’s Ten on Tuesday was something about “fads we wish had never happened.”  I’m a little past it to make the whole list, but seriously.  Piercings that make others flinch to look at them?  Jeans so low cut [...]

Weekend Knitting.

I started a Baby Chalice Blanket after seeing Carole’s beautiful version. 
Mine is for a young man who will be in college soon if I don’t hurry this up.  His mother is definitely not a “baby colors” person, so I went with a nice masculine chocolate brown:

This, friends, is a dream of a knit.  The lace [...]

Random Act of Kindness.

Our backyard neighbor found himself with a surfeit of pansies over the weekend.   The garden center was selling flats at three for the price of one, since pansy season is a bit past at this point.   He pressed as many upon us as we could find containers for, and we also wound up putting a few [...]

Befuddling.

It seemed that my purple tall bearded irises went missing this spring.  The yellow and maroon ones sprung right up. 
I thought I’d gone nutso.  How do you misplace perennials?    I turned this over in my mind, and had no answer.
Today, I walked around to the back of the garage for something, and look what I [...]

Outdoor Pursuits.

Aren’t these irises pretty?  I have no idea what variety they are.  A departed neighbor planted them on the far side of our house years ago - she  didn’t want to look at our basement window (I can’t blame her).  They multiplied, like irises do, so I’ve divided and moved them over the years.  They bloom earlier than [...]

Happy Saturday!

The coreopsis are blooming, right on schedule.
Have a great day, everyone!

How Does My Garden Grow?

Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can walk undisturbed.   — Walt Whitman

In our climate, Memorial Day Weekend is traditionally the official beginning of gardening season.  The garden centers are jammed with folks buying their annuals, mulch, and assorted garden accoutrement, and by Tuesday lots of people are walking around stiff [...]

This is not a hallucination.

Well, the other day it was sheep.  Today, we’ve got ducks.  I promise you, I am not seeing things!
This pair bears a striking resemblance to a charming young couple who nested here last spring – perhaps they are the same, or perhaps they heard about it from their friends.  Hard to tell with ducks.  I [...]

Spring Comes to the Tundra

One truth learned by living in a temperate climate for 43 years is that the seasons will, eventually, change.  As much and as badly as we don’t want summer to end, or that we think the snow will never melt, inevitably, one season gives way to the next. 
Yesterday it hit 60 here, and it was an absolutely gorgeous day in [...]