Camera!

My new camera has arrived. It's a Canon PowerShot SD750 with 7.1 megapixels, which my daughter tells me is fine for what I want. Now, I can start showing more photos with my posts, as soon as I figure out how to use the thing. Here are a few beginners' shots.

Here's the fairy statue peeking out from among the oregano, verbena and evening primrose.

Sweet alyssum is growing around the rosemary at the foot of the steps.

English Thyme growing along the walkway, with it's little tag. The tags are ceramic and were made by one of the Fine Arts majors at the University. She sells them at the ceramics booth that they sponser several times a semester as a fund-raiser.

And finally, a potted Diascia sitting on the porch.

Those are all the photos I have for now. I'm going to have to wait until it's a little cooler this evening to take a few more.

On another note, my Suzy Q is back! My pretty calico kitty disappeared just before the last freeze and I was very worried about her. I'd given up hope of seeing her again and was only hoping that someone had taken her in. That's apparently what happened, because she showed up this morning, looking a bit thin and hungry, but with a pink collar that was a couple of sizes too small around her neck! I popped the collar off and she seems much happier now. She's cuddled up with one of the other cats right now.

A Goal Reached and a Two-fer Surprise

I reached my first weight loss goal this weekend: twenty pounds! I'm down to 200 pounds and had to go out and buy new clothes for work and school, since nothing I had that still fit was suitable. Shelli and I hit the Coldwater Creek outlet at Prime Outlets on Sunday. I can't afford to do that often, but it sure felt good to be down a full size in pants and tops!

Lady Banks had a surprise waiting for me when I got up this morning. She now has four lovely blooms -- two yellow and two white! When I looked closely, I could see that the two different colors were from two distinct tines emerging from the soil. It looks like whoever was rooting the cuttings got mixed up and rooted an "Alba" cutting or two along with the "Lutea" cuttings. Once she matures, there will be a fountaining mixture of white and yellow blooms. Another happy accident for the garden.

New Additions in the Garden

After spending the last couple of mornings digging up yellow clay and mixing in compost and sand, I've finally made some new additions to the front bed. I've planted some thyme along the walkway -- probably too close to the walkway, but we'll see. There's a delphinium behind the cooking sage and to one side of the new rose bush. The Double Bridal Wreath Spirea will go into the ground tomorrow in the bare spot on the western end of the wax myrtle hedge where it will hopefully be happy.

A new rose, Brilliant Pink Iceberg (the image is from Stockphoto) is the new centerpoint of the bed. I didn't actually intend to buy this variety. One side of the pot was labeled Gruss an Aachen, a lovely pale pink floribunda with a fairly modest growth habit. The plan was for two roses in this bed, the Gruss an Aachen toward the middle and to one side, and something a bit larger toward the back. I didn't see the label on the other side of the pot until I got the plant home. I looked it up online to get more information, and based on the description decided to keep it.

Brilliant Pink Iceberg is a sport of the more familiar white Iceberg. It has a similar growth habit to it's parent, in other words, it gets big -- sometimes very big. It is a repeat bloomer, flowering from spring to first frost, with moderately scented blooms in a mixed bright pink and white. It has no thorns, and as such is not in any way deer-tolerant -- something of an issue in Central Texas -- but I haven't had any deer problems in this area, and with the local pastureland being developed into subdivisions -- don't get me started -- I don't expect to see them become a problem in the future. It is very disease hardy -- a definite plus as I absolutely hate spraying anything on roses or coddling plants along. It's one the reasons I tend to grow old roses in the first place.

So the Pink Iceberg gets to stay, and the garden plan gets revised. It will probably turn out to be a happy accident, but next time I'm looking for a rose, I'll head over to the Antique Rose Emporium.

Here's a photo of what's been done so far (the new camera is on order from Amazon.) Still to come, there are some agapanthus bulbs on order, deep and medium blue, and I'll still need to pick up some fern-leaved lavender for the middle of the bed, in front of the rose. The daylilies still need to be shuffled around a bit and some of the scabiosas will find a home between the lavender and the thyme. Then I'll fill in the bare spot at the front with lamb's ears and either more thyme or some parsley.

Tomorrow, I'll start tackling the bed on the other side of the walkway.

Venus' Looking Glass

I was out this morning with the weed-whacker, taking out the Johnson grass and other bits that were trying to absorb the brick pathway back into the soil while trying not to take out the little Venus' Looking Glass seedlings that were starting to peek out from between the bricks.

Venus' Looking Glass, or Triodanis perfoliata, is one of my favourite wildflowers. I've been quietly encouraging the little darlings for several years, now, and get a decent clump every spring. It's not as showy as some of our other wildflowers. No one will ever stop the car on the highway to bundle the kids out to have their picture taken in a field of them -- the Babies in the Bluebonnets photo is an annual ritual here in Texas. No one will ever come around a bend and be dazzled by a sea of them, as I was last Fall by the Maximillian sunflowers. But I think they are easily one of the prettiest of the annual wildflowers, and the one that always means Spring to me.

Dave's Garden lists the mature height of the Venus' Looking Glass as 18" - 24", but I've never really seen them larger than about 10". According to the USDA website, their range extends throughout the continental US, except for Nevada and some of the northern central states. They produce pretty little six-petaled flowers in a rich shade of purple or blue-violet that's not often seen in wild flowers. My neice, Theresa and I used to use their flowers, along with grass leaves and blue Day-flowers, as an improvised paint, mashing them onto paper to create smears of color. They also press well. There are probably still a few between the leaves of my mother's 1952 Encyclopedia Americana.

A Lady in the Garden

My freshly-planted Lady Banks rose is blooming! Her first two buds opened fully this morning. I'm sorry there's no picture, but after spending several probably very entertaining minutes trying to focus the webcam on the flowers while balancing my laptop on one hand without dropping it, the best shot I got was the one I've attached below. Time to invest in a camera.

"Can't a man even clean up his work area without inadvertently conjuring up a pack of lightning-breathing ocelots?"

My friend Laura just sent me the best article from The Onion. Yes, of course it's a spoof -- it is from The Onion. For an archaeology geek, like me, though, it's priceless.

Archaeologist Tired Of Unearthing Unspeakable Ancient Evils

Recipes to Pick Up a Dreary Day

James Beard’s Banana Bread

This is the best banana bread recipe I’ve ever found. I use it over and over again. The crust is crisp and the body of the bread is fine-grained, tender and moist. The banana flavor is perfect – well-flavored and not too sweet. I’ve made it both with and without nuts, and I think I prefer it without. The recipe lists either butter or shortening, but I’ve always used butter – real butter, not margarine. With the recent concerns about transfats, you may want to do the same.

Actually, every recipe in this book is a keeper. If you can find a copy of this cookbook in a used bookstore somewhere, buy it. Source is listed below this recipe. My comments are in blue.

2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp salt
½ cup butter or other shortening
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 cup mashed, very ripe bananas
1/3 cup milk
1 tsp lemon juice or vinegar
½ cup chopped nuts (optional)

Sift the flour with the soda and salt.

Cream the butter and gradually add the sugar. Mix well. Add the eggs and bananas and blend thoroughly.

Combine the milk and lemon juice, which will curdle a bit.

Slowly and alternately fold in the flour mixture and milk mixture, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Blend well after each addition. I never actually remember to do this. It works just as well if you just dump in the milk and flour mixture and stir, although I do add the flour mixture gradually, for ease in stirring.

Stir in the nuts, then pour the batter into a lavishly buttered (or thoroughly Pammed) 9” x 5” x 3” pan (I use a four-space fancy mini-loaf pan for mine) and bake in a preheated 350 deg F oven for 1 hour, or until the bread springs back when lightly touched in the center.

Source: Beard, James. Beard on Bread. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York: 1974.

Patricia’s Turkey Chili

1 pound 99% fat free ground turkey
1 shallot, roughly chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 Tbs olive oil
1 med. white onion, roughly chopped
1 green bell pepper, roughly chopped
1 med. zucchini, roughly chopped
2 16 oz. cans chicken or veggie broth
1 16 oz. can chopped tomatoes
3 Tbs chile powder
1 jalapeno pepper, chopped
1 Tbs tomato paste, optional
1 tsp. ground cumin
2 tsp. dry basil
1/2 of a large bay leaf
salt and pepper to taste

In a large Dutch oven, heat olive oil until fragrant. Add shallot and garlic. Saute over med-high heat until lightly browned. Add onion and saute until translucent.

Add ground turkey to the onion and garlic mix. Cook until no longer pink, but not fully. Add tomatoes, bell pepper, broth, zucchini, jalapeno and spices. Reduce heat to med. low and simmer for about 45 mins, or until liquid is reduced by 1/2, stirring occasionally.

Taste and add more spices or tomato paste, as desired. Continue to simmer on med. low heat until the chili reaches the desired consistency.

Serve over corn bread, and top with chopped onions and shredded cheese.

Source: Original Recipe

Baked Butternut Squash

1 butternut squash
2 tsp butter
2 tsp light brown sugar
cinnamon to taste

Heat oven to 350 deg F. Halve squash lengthwise. Scrape out the strings and seeds. Divide butter and brown sugar and place in the cavities of each half. Dust with cinnamon. Prick along the exposed surface of the squash with a fork to allow juices to escape; the squash will sing to you while it’s baking. Bake on a cookie sheet for 1 hour, or until flesh is tender to a fork.

Serve as is, mashed, or in any other way desired. May be a side dish or the main dish.

Source: Original Recipe, based on my Dad’s

A Lazy, Rainy Day

This morning started with the thunderstorms the weather reports had promised, but it's settling into one of those drippy days -- not enough rain to keep me indoors, but too much to allow me to really do anything once I get outside. So, I think this last day of my three-day weekend will be a lazy one. The cat in the photo to the right is Oliver. He insisted on going out last night at midnight and just came back in, all drippy.

I did get some things accomplished this weekend. Another of the poor cottoneasters that drowned in last year's rainy summer has been pulled out, and the others have been cut back to their bare skeletons. They'll be easy enough to dig out as time goes on.

One of them won't be able to come out, though. There's a volunteer native bi-color lantana that's grown up alongside it's trunk, and I won't be able to dig out the cottoneaster without digging up the lantana as well. Oddly, the lantana complements my Patchwork wallflowers almost perfectly. Serendipity in the garden, I suppose. Assuming it doesn't grow out of bounds and eat the wallflowers, that is.

I moved one of the daylilies, too. I didn't realize it was so much shorter than the others when I bought it and planted it too close to a much larger daylily; it's been moved to the front of the bed where it can be seen once it decides to bloom for me.

As you can see from the pictures attached to this post, I also got some painting done in the kitchen. (For those who don't know, it used to be this sort of dingy peach color.) It's not completely finished, but it's getting there. Only the half-wall behind the stove and refrigerator is left. No, I don't plan to pull the refrigerator and stove out to do the entire wall. Call me lazy, if you wish. There are also the bits around the ceiling that I just can't reach, even from a chair. I'm hoping that my daughter's boyfriend can be imposed upon to aid the vertically challenged.


So, now my plans for the day are to drink hot tea, make some nice, low fat turkey chili for my dinners at work for the rest of the week, bake that butternut squash in the veggie bowl, and knit a new dishcloth. One of the ladies on my dishcloth list emailed a link to a blog called To Knit is Divine and a pattern called Diagonal Ripple Dishcloth. It's very pretty, and I can't wait to try it. The rest of Leanne's blog is also very interesting; I plan to return fairly frequently to see what she's up to.

Tucking in the Scabiosa Babies

I transplanted my scabiosa babies this morning before lunch. They'd been incubating in their little peat-pellet nursery for a couple of weeks, and had started to out-grow it a tad. Most of them had developed their secondary leaves and all of them had little white rootlets poking out from the pellets, so it was time to move them to a larger playroom -- in this case a variety of 3" - 8" pots (and a couple of make-shift pots from the bottoms of Diet Coke bottles) on my front porch. I don't quite trust the weather around here, so I wanted something I can move quickly if I needed to -- which I may be doing soon. The wind is kicking up out there again.

It was a real pleasure to find this particular variety of scabiosa again. I really can't stand the basic powder blue and pretty pink varieties we get from the nurseries around here. They're kind of insipid looking -- the milquetoasts of the garden set. A few years ago, however, I found a variety of dark purple scabiosas called Ace of Spades. I don't remember now where I got them, and can't locate them again from any of my regular suppliers, so I must have just stumbled across them somewhere. Only a few of the seeds sprouted and only about five or six of those survived to be transplanted into the garden. But once they were there, wow!

Those few plants completely took over a 3' x 4' raised bed, squeezed out everything but the climbing rose. And the flowers! Twice the size of the regular scabiosas, dark red-purple, absolutely stunning. I loved them. I collected some seeds from them, but we moved soon afterwards and I have no idea what happened to the seeds.

Then this spring I was wandering through the local Home Depot, and there on the Burpee's seed display was a pack of mixed scabiosa seeds -- dark purple and pure white. I don't know for certain if these are my Ace of Spades scabiosas or some other similar variety, but I hope they are as successful in this garden as in the last.

First Post

I've seen so many lovely Blogger blogs that I've finally been converted and decided to migrate my original blog over here.

"So what do you blog about?" my daughter Shelli asks dubiously. It's a good question, so I'll address that. I blog mainly on things that occur in daily life. I write about my garden, which is largely year-round here in lovely zone 8b Buda, TX. I write about my daughter and my family and their adventures, and about my own adventures as a returning adult college student -- and hopefully by next year graduate student. I write about my knitting and other needlework on occasion. I also write about my cats and the birds outside my windows and the wildflowers that come and go with the seasons.

I sometimes write about spiritual or religious subjects, but not often. There are so many other pagan blog authors who write so much more articulately and elegantly on the subject than I ever will, that I only write about religion once in a blue moon, when I have something to say. I also rarely write about politics or news events. It sometimes takes me a while to decide where I stand on issues -- there are so many different ways to look at things -- that by the time I've settled on something it's generally old news. Again, there are others much quicker and better suited to write on these subjects, so I typically leave them alone.

Well, that's about it for this post. I've got a three-day weekend ahead of me, so there are bushes to pull out and dishes to wash and a kitchen to finish painting -- er, well, we'll see about that last one.