Another Odd Pot

I'm thinking this must have been intended for a wastepaper basket for someone who didn't throw much away. Its about 18" tall and 5" in diameter. It ended up at the local Thrift Town and then in my hands. It was very inexpensive; $1.99.

A few holes were punched in the bottom for drainage and then...

it was planted. I'm thinking that instead of the big leafed Tradescantia, some Dichondra argentea "Silver Falls" would look better. There is a Huchera and some Chrondropetalum in there too.

This n that

This fabulous Cymbidium orchid is happily living in an overcrowded pot on the front porch of my friends, Karen & Brett. Now I'm gonna HAVE to have one of my own, dontcha know? I've had good luck with two of the three orchids in the house (a Phalaenopsis and a um, bigger one..."Dtps." and darned if I can remember what that stands for.)

Recently the little buck discovered the pile of cracked corn that was intended for the rooster. When he tired of the corn, he ate a few leaves and most of the berries off the near-by Nandina.

His mama had been busily deleafing the Texas privets, much to my delight. She then came closer to the house to see what
sort of potted things would make a good dessert and stomped a front foot at us (the dog and I) because we had the audacity to be on the other side of the window and taking pictures. I just hope they aren't leaving us any ticks...


The American and Lesser Goldfinch have been thick on the feeders the past several weeks. This is only one of their feeding stations. Foolish person that I am, there are a total of 9 Nyjer feeders scattered around the yard. Very good thing that I get a discount on my seed! (their seed)

new life

The "red" glass lantern was peeling and looking much worse than this photo indicates so I took it apart, scrubbed the last of the red film off of it, and re-painted the holder. Ta-Da! Brand new candle holder! If only it were that easy to re-paint the house.

Bloom Day

Chasmanthe

The first Chasmanthe bloom of 2008. Right here, smack dab in the middle of Sunset zone 14. Sunset says it grows in "Zones 13, 15-24". Why not 14? (Too lazy to look it up right now) Chasmanthe aethiopica. Though it is pretty, and certainly a cheery sight for winter weary eyes

it rather makes me gasp at the thought of having to mow it all down before it becomes a ginormous fire hazard in the summer months.

There is a LOT of it. In fact, if it were all gathered together, there is at least an acre of it on this 2.5 acre plot of land.

It's SPRING!

Ahhhh. My favorite time of the year! No matter how crappy the weather may be ahead, we know that there will be more sunny days than dreary days. We are over the hump! I'd jump up and click my heels but that would probaby result in serious bodily harm which would keep me from playing in the dirt. Bad enough that I always over-do things on the first really nice day and then ache in strange places for the next 48 hours. Inbetween admiring the first "scrambled egg plant" flowers (a jasmine) and swooning over the Flowering

Quince and a couple of violets, I managed to do a wee bit of plum tree pruning at my nephew's, pot up some Primroses, cut down all of last year's ginger canes, smell the Daphne, re-fill the bird feeders, prune the juniper, do the doggie-doody duties, and clean the birdbaths.

It is possible that tidying up this yard is an exercise in futility because IF the sale goes through, ohhh, we don't even want to think about the developer's destruction...but IF the sale falls flat due to our sinking economy, then I won't have months of clean-up to do. I'll still be on top of it...more or less. Besides, I still LIVE here. I have my pride. ;>) And I have less money for groceries because I wandered into BelAir yesterday only to be greeted by this SUN, which insisted that it go home with me. At least it isn't some calorie-loaded edible thing that I'll regreat having eaten.

h My Gosh! Its February!

Found some little snowdrops in bloom this week and the buds are swelling on the chasmanthe. A few more days of sunshine and the colors will start dazzling our eyes! The daylight is noticibly longer now too. This is always a good sign and a reason to jump for joy. (Although, jumping for joy right now would have muddy consequences) I hope to jump for joy tomorrow night when Barack Obama

wins the primary in California. My p.u. has sported his bumper sticker since last August, my front yard would love to join in with an
Obama for President sign soon. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, this is Mom's green rose; Rosa chinensis viridiflora. It isn't going to win any beauty pagents but it has a very interesting personality. Curiousier and curiouser, the deer have left this variety alone.

Hellebore

I don't understand. Both my late mother and the current Sunset Western Garden Book (said) say not to disturb Helebores, that "they resent moving and may take 2 or 3 more years to re-establish (if they survive at all)." This one blooming merrily away in a pot was dug up and potted last Spring. It does not appear to be perturbed to me.

This one I had dug up last fall with the intention of potting it for my son. In fact, I did dig it up, cut off a big chunk, potted that, and plopped this one back into the hole it came out of. Note: It is blooming. Another note: Mark's is blooming IN HIS GARAGE in Portland!
I have moved, divided, given away, and potted these plants (I have a pinkish variety too) several times over the past ten years and have never known them to resent the intrusion. I don't understand.

yet another wild hair!

Have had this vase for a year or two...t'was a find at a local thrift shop and just seemed to be something that had to come home with me.

All of a sudden the urge to glue glass baubles to it overtook me and here, after a few mock-ups, is the finished product. I'll take a picture in the daylight tomorrow and see if it turns out any better. Part of me wants to put different colored glass baubles on each of the four sides but something tells me that would be overkill. However....there are all those "odd pots" that I bought last spring.....they're just so PLAIN you know?

my mind is a mosaic

Thoughts and ideas just jump around in my head like popcorn in a microwave. The trick is to get them to settle long enough to DO something with them! Towards that goal, I have recently purchased two books on making mosaics and have even gone so far as to purchase this really cool tool for cutting them. (The guy made it look so EASY!)

The "trick" seems to be in scoring the tile. If you don't score it deep enough you get the mess in the first photo. But I'm hoping that with more practice the tiles will break more evenly. See? The second try (or maybe that was the 3rd and 4th) resulted in almost straight lines. I haven't tried it on glass yet. Luckily there is an abundance of this light blue tile at my beck and call...all of which used to wrap around the bath tub. Well, not around the bath tub, but the walls. Oh you know! Tub enclosure?

I made a quick dash into a Home Depot today just to see if they had any interesting tiles and came up with these 4. Also discovered that you can buy 4" x 4" sheets of already cut (1/2 x 1/2 inch cute little guys), very pretty opaque tiles in lovely hues for $4.99 or thereabouts. I behaved myself and didn't buy any...today....but I'll remember them if I ever get inspired enough to settle on a design and an object on which to put it. I know it would help if I'd take a class...

winter's morning light

Since there was a break in the rain early this morning I ran out in my fuzzy slippers to take a couple of pictures. Did quite a number on the slippers. Nice that they are washable! But the lighting was just so interesting that soiled slippers weren't an issue.

This one didn't turn out as well as hoped for. The line of light was absolutely golden on that big limb. An hour or two later the rains returned. We are getting very soggy here. There is a bit of wind but the Cedar tree is not letting go of its toe-hold on Madagascar.

Cedar tree

I just blogged about the saga of the cedar tree but apparantly my words & pictures floated up, up, and away, never to be seen again. Attempt # 2. This cedar tree must have a tap root firmly wrapped around the toe of Madagascar because it simply refused to go down. Eons (ok, years) ago, Mom had somebody top the tree because its habit of leaning worried her so. Naturally, topping it made it grow FOUR new tops. These have to be heavier than one, right?

It is fun to stand up wind from the tree and watch the ground heave when the wind blows. I don't know why it won't give up. We are currently having winds in the 20 to 30 mph range but the forecasters say there will be gusts up to 50 mph tonight. Granted, nothing like the winds of two weeks ago when the gusts hit 70 mph....but this round comes with the earth much more saturated by rain...If the tree goes down on my watch (rather than on that of the developer's because he'll cheat with heavy machinery) it will severly prune an olive and a persimmon tree and probably squash a young Thuja flat. ok. let's hit "publish" and see what happens.

Dawson & Phoebe

This is Dawson. He would much rather be outside, emptying the bird feeders, if you get my drift. This is not an option for him so he pretty much sleeps all day and then hunts for four-footed gray things with long naked tails at night when he is allowed to go outside.

This is Phoebe giving Dawson "neck nibbles". The bluriness is more from the vibrations of the neck nibbles than due to the fact the cat was moving his head. They do this a lot.

Someties Dawson has had enough. Mind you, moments before this was taken, he was licking Phoebe's face in the sweetest pussycat way.

And then, they're done.

WAY COOL TOMATO CAGES!

We found colorful tomato cages in, of all places, Rugby, ND last June. Much as I wanted some, there didn't seem to be a practical way to bring them home via train and plane, but gee, surely one could find them in Sacramento!? NOT!

However, leave it to the wonderful ordering person (her name is Cheryl and no its not me) at Windmill Nursery in Carmichael, CA., they're here now! The ONLY reason I didn't purchase one (or 2 or 6) today was because I couldn't decide upon the color and 6 weren't in my budget even though they are only $16.49 each. Pretty sure that fuschia one will be #1 on my list.

dumpster fun

This was rescued from the dumpster at work last week. When my brother and I were kids, our folks sold olives to Orsi Brothers and took some payment in big tins of olive oil, similar to this. Unfortunately, there are none of those tins left. However, this one evokes the memories

AND serves a useful purpose! This is a baby olive tree from the orchard our parents bought 2.5 acres of in 1938. The parent trees have to be near 100 years old. This means nothing to the fellow who plans to develope this property but it does to us so I keep digging up babies and potting them up for the grandkids who want them. My son's tree even produced an olive this year and he lives in Portland! Ok, so the tree is still in a pot and its a house plant in the winter, but still.