Thought For The New Year

Happy New Year!!

Pets For Patriots Fundraiser

I've been following Pets For Patriots for a while now, getting their daily email with updates and stories about pet (and veteran) rescues.

This was in today's mail:

So, I now have Bringing Loyalty Home page where you can, starting on July 11, make donations to the cause.  Check it out now, and contribute if you can.

For Barb (Bumped)

She's counting down...

Days Till I'm Done With The Little Bas***dsCountdown

Friday Garden, With Impending Doom

Rain and sun have done wonders for the garden. Doom after the fold.

Establishing shot:

Strawberries:

Potatoes and peppers:

Potatoes and onions and garlic:

Blackberries:

Oregano:

Potatoes:

Potato flower:

Roses:

"Wildflowers":

Blackberry, again:

Impending Doom:

Today's Friday Garden

As you may (or may not) have noticed, it's been quite a while since I talked gardening. So, here we are.

Being a SoCal boy, and seeing the strawberry plants pulled up every year before the fields were re-planted, I assumed (yeah, I know), that strawberries couldn't winter, especially here where there is Real Winter. Silly me. The strawberries I 'rescued' by potting and taking inside died off pretty quickly. The ones I left in the bed did quite well.

I weeded and did a little re-arranging.  Now that I know they will winter, this is the official strawberry patch:

The blackberry also wintered well. This is the first year it hasn't started over from just a stick:

I put the random small potatoes from last year in mom's old collander, by the sink. I wound up with a collander full of sprouting potatoes, which have been strewn through several of the beds:

The actual potato bed...,

...and half of the pepper bed.

The garlic/onion bed seems to be doing well, along with a few potatoes, too:

Not to forget the kitchen bed, Oregano, garlic and onions:

And, random flowers:

The rose stick -

I believe the horticultural name for these guys is "weeds", but they're pretty ones -

Lastly, the contribution from the local tree rodentia - sunflowers (They didn't plant them quite so neatly, tho...) -

The theme for this year's garden is "Leftovers". The strawberries, blackberry, and potatoes are left over from last year, as are the oregano and all of the onions and garlic. In addition, I am attempting to sprout seeds, which were either given to me last year, or came from produce I grew.  I am incubating Thai Hots, Basil, lettuce, Red Bells, Honeydew, Mystery Melon (maybe Cantaloupe, maybe not), and Mystery Bells (color unknown).

The only new addition are the Sunflowers, thanks to the squirrels.

Green Poodles, Create!

My dear friend and 'land lady' has been running a web business for the last few years, under the name "Green Poodle Creations"("GPC"). She has lately gotten a burr under her proverbial saddle, and has a) done some major re-vamping, b) added several new product lines.

GPC is the umbrella organization, hosting the GPC Blog, the GPC Boutique, and the GPC Cookbook, all of which are linked on the side columns here.

Her craft work is folksy and funky, and definitely one-of-a-kind. I had some plain paper lampshades on my Amazon wish list, and found two of these on my front porch one day:

Way cuter, and way better than plain paper! I hope she adds something like these to her collection, soon.

She also has several coffee cup/mug designs that I love, too:

Stressed	Stages of Coffee
Stages of Coffee	Time Travel

All of this is "print on demand", meaning the mug (or t-shirt) is printed up when you order and pay for it.

Speaking of t-shirts...



Go visit, say "Hi", and tell 'em leelu sent you!!

Yesterday Was A Great Day!

I really have to allow a couple of extra minutes for my trip to work in the morning, and remember to bring the camera.

Yesterday started out with a beautiful drive to work. We had snow the day before, just enough to cover most everything with about 1/2 to 1 inch, enough to make everything look like the cliche'd 'picture postcard'. What made it so striking was the false dawn painting the sky a deep orange between horizon and clouds, coupled with the blue the remaining night tinged the earth. I drove through that for a little over half my commute.

Rocky, one of the guys at work, is an avid naturalist, at least as far as birds are concerned. I was in the shed, keeping warm whilst waiting for the van, when he banged on the door to tell me to get out an look at the snow geese. They were migrating in the largest flocks of birds I had ever seen. Flights of them kept passing over ever few minutes for over an hour.

The one decent picture I managed to get doesn't do the spectacle justice:

A very small part of a very large flock!

Finally, the funny. We have two mechanic/drivers from Puerto Rico, who are close buddies. Andy is extremely voluble, always joking and talking about something. The other, Kenwell, is quiet and slightly menacing in manner, reminding me of an East L.A. 'vato'.

So. I was working the ramp, when one of the drivers said 'Look at that." I turned around to see Andy  with the 2 foot wide roll of heavy shrink wrap we use to wrap cars when their windows won't close, wrapping one of the 'blue rooms' shut. (Our name for the blue porta-potties all over the lot for our convenience.) I could see from the indicator that the door was locked, meaning it was in use!

Andy had wrapped Kenwell up in the blue room. I saw the door being pushed out as he tried to get out, but what I didn't see (I had to marshal a car up the ramp) was a knife blade poke out between the frame and the door, and cut through the wrap. Inspired!

So, a beautiful sunrise, more lovely birds than I've ever seen in one place, and some classic comedy.

All in all, a great day.