Monthly Archive

Susan Sarandon has threatened to leave the country if John McCain is elected.  Is this announcement somehow supposed to make me change my mind?  Do I even care?  If I remember correctly, Alec Baldwin once threatened to leave the country if George Bush won.  Fat lot of good it did me to vote for Bush, Alec’s still here.  Dang it, if these celebrities who make these ridiculous threats don’t ever carry them out, how are we, the little people, ever going to learn?

Whatever, I’ll wave at them from the tarmac.  Heck, I’ll pack their china.  Please, just go, already.  Bye.

These roses smell heavenly, their scent floats through the yard dreamily. You can actually follow it to the source.

At the garden gate they beckon you to enter. Just don’t eat all my radishes.

These are on the other side of the gate, with the clematis.

These are the first of my grandmother’s roses. They also smell wonderful, but are more delicate. This weekend will see their full bloom. And hopefully the moss roses. Oh, the moss roses. I wish beyond anything I could give you a way to smell those flowers.

More clematis and roses. Looking at them I feel rich beyond imagining.

The full gate, on display. YAY for flowers.

There is some rule that you are supposed to prune clematis. I never have pruned this one, it’s never complained.

I love these little columbine, they are spreading through my yard volunteering themselves to bloom everywhere. I haven’t the heart to weed them out. Pretty much if a plant offers to be pretty in my yard, I’ll let it.

This is true geranium, or cranesbill. I love it. It blooms nearly all season, somewhat more slowly after the first riot.

Here is my pretty little ranunculus. I adore these flowers and have tried to grow them forever. This year three took and I am happy. Like a little greedy baby, I’m happy.

And some pretty rhododendrons, though I saw one that was a deep delicious red and now I’ve got envy, sinful evil envy.

Finally, here is my lavender becoming bloomy. YAY for bloomy lavender.

Okay, so not the last with the lavender. I really love this shot of a toy I played with when I was a child.

I’ll bet you didn’t know I speak French.  ‘Cause I don’t.

Here are more pictures of my yard at dawn on Saturday.  Firstly, let me tell you that I love herbs, and I mean LOVE.  The smell alone when freshly picked always makes me happy.  Don’t even ask me about the lemon verbena incident.  Just know I didn’t mean to pack that much up my nose.  (Lemon Verbena is the most divine smell on earth.  Better than roses, roasted chicken, puppy breath, everything.  Go get some fresh and tell me I’m wrong.  Seriously, it’s that good.)  I bought some pineapple sage this weekend, but it’s tiny now and not really very picturesque.  But my tri-color sage?

And some lemon thyme:

I have a confession to make.  Don’t laugh, but I’m a thyme whore.  I love it and cannot resist it’s charms.  I’ve got about a dozen different kinds in the garden right now, the best being my prized lavender thyme.  Like lemon verbena, I command you to go get some right now!  Plus, unlike lemon verbena, it’s an evergreen, so it can be shoved up your nose year round.  I bought some coconut thyme this weekend.  We shall see if it lives up to it’s name.  I hope so.

And, lastly for I must away to work, here are my chives:

This evening, the flowers.  Adieu!

When I went out this morning to see my lovely yard I was dazzled by the light on the flowers. Yay for light!

Welcome to my yard at dawn:

Iris you were here:

My tractor, this is what I use to clear land and to do all the hard tasks I need to accomplish on my vast estate:

More later. Unfortunately I’ve got cheese to buy and more plants that are calling my name, forcing me to buy them and plant them in my yard.

My nephew, Juicy, loves “Piderman”. A lot. He sings the theme song over and over, I’ll record it tonight and add it to this post for your enjoyment, it’s original. Sweetpea and The Mancub enjoy “Piderman” too. This morning I played the best version of the Spiderman theme song for them, they loved it very much. I’m so proud. Below, for your enjoyment!

This past week end, for those of you with your heads buried in the sand, or stuck on American Idol* or Keeping up with the Kardashians*, a cyclone struck Burma leaving destruction in it’s wake. First estimates gave the death toll at 22,000, a terrible number. In the normal course of events, a government would do whatever it could to help the people survive.

Unless, of course, it’s the military junta that currently reigns in Burma. So far they have refused aid, taken what foodstuffs that did manage to make it in country and refused to notify it’s people of the pending storm. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of people are dying, suffering and starving.

None of this is surprising if you’ve been paying attention. Last year, thousands of monks were slaughtered. Before that, the Burmese have kept Aung San Suu Kyi under arrest for years and oppressed it’s people for years since the junta took over in 1989.

Years ago I was introduced to Burma through a tiny restaurant in Chinatown in Washington, DC. Last time I looked, it was gone. I ate the most ambrosial mango pork curry, an ethereal stew that made me happier than I can remember. I discovered it again later at Mandalay Restaurant in Silver Spring, Maryland. That pork mango curry was enough to give Burma a spot in my heart forever. Later I learned about Aung San Suu Kyi, learned of her sacrifices and strength. Of course I’d remembered the Burma Road, from WWII fame.

Many more people will die this week. Rain will be falling again shortly, flooding already flooded villages, washing more bodies into already fouled drinking water sources, spoiling any remaining food that wasn’t spoiled last week. Current estimates at the eventual total death toll of Cyclone Nargis are at 500,000. One half of a million people are expected to be dead before this horrible event is over. The Indian Ocean Tsunami killed 250,000, spread across many nations and several continents. I can only imagine the loss in intellectual, cultural and familial knowledge. Add to that the loss of fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, neighbors…..it really is more than they can bear.

My father suggested that perhaps the junta is allowing all these people to die because they intended to kill them anyway, it’s just cheaper to let mother nature kill them than to spend the bullets. I don’t know. I just can’t imagine any other reason why the extraordinary suffering is allowed to continue.

I’m praying for the people.

*I hate these shows. A lot. I’d rather shove needles in my eyes than watch them.**

** Except for the audition episodes of AI. After those, I refuse to watch it.

From an article in The Independant:

For two hours, the villagers were standing in water up to their waists. “There has never been a storm like this before. This is the first time,” said another man, Ko Khin My Aye. He said that when the storm struck he had been on his boat, which was tied by rope tight to the trunk of a coconut palm. While he and his family survived, some friends and an aunt were among the dead. “There were many, many children. We could not hold on to all of them.”

That last line breaks my heart. I can not imagine the heartbreak.