Garden Paradise

I have to admit, my favorite form of gardening is wandering among my flowering plants and sniffing them for perfume. Every now and then I am inspired to weed - all too rarely, alas - and every now and then I spray them in a pathetic attempt to combat the various diseases and pesky insects that bedevil them later in the season - but basically, my plants struggle bravely through without much help from me.

I have become religious about watering them, though, and to my delighted surprise, it has resulted in heavy and frequent rebloom of my favorite roses, pink Eden, scarlet Blaze Improved, and pink Heritage. The sight of the fresh blooms against a true blue sky always moves me - such a direct reminder of the beauty in the world.

Alas! someone bonked into my deep pink Carefree Beauty rose and broke the main budding spray. I am trying to coax it back into bloom with water and pep talks.

I have a beautiful white rose, also, whose name I have annoyingly forgotten, which is in the midst of being ineffably generous with its second flush of blooms. I am so grateful.

Here are one or two photos of the garden bounty.

Thunder, lighting, downpours!

What dramatic weather today! First, horrendous humidity, and then the crashing of heavenly cymbals, thunder and lightening and downpours so dense you couldn't see through your windshield when driving.

I went to do some artwork with young students of mine (4 and 5) and the youngest was quite afraid of the thunder. We drew some pictures of the sound and covered them with glitter (almost everything looks better with some glitter on it!) and everyone felt better.

We then got silly and glued glitter to our toenails. Gorgeous! Luckily, the parents didn't seem to mind.

Just as I left, the skies opened again, and in the space of 6 yards or so, I became completely soaked.
All the better to snuggle up at home afterwards, then.

The Harlingen Dutch Reform Cemetary

There was an abandoned-looking old cemetary on the side of busy Route 206 I passed dozens of times in the last several years. Every time I was tempted to pull over and stroll through it. There is something about picturesque abandonment that lures me . . . but each time, I was in too much of a hurry or ambivalent about whether it would be trespassing.

This past Sunday, I decided I needed an adventure, and I hopped in my trusty URFmobile (named after part of my license plate) and drove off. It was much further out than I had recalled - I was about to turn around and give up because I had already reached Hillsborough - when I saw it. Now, alas, it has been taken care of - the lawn mown, baby trees planted and staked, every inch of it groomed. I came too late. But still I wandered through it. Most of the gravestones were from the early to mid 1800s, and several had carved decorations. Many had pious poems, alas, erased by time, the elements, and the chemicals from the thousands of cars driving by within 15 feet hourly on the busy highway.

I took cell phone pix of a few of the headstones (yes, I know - why don't I get myself a nifty bitty digital camera to carry around? Inertia, I guess. One of these eons I will . . . ) and include them here.

A band of woods bordered the cemetery on the non-highway sides, and I found berry bushes where the birds had considerately left some berries for me. They are tiny, but so delicious - they put our cultivated berries to shame, for the most part.

I am glad for the people buried there that the church has decided to take care of the grounds, but I have learned once again to carpe diem! I would have preferred to wander through the tall grasses.

I love things that sparkle, especially rhinestones - in fact, my nickname is The Rhinestone Queen, which I received 20 years ago in recognition of the various rhinestone earrings I wore to my relatively conservative job as writer/designer/editor for academic publications.

I love juicy colors - vibrant pinks and turquoises and sun-splashed yellows as well as wisteria lavender and lime green and so on and so on. When I see bright, luscious colors in unusual combinations, I feel a physical jolt of excitement.

And I love nifty vintage items - photographs, embroideries, handmade old dolls, pitchers, books - alas, you name it, I probably collect it.

So although I will write about a lot of things in this blog, I also want to take photos of things that make me salivate with pleasure and share them.

This is just a quickie first post to get the feel of blogging - I am coming quite late to the game! and feel a little out of my league. But I figure one step at a time, so here we go!