For the Love of Dirt

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Hummingbird on Grapevine

Watched this hummingbird sit on a branch for a scarce 3 minutes.....isn't he beautiful? Just made my week......they're back, they are truly back. Have one feeder out.....By the time I get the verbeena out there will skads of these little guys darting in and out from the flowers. He is quite pudgy, isn'the? and sassy. He buzzed by the window , flaunting, shamelessly.....

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Seeds and Dirt

Two of my most favourite things: Dirt and Seeds. Combined together they make a wonderful hamonious mix. This year I decided to soak all of my seeds. I don't do a lot of seeds, but I do enough to use in pots, in the garden, etc. This year I woaked nasturtums, sweet peas and red sunflowers.....the gardening manuals say that if you soak the seeds they will germinate faster. Well, let's find out......

So here are the nasturtum seeds siting atop their little dirt houses, ready to be covered with more dirt. I use any little pots I have from years past. They work great.

Seed a few trays of climbing nasturtums. They do great in hanging baskets as well, or trailing on the ground into trees.

Seeded knee hi sweet peas and climbing sweet peas. The knee hi's are great in the ground and the climbers are WONDERFUL hanging from hanging baskets. So now II will keep them in the greenhouse and see what happens......tick tock... tick tock....

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Midnight Moon

Arooooooooooo.....just could not help it. Just love this shot of the moon, midnight, or thereabouts, Good friday. It is mild outside. Dry. At least drier than it has been for about a month. And the moon just swathed in clouds.............makes one stop and think.
"We are all parts of an infinite plan which is wholly wise and good." (Bucke)

Good Friday Eve's Moon.....

On the eve of Good friday....the Moon is huge, ethereal.......Wordsworth said it best in his poem "1798 A Night Piece"

—The sky is overcast
With a continuous cloud of texture close,
Heavy and wan, all whitened by the Moon,
Which through that veil is indistinctly seen,
A dull, contracted circle, yielding light
So feebly spread, that not a shadow falls,
Chequering the ground—from rock, plant, tree, or tower.
At length a pleasant instantaneous gleam
Startles the pensive traveller while he treads
His lonesome path, with unobserving eye
Bent earthwards; he looks up—the clouds are split
Asunder,—and above his head he sees
The clear Moon, and the glory of the heavens.
There, in a black-blue vault she sails along,
Followed by multitudes of stars, that, small
And sharp, and bright, along the dark abyss
Drive as she drives: how fast they wheel away,
Yet vanish not!—the wind is in the tree,
But they are silent;—still they roll along
Immeasurably distant; and the vault,
Built round by those white clouds, enormous clouds,
Still deepens its unfathomable depth.
At length the Vision closes; and the mind,
Not undisturbed by the delight it feels,
Which slowly settles into peaceful calm,
Is left to muse upon the solemn scene.

Bo's Day

First day that we have had any real sun, any real warmth and Bo decided to steal it all. Not that I could blame her. She thinks she is so smart:"Everything I know , I learned from my cat.When you're hungry, eat.When you're tired, nap in a sunbeam.when you go to the vet, pee on your owner." (G. Smithe)

How many of us could do this? "I'm aloof...(not really, but...), I like to run around and I like to curl up in warm spots." (M Coogan) We would get nothing done if we all curled up in warm places. Today, for example, I was pulling stuff out from the greenhouse.No time to curl up like Bo.

By the time the sun rose, today, Bo had stolen her place on the carpet: "The sun rose slowly, like a fiery furball coughed up uneasily onto a carpet by a giant unseen cat." (M. Migarel) And by that time I had stolen outside to clean up the porch and slosh water on the windows. Hmmmm, it's a cat's life....

"In a cat's eye, all things belong to cat's" (English Proverb)
And thus concluded Bo's Day........

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

The Kitchen Sink and the Big Giant Head

Yes, that is my kitchen sink....remember the flood we had back in the fall, and the downstairs needed renovations? well, I kept the sink. Practically brand new. It will look great, planted , when the time comes, with something cascading periously from its innards.

Today I got to wear my favourite gum boots..........have gone through quite a few of these. Great for jumping in puddles, especially after power washing cement.

And my greenhouse, long neglected over the winter, ready to be changed , ready to house seedlings at some point this month. All of the pots and baskets and wind chimes housed in here over winter, are like old friends coming to call.

First sign of real spring.....blossoms on the tri-fruit tree in the greenhouse. It lived. It made it through the winter, encased in wood and glass. Now hoping the bees will find it.

Lungwort pushing forth from the ground to make its presence known. It is the earliest of the early spring flowers .Leopard's Bane will be next.

Ahhhhh, the Big Giant Head. Is this proof that aliens live among us? Never know. Big giant Head sits atop the hill surveying everyone and everything. he is surrounded by spouting Campanula, hurriedly poking their leaves up to the sunlight. In May or June they will flower.

Violas,like lungwort, early, early bloomers. Clumps of them sit happily on piles of dirt, dreaming of shady spring days. Tomorrow I will tear apart the greenhouse and see what has been stored on the porch......it's just like Christmas....only no Santa.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

ArtWork

Guardian 2009

I have been cataloguing more pictures every day. Found a swath of Morgan's drawings. Thought it would be fun to post some on the blog....just some of them, mind you.....I wish Dale would let me prin out some of her stories. She has a real dry wit and is good words, but she keeps them tightly locked away on her computer. So, for now , I post these goodies..............