Glorious iris
Friday, 11 May 2007
Some of the fancy iris varieties have vivid colors.
Musings
Late azaleas
Thursday, 10 May 2007
I’m seeing another spurt of the late-blooming azaleas, although most of the early ones are beyond even the dried, brown petal-husk stage.
Pebble face
Wednesday, 9 May 2007
This wee (clay) face peers out from under a houseplant.
In the northwest quadrant of Ohio, northwest of Columbus, is a locally important town called Bellefontaine. The local pronunciation is belle-fountain, avoiding any pretense of fanciness, just plain American.
Once, I stopped in Bellefontaine for a big lunch. This was aeons ago, in another life. It was Sunday, and the tables were full of the after-church crowd. By herself at the next table sat a lady, dolled up in a suit complete with a fur shawl, and, I guess being bored, or just seeing it as her right as a life-time resident, she began chatting.
The upshot was, by the time we had finished eating, we traipsed out to her shiny new-model Cadillac sedan, and she opened the rear door to display, well, footwells full of glacial cobbles. Which she said had faces on them.
She even popped the trunk to show me her favorites, and with a pencil drew in a face or two so I’d know exactly what she was talking about.
I’ve lost track of the small travel-sized example she gave me, when she finally let me go on my way.
These days, I don’t lunch in Bellefontaine any more—partly to make the north-south trip go faster, and partly because I don’t need any more cobbles.
Garlic sky
Tuesday, 8 May 2007
No doubt about it, garlic is a wonderful plant.
My favorite book about garlic (not that I can say I’ve read any others!) is Stanley Crawford’s Mayordomo: Chronicle of an Acequia in Northern New Mexico.
However, a wee bit of googling indicates he’s actually (as of 1998, so I’m out of it) written a separate title on garlic—I haven’t read it, but if I did…?
BTW, acequias are irrigation ditches, and in Crawford’s part of the world they are maintained and managed according to an ancient system, collectively, by those who use the water from it. The mayordomo is the person who makes the decisions about who get how much water, when the participating farms (meaning fields and acreages) will supply day-laborers (this is corvée labor, known as tequio duties in Mexico), and other business of the acequia. This acequia mayordomo is not a permanent position, but rotates through the participating landowners. Thus, Crawford writes about his own experiences as a (green, inexperienced) mayordomo….
Marching seasons
Monday, 7 May 2007
”Boo-berries” are just beginning to get some color over by Pine Mountain (well, the potted ones, anyway).
Chicken salad
Saturday, 5 May 2007
I promise; I’ll get this recipe for chicken salad like-you’ve-never-had-it-before posted. Asian. And more. Here, the more includes turkey substituted for chicken.
Later: okay, it’s posted here.
Shake-a-leg?
Friday, 4 May 2007
I’ve shown you ducks, goslings, reflections, and other miscellany from Piedmont Park, so let me add this detail from a now-closed structure, rather futuristically (for his times) anchoring Shakespeare for a few nights (rather unfortunately called Shake at the Lake).
Tied in…
Thursday, 3 May 2007
Despite all the renovations to the street (link to plans), and, to keep up, the store-fronts, at the corner of Virginia and Highland, the old way persists in other than architectural detail.
Hardy flowers
Wednesday, 2 May 2007
Despite our low rainfall levels for the year so far (and watering restrictions already in place), many neighborhood gardens are abloom.