Musings

Our next-door neighbor is quite a gardener, and has given the stump socket new life. All the rain we’ve been having has helped the transition process. The hostas and ferns are watched over by a poke plant that’s shooting up and getting huge! I love keeping track of it through the kitchen windows. A chipmunk also hangs out in the stump garden….

The wheel of life….

BTW, with all this rain we’ve been having, Atlanta’s main drinking water reservoir, Lake Sidney Lanier, is within 6 feet of the desired summer levels. Seems like it should be a bit higher this time of the year, but this is so much better than it’s been….

Posted at 5:56 PM | Comments Off on Stump garden

The mystery plant (which may be Arum maculatum) is aging—no surprise, and the spathe* is now drying and becoming less delicate. Compare to four days ago….

KW, over at ababsurdo, has a picture of an actual JITP (jack-in-the-pulpit).

* For enquiring minds, the spathe is the hood-like bract, which grows “around” the yellow spadix, the spiky inflorescence.

Comment: yesterday’s tomatoes…yup, visibly larger today.

Posted at 6:50 PM | Comments Off on Aging vs maturing

As the wheel of the seasons turns, lemme note that there are wee ’maters on the “patio tomato” plant. The Botanist mentioned in passing that some tomatoes like to have the blooms tapped a bit to be, I guess, pollenated. I’ve been tapping gently. I guess it works. (I can say that in the absence of a control sample. harhar)

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Look, potential produce!

Did I say a while back that the azaleas were finished blooming for the year?

I was wrong.

Did I say that the plant in yesterday’s picture might well be a jack-in-the-pulpit (despite Janet gently reminding me that they have trio-leaves—which our potential JITP doesn’t)?

I was wrong.

So, here’s the azalea proof (from today, via the new-cam). And the specimen from yesterday is far more similar to Arum maculatum. That plant is native to Asia (the kind with the yellow spadix), so the mystery thickens on how it got into our backyard.

Posted at 3:19 PM | 1 Comment »

The mystery plant is back. Is it a jack-in-the-pulpit (briefly: JITP) or not? That’s the way I was leaning last year, but I’m not The Botanist. Note that last year it was at this stage almost a week later than this year. I perceive this as a slightly cooler, much wetter year than last year. Perhaps the more important variable is that the plant is returning this year, and so, as an established plant, is “ahead” of where it was on its first year.

Or not.

I’ve another mystery to comment on. In March, an SGA member asked: who made this brick? I did a simple Internet search and got some idea, but nothing like the whole story. The complex interwoven story is worth a read.

Okay. Now the rhubarb part. I love rhubarb sauce. I don’t think people grow rhubarb around here—possibly it’s too hot—so it’s a bit of a mystery to many Southerners, like my neighbor, an Alabama native. We went on a mission a while back to the State Farmers’ Market and didn’t even find a vendor who knew what it was (not a comprehensive search, however).

However, I recently did find a few stalks in another market, and picked the best specimens to make a rhubarb sauce. To be shared with my neighbor when she gets back from the coast…. Recipe here. It’s quite easy; no muss, no fuss. And yummy!

Posted at 10:08 AM | 2 Comments »

New-cam again. I’m getting used to using this aspect ratio. The big problem seems to be extraneous visual crap creeping in on the sides (as above). Still, these were gorgeous roses, on a section of street I think of as Rose Row, because three houses have front gardens with nice, well-maintained roses. We had a nice park-walk with the new-cam (its first!), despite overcast skies….

Posted at 9:55 AM | Comments Off on Pair of yellow roses

’Maters are bloomin’ now (and have been for a couple of weeks).

Hey, it’s really a cool camera…. Here’s a better still….

Posted at 8:34 PM | Comments Off on Better image

Big news: new toy tool…a small point-and-shoot still camera that shoots 720p high-res video, too, and at 16:9 if you want (I think—not really my knowledge realm). Well, if you have a big storage thingy-card-deal. And we do. Two of them. 16-gig each. I think the battery will run down before the hours of video that would fill each card are recorded.

And what is it? A Panasonic Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS3 that DPReview calls the first camera with AVCHD Lite HD recording. Does that make your heart beat faster?

Me, I’m groovin’ on the 25mm ultra wide angle lens. The pansy-heart-picture is from the new-cam, but it’s been thissed & thatted, so I doubt you can tell much. Just trust me! It’s a lovely camera!

Posted at 3:56 PM | 2 Comments »

We have had many, many of these little buggers, I assume because we’ve had so much rain. But there are probably other variables involved, too.

So, what is this leetle guy? Not a beetle!

I would call it a sowbug,* and not a pill bug, which also has this same general shape. I don’t think this one rolls up like a pill bug. But this may point up the problem with common names; what do I know? Googling a bit suggests both are isopods, members of the family that includes shrimp and crabs—and even these guys have gills and need water to “breathe.”

Of all things.

* But those who are not entomologically impaired seem to refer to all of them as woodlice.

Posted at 5:55 PM | 1 Comment »

(Yes, I know this is yesterday’s news. Tough.)

I won a Kentucky Derby hat contest! Well, many hats won; mine was a lesser prize. Still, I’ve never eaten a chocolate horse sculpture before!

Posted at 5:03 PM | 2 Comments »