Musings

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 »

The latest blooming azaleas in our yard are now fading….

If you didn’t know what the phrase meant, wouldn’t you think the hero in a bad spy novel would be beset by (Eastern European) Boolean operators?

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Careful!

2009 H1N1 flu. Learn that phrase. Avoid the real thing.

Left to right, that’s sage, something that tastes like yet doesn’t look like oregano, thyme, and (right front) young basil.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Sage in two forms

Why can’t I remember the trillium relatives? This one I think is a bashful wakerobin (that is: Trillium catesbaei), bashful I guess because it looks like it’s hanging its head (bloom), and the wakerobin, that one I don’t know its etymology.

Photo from several weeks back; this machine doesn’t have the up-to-date iPhoto catalogue…. But the observation’s still valid…. BTW, don’t you love the pollen?

Posted at 8:43 PM | 1 Comment »

Whatever is that saying about acorns and mighty oaks?

We saw both on Sunday’s hike. This is the transition between the two Quercus states….

Posted at 11:06 PM | Comments Off on Big little (or little big)

Just for variety, here’s a gorgeous photo of rainy night last week (yes, in Georgia!), unPhotoshopped, courtesy JCB.

It’s sunny and hot today. I put my tomato plants (I’m lame; I bought them) in the ground yesterday, and they look pretty happy today. I’ll get some newspapers laid around them tomorrow, I hope, to hold in the moisture and discourage weeds. Maybe they’ll have enough sun to bear. They’re in the newly sunny area in the front yard; always before I planted them in the too-shady back yard and I grew tomato plants and not tomatoes.

Posted at 4:37 PM | 1 Comment »

I was so seduced by how gorgeous the lilies-of-the-valleys were when we were at the market yesterday, but the only blooming specimens were in the middle of the broad tables, and I had to reach-reach-reach to photo them, so I only got crappy images.

Posted at 6:53 PM | 3 Comments »