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You are here: Home / Archives for flowers

Flora and Fauna Update

June 16, 2016 at 8:34 am by Claudia

I’m afraid my posts are going to be rose-heavy for a while! The new roses from Martha are so beautiful and each new bloom is perfection. I deliberately purchased two pots with the roses already growing instead of bare root roses. I’ve also purchased bare root roses in the past, but this time I wanted to see some blooms quickly.

The At Last roses:

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And my Lady Elsie May bush started blooming. It’s in the front-of-the-house garden bed. Both that bush and the Julia Child bush were in such bad shape last summer, due to two brutal winters in a row, that I thought they were goners. I cut the dead wood back as best I could, then did another trim this spring. They’re sort of unattractive at the moment, a mixture of old and new growth, but they’re blooming!

6-15 ladyelsiemay

Huzzah!

I was outside yesterday, pulling weeds, watering the plants, filling the bird bath – which was the site of constant bathing and drinking activity yesterday. Non-stop. Even the bees and bugs were sipping the water. As I walked around the front of the property, the scent from the Catalpa tree blossoms kept wafting through the air. I don’t know if you’ve ever smelled a Catalpa blossom, but the scent is heavenly. The blooms are open on all the Catalpa trees around here – there are a lot of them in this neck of the woods. Heck, we have three  Catalpas, but two of them are up in the wooded area of the property.

6-15 catalpablossoms

The blossoms are beautiful and delicate. Catalpas have big heart-shaped leaves.

6-15 catalpa

I sat on the glider and read for a while, listening to the bird song and watching the activity all over the property. It was very soothing, which was what I needed.

Critter update: I saw Henry the other day. I hadn’t seen him for weeks, but there he was, resting on the ramp that leads to the shed door.

Don spotted the baby fox a couple of days ago. Once again, he trotted across the street, causing cars to slow down and us to shoo him away from the street. Yesterday, I looked out the kitchen door and he was in our yard (he’s bigger now) so I opened the door. He looked up at me and ran around the back side of the shed.

This morning, my favorite Mourning Dove was in the new Memorial Garden bed, and two bunnies (Mom and baby) were chomping on the grass. The dove used to have a mate, but I haven’t seen the other dove this year, so he/she must have died. That makes me sad. I think my favorite bird is the Mourning Dove. In fact, I can hear her right now. The call is so beautiful (I love anything in a minor key) and they are so gentle. I see her at the birdbath every once in a while, too.

Don’s day on the set of Mr. Robot  went well, but he was pretty exhausted by the time he got home last night. He is supposed to shoot two more episodes in the coming weeks.

And there you go.

Happy Thursday.

ClaudiaSignature140X93

Filed Under: animals, birds, Don, flowers, garden, groundhogs 43 Comments

A Rose is a Rose

June 15, 2016 at 8:23 am by Claudia

Oh, friends. I’m trying. I’m trying. But a pall of sadness and despair has come over me. I suspect the same thing has happened to you. I’m just trying to keep moving forward in the face of unspeakable sorrow. I won’t even go into the hateful rhetoric spewing out of the Orange Man’s mouth. Sitting in a corner with a dunce cap on his head? The stocks in the public square? Better yet, jail?

Don hasn’t been sleeping well and, therefore, I haven’t been sleeping well. That isn’t helped, for either of us, by what we’re seeing and hearing and feeling. A sleepless night last night for Don and he’s off to film an episode of Mr. Robot  today.

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The new roses in memory of my dad. I’m not looking forward to Father’s Day. But I’m going to try to do a little something for Don because he’s missing Scout so much. I’ve got an idea.

Anyway, this is the At Last rose after it’s been open for a few days.

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Here it is when it’s just opening – more of a peachy color. I love it in all its stages. Thank you again, Martha.

I was on the phone with Bluehost, the host of this blog, for over an hour yesterday as we tried to get to the bottom of why you weren’t getting my replies to your comments, why I wasn’t getting emails of your comments and why other notifications weren’t being received on this end. A big thank you to Jared, who patiently and painstakingly worked his way through the mystery. I did what I could on my end, both of us working together. Several changes were made, a plugin added, and finally – everything worked! I’m getting your comments, Donnamae checked to see if she got my reply and she did, so all should be back to normal.

I won’t go into all the details, partly because they’re hard to explain! But Jared was an enormous help, I could never have figured it out on my own.

Having a self-hosted blog involves expenses on my part and sometimes that can feel daunting – I just paid a chunk of money to renew for a year, as well as for security. But in times like these, being able to call my host on the phone, talk to a real person and get things fixed is so much better for me than when I was on Blogger and had some serious problems that I could never speak to anyone about. There was never an actual person to help sort things out – only a help forum where sometimes I got an answer but most of the time I did not.

So, I’m glad I made the move to WordPress and self-hosting.

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The soft pink of the New Dawn rose, hidden away on the side of the house. So beautiful.

It’s been hard for me to concentrate on a book the last few days but I’m going to try to lose myself in one today. The lawn has been mowed, the weeds whacked/wacked, and some quiet time is in order.

Happy Wednesday.

ClaudiaSignature140X93

 

Filed Under: blogging, flowers, garden, roses 50 Comments

Life: Beauty and Sadness

June 11, 2016 at 10:14 am by Claudia

6-11 hosta

This morning found me running around outside, quickly taking some pictures. Since I was working outside all day yesterday – a bit too much, actually – I didn’t do my usual camera thing.  I yanked weeds in the big garden bed, which led to yanking weeds elsewhere, which led to pruning the now-giant bush in the big garden bed and that took a long time.

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This bush has been here since before we moved in – but at that time, it was half the size it is now. Every couple of years I cut it back mercilessly because it creates too much shade in that part of the bed. That’s what I did yesterday. In the fall, I’m going to take a few more inches off the top. It looks much better in this photo than it did at the start of the day. I don’t even know what kind of bush it is, though we have a couple of more on the property. It has teeny, tiny little white flowers in early spring.

I’ve thought of removing it, but that would be a mega job that would disturb the perennials nearby and I rather like having something tall in that bed.

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Have you ever seen the way hollyhock leaves form? This intricate little design will unfurl into several leaves. I’m fascinated by its geometric precision.

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One of the new roses in the Memorial Garden has opened this morning. Gorgeous. I’m keeping these stakes here for a few more days. The weather forecast tells me its going to be ‘Windy’ tomorrow. Sigh. I’m so sick of wind.

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Oh purple coneflower! Look where you valiantly self-seeded. Right outside the garden bed, springing out of the stony ground. Coneflowers are great self-seeders. I’ve had them in the garden beds for 9 or 10 years and they have worked their way into funky little corners, along fence lines, and have multiplied in the garden beds. I love a cottage garden and, to me, there’s nothing more cottagey than coneflowers. They are forming little baby flowers right now and soon will be blooming

On a much more serious note:

In the midst of good news this week, I’ve also witnessed the sorrow of friends. A lovely young man, an actor, whom I have worked with – in fact, I’ve worked with his wife, as well – lost his father in the terrible tragedy that happened in Kalamazoo, Michigan this week. His father was one of the five bicyclists who were killed when they were hit by a pick-up truck. A truck driven by someone who was high.

And many of us who know each other from my years at Boston University heard about a terrible loss suffered by one of our own. A former student, Shannon, lost her mentally ill brother, who was homeless, when he was beaten to death by guards in a Santa Clara County jail. This happened last September and Shannon has since testified in a pre-trial hearing – the guards have been charged with murder.  Shannon alerted us to a petition that has just been started over at Change.org. It asks for an increase in funding for Santa Clara County correctional facilities in order to increase staff and the training of that staff so that nothing like this can ever happen again. Shannon tells me you don’t have to be a resident of California to sign. Here’s the link, if you are so inclined.

Such heartbreaking and tragic losses for my friends.

The winner of a copy of Keep You Close  is Liza Kirschner. Liza, I’ll be sending you an email shortly. Congratulations!

Happy Saturday.

ClaudiaSignature140X93

Filed Under: flowers, garden 20 Comments

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Welcome!

Welcome!

I live in a little cottage in the country with my husband. It's a sweet place, sheltered by old trees and surrounded by gardens. The inside is full of the things we love. I love to write, I love my camera, I love creating, I love gardening. My decorating style is eclectic; full of vintage and a bit of whimsy.

I've worked in the theater for more years than I can count. I'm currently a voice, speech, dialect and text coach freelancing on Broadway, off Broadway, and in regional theater.

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