First of all over at Sarah-Hope's Blog, is a blogiversary raffle benefitting animal rescue! I'm going over there in a half second myself. The prize is gorgeous! And the agencies who will benefit are truly worthy.
The two pictures. I hope that Blogspot's uploader is intuitive. I'm sure not!
Top picture..Last night for dinner DH cut up two tomatoes, one orange, and one yellow, that he had bought at the farmer's market. They were so beautiful, sitting there in their little glass dish, that they reminded me that people used to eat tomatoes with cream and sugar for dessert. All the readers of the Little House on the Prairie books will remember that Pa did just that. These beautifully hued little fruits looked like they were made to eat with cream and sugar.
Bottom Picture: The sky shot is one taken between storms of the same little tree that showed actual Fall Colors in December, our neighbor's tree across the street. Spring isn't so far away, and this tree is a crepe myrtle, known for it's exuberant Spring displays.
A tiny, sad little tree tale:
The story of our parking strip trees is a woebegone one. Our own crepe myrtle tree was stepped on and destroyed before we bought the house many years ago. Suckers were growing up from the roots when we bought the house, but the tree was gone. We removed the brave little roots, and planted another tree. Several other tiny trees-even though in protective stakes - met the same fate due to circumstances over which we had no control, i.e., the neighborhood drug seller. You know the scene, dark and late at night, bombed out zombies parking down from THE house. They stepped on and crushed, even with the supports, everything we tried to plant there, every last little twiglet of a tree or bush received death by trampling foot. After three little trees, we just gave it up and decided to let the strip go to grass. And yes, this is a very nice neighborhood, too. The problem exists everywhere, M'friends.
Several years later we were going to plant again and all the top soil that DH carefully dug up was washed down the street and around the corner by, as is said, "a flood of biblical proportions". Now it's just too late to do much about it. We will brick it in and plant dwarf bronze New Zealand Flax.
Back to the present. While waiting for a few books, that Sarah-Hope and others suggested I read, to be sent to my local library, I've started a book called, The Silver Dove by Andrey Biely, a Russian contemporary of James Joyce and also part of what's called the European Symbolist Movement. I'm hoping that Biely is easier to read, though he belongs to the "school". Anyone who has read James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake or the monumental Ulysses may or may not agree but, to me, Joyce is an unreadable torture. I really do like my "music theory" straight up, not in a verbal barrage.
I spent one day wearing a brace but now I am knitting again. I like to practice a little preventative medicine, even without a license. Monday the windows come, and I will wear both braces. I want to knit when this is over! We are sooooo ready to have this done!
Now that I have Umberto Eco's, The Name of the Rose ,in my possession, I can tell you that's what I'll be reading first. Thank you, Sarah-Hope. :-)
Speaking of drug dealers...was Joyce on drugs when he wrote Ulysses? The dh, who is a very serious deep contemplating type, has that book..thinks it is a wonderful book, and has read very little of it. Because it is hard to read. uh huh. I gave it a shot..and went screaming from the couch and managed to clean the kitchen in record time. I have the utmost respect for anyone who has REALLY read it.
ReplyDeleteYou will love Eco. That was one of my favs.
It really is heart breaking to have little growing things planted with so much promise..to see them stepped on. That is how I felt when an ox on two feet stepped on one of my swallowtail larva last fall. The Ox was a religious person...and when I expressed chagrin, he said "I'll say a little prayer and Send Him On Up!" in a light fashion. I told him he didn't have to do that since God created that little fella with beauty and special magic..so God took him back immediately, without any help form us. I do believe that about his creations...
Sounds like your area is similar to my Hill of Death. Small hill with trees on top..clay soil that should be used as building bricks and lots of sun. I have St. Johns Wort back there..it lives but never has flowered, lol
Thanks for the mention, Lella! I've put you in the draw!
ReplyDeleteSarah-Hope, you're very welcome, m'dear. It was hard to choose between your options they are all so hard working and worthy. Best Wishes for getting lots of people into the contest!
ReplyDeleteMeribeth, my suspicions are that Joyce was on something, too, although I don't think that of Walt Whitman. hehe. And, I am loving Eco's work so far, and wonder how historically factual it is. Probably right on the money, but I have no idea what to think. I do know that the Medici managed to buy a Papacy, and there are a few others as well who only managed to form little Cardinal fiefdoms. Oh well, I must read it for fun.
Thanks for "informing" that "person" for stepping on your butterfly-to-be. I've got a butterfly tale. A developer, who had made a fortune developing the mesas round about here, was wondering aloud once at a booth I was manning for Project Wildlife. I didn't know he was a developer. He was musing about all the butterflies that used to be all over the mesas and the canyons when he was a boy, right up to the 50s. I asked him if he knew about vernal pools. He hadn't heard about them. I told him, "Once the vernal pools were all gone because of the development of the mesas, the butterflies had no where to refresh themselves and nothing to eat. He became red in the face, and told me that development was the reason there were any jobs in the area. I told him that well and good, but you can't have butterflies in large populations without vernal pools. I'm glad he didn't hit me with his cane. I could see his blood pressure had shot up a lot! Vernal pools that remain are hidden away and protected,for obvious reasons. Anyway, that's my butterfly story.
Ah, so you have this problem, a Hill of Death. LOL! We have something called the La Mesa Agglomerate that runs under most of this coastal area. It's 15 feet deep in places and impervious to water except where it's been cracked by dynamite or big trees which are trying to reach the water. Usually the trees just run their roots along the surface and cause all sorts of mischief.