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Feeling froggy?

Category: Garden musing | Posted: Sun Nov 18, 2007 3:34 am

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middle daughter art work
Camelia Place Frog
Years ago I spied a 10 foot tall gray frog with crossed legs reading a book in Columbus MS with beautiful purple wisteria flowing above its head. I have told numerous people about this wondrous frog. Ten years later, I returned to Columbus on a mission to find the frog. After giving a presentation/reading of my book to a lovely book club at the local library, I asked the members about the notorious frog. Everyone knew the frog to which I referred and directed me to it.

I found the frog sitting leisurely on a bench with two friends for the holidays. He had on a hat and I noticed that his legs were spread, he was green, and that he was not 10 feet tall. Oh, I was still mesmerized by him because I love frogs and I love reading, and of course there is no other place I would rather be than in a garden. But I had to wonder about myself. Was I one of those people that told tall tales like the fish that got away which gets bigger each time the story is told? Or am I a romanti-sizer and things that I love grow each time that I talk about them.

I met my husband on a rainy New Years Eve. His teeth sparkled in the light of the overhead lamp as he bent to hit the cue ball with his personalized cue stick as he flashed me that million dollar smile. I noticed one dimple in his left cheek that signaled safety while at the same moment I noticed the five stitches above his right eye that signaled bad boy. He later introduced himself with a velvety baritone that resonated into the depth of my soul. I melted into the caramel swirls of brown with flashes of gold that shown in his eyes. Is this romanti-sizing?

I will always remember the Columbus frog as a 10 foot tall masterpiece and I will always remember my husband as irresistible.

The temp when I found my legendary frog was 80 degrees and the next morning we had a hard frost, 28 degrees and I took my yard frog. Now that is a froggy jump in temp.





Last edited: Sun Nov 18, 2007 3:55 am

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I was Robbed!!!

Category: The Dickens you say | Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2007 12:35 am

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Well I live in the country and some how accumulated a car or two in the yard that was not in use. No, it was not up on blocks, because it was on a flat :) Any way, we had two cars not in use because of insurance purposes. When I graduated in May, my husband and oldest daughter threw me a bar-b-que so the cars had to be moved to free up parking space. My husband took two cars around the road from us on our private property (80 acres shared with 16 other houses of family members) no more than 15 car lengths away out of site though in a deer trail. Long story short he left one car around the road that was stolen 3 weeks ago.

Where I live is in the booneys. People are afraid to come in the neck of my woods at night alone. It is dark and solitary. The traffic signs are woe and giddy-up. So the culprit was some one known and familiar with the area. Within a day we knew who had stolen the car and sold it to the crushers and received $140.00 for it.

Well, the police questioned us as to why we moved our car out of our yard and left it. They gave the thief our telephone number so he could contact us to make out payment arrangements to pay us for the vehicle. The culprit came to my house Saturday to tell me how he would rather give us money instead of go to jail because he had just been released from jail. When my husband filled out the paper work for the arrest, he was chastised and told he better show up on the court date or else.

We found the robber on our own, found the place where the car was taken, the police made us find a witness willing to write out the information that we had to pay the gas money to come back in town, and then we were was questioned as to whether the car was that important to us.

Today my husband called me and said that the thief offered him $900.00 for the car and he was going to take it. My response (seasonally appropriate) THE DICKENS YOU SAY! Ready for a plot twist, my husband yelled at me for not wanting to accept the money. I've been robbed of more than a 1996 Mazda Protege and by more than one thief.

These are a few of my favorite things: my youngest niece whose middle name is Dorothy=lucky child.
My book of course and me=like the hair? And a new hydrangea that has many colors of pure white, peachy, brownish, and green.

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Noah, send out the loon!

Category: Garden musing | Posted: Wed Nov 07, 2007 3:35 pm

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About three weeks ago, it had rained 4 days and 4 nights without stopping (not 40). I missed my front steps something terrible. I had been looking from various windows at my soggy plants. When Noah was testing for dry land he first sent out a raven then a dove. I was the stupid loon that volunteered while the rain was still pounding to go out. Check out my watery night time results of impatience.

This zinnia performed very well.
This was just planted this fall.
The shastas were just added in Oct.

Yes, the loon(me) went out in the dark, in a cold rain thinking that I was taking the final soggy flower pictures of the year. This must be the delicious colorful sight my slugs see in the dew soaked night while they munch on glossy leaves.

I rushed out the next morning, still just as loony, to survey the damage of 4 days of rain (shaking water out of opened rose blooms. I said I was a loon).













The sun did shine again and life continued. I sat in my swing sunning more like a lizard than a loon. My camera capdtures more than plants and landscapes. My camera catches me being me, a loony bird.

Enjoy nature and enjoy life.



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To kill or not to kill, is it even a question?

Category: Garden musing | Posted: Tue Nov 06, 2007 6:28 pm

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As I sit on my shaded somewhat cold concrete front steps, I think about the scraggly moss that is drooping from a planter on my right. I reflect back to the first week of June when the mound-oe- moss was brimming with vibrant shades of yellow, red, pink, orange, and white. The bees were frantic in the cool of the morning gathering what were pockets of golden orange, not yellow, pollen on their hind legs. The bees were so loaded with pollen until it was questionable if they would be able to carry their bountiful cargo back to the hive. I pointed the color of the pollen out to my youngest, and how the bee were going to have to put forth Herculean effort to get the goods back home.

Wow! What a difference a couple of months and the harshness of heat and drought makes on a plant. It must be noted that the life span was already known at purchase and the ideal conditions for survival were clearly laid out. But I wonder when is it time to put the barely there plant with its last effort of two and a half blooms out of its misery?

I throw the words of murder and even "euthanasia" around in the plant world and I hope I am not offending anyone. There is no comparison between human life and plant life. But, I think it is always a hard task (though necessary) for a gardener to hurry along the demise of a plant that is no longer viable.

EUTHANASIA is Greek meaning "good death" I hate planting pansies in the winter because I must pull them up, if I want to maintain the beauty of my garden, when it warms up in Spring. My mother fusses at me and says "I know you did not dig up and throw away those beautiful pansies. You could have given them to me if I knew you were going to kill them!" I killed the pansies for merciful reasons. They were not going to survive the increasing rising temps of the impending summer. Yet, there are always pains of guilt.

I look at the moss today and wish that the cold weather would hurry up and come to put the poor plant out of its misery. I don't know, maybe the moss is just as proud of its two and a half blooms as it was when it had 50 plus blooms. And there was a stray bee that lit on the half closed blossom. He did not seem to be on a life sustaining quest for pollen.The plant may be fine, the bee may be fine, it could just be me that is not fine.

I wonder what others think when they look to the left of my doorstep on the way to enter my door? Do they know how excited and thrilled I was to bring that mound of moss home from the garden center? Do they know that I thought about the perfect spot for the moss all the way home? Does anyone know that me and my daughters watched in awe as the bees gathered pollen from the plant and we wondered where this dust would be turned into sugary gold?

To kill or not to kill always tugs at my gardening spirit. What is beauty? And is it all that we truly seek? Maybe I love too deeply too long. I don't know. But I hope I will always value the life that was lived.


Last edited: Tue Nov 06, 2007 6:28 pm

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Hoe, hoe, ho?

Category: Garden musing | Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2007 6:14 pm

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Can you believe that we are entering the holiday season of gift giving already? I am still chasing butterflies and running barefoot in the winding sandy road in front of my house.

The Christmas catalogs arrive daily in the mail with their tempting colors of crisp white, startling red and intense and inviting green. I lay them on my neglected mail table next to the garden catalogs of pink, red, yellow, and of course the allusive blue that rarely is a true blue.

I look at my garden and I think "I need to get a hold of that grass. Should I use chemical assault, hand pulling assault, or should I hoe, hoe, hoe?" The sun is beaming on the right side of my face to the point of uncomfortableness and my eyes immediately find my peaceful double seated metal free standing swing in the shady bar-b-que area or my front yard. I make a bee line for it with the bees that are busily visiting the new blossoms on my roses.

My youngest child visits me to tell me her desires for this x-mas and I barely can reconcile that it is November and the poinsettias will be for sale before long. I look at the steps leading to my front door and can not fathom a poinsettia there in front of the petunias, daisies, marigolds, vinca.

I ask my daughter to say those three words that little ears long to hear, "Ho, Ho, Ho!" We immediately and simultaneously break into laughter at the ridiculousness of Christmas sneaking into this ongoing summer like a thief.

Summer has not yielded its hold on my garden. I need to water the plants that are not acknowledging their impending winter's nap. Why should I exchange my "hoe" for a "ho?" I think I will just sit in my swing with a big cold glass of tea, no lemonade and let the hoes duke it out. Will santa be in shorts this x-mas? Will I be forced to weed and feed another few weeks? Apple pie or pumpkin pie? Rudolph or Bambi? Confused tulip bulbs or Chistmas bulbs? And the winner is...

Enjoy nature and enjoy life




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My baby helped. PICTURES!!!

Category: Garden musing | Posted: Fri Nov 02, 2007 2:39 am

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sunny sunflowers

I spied these plants on my fruitful trip to the mall in Jackson, MS with my oldest daughter.The garden center that actually planted the spot had Mexican petunias on sale for $1.00 apiece. I also purchased a white Angel trumpet for $5.00. They are so friendly there that I wanted a picture of their handy work. It is still so mild here until I can continue planting if I wanted to but I am through finding bargains until Spring.

Enjoy nature and enjoy life.


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From soup to stew in a day

Category: Garden musing | Posted: Thu Nov 01, 2007 6:19 pm

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Today is hot but pleasant. I have been outside in my barefeet twice so far. The butterflies are still at work. I caught a monarch on camera yesterday but I have not put it on my site. Some one called today and asked if I were a Master Gardener.

Who is a Master Gardener? Is there truely such a being as a Master Gardener? I don't even know if I qualify as a gardener. Each year I create a masterpiece that I try to outdo the next year because I was not satisfied with it completely. There is always something else that will make it better.

This spring, I was happy with the new design of simplicity, low maintainence that I had created and several people commented "You must have quit gardening, your flowers aren't as pretty as they use to be." Each year my garden looks different, not perfect or mastered, but beautiful in it's uniqueness.

I think about myself. I am not perfect, but I am beautiful in my uniqueness. Actually, each year I am different. THANK GOODNESS! The depth of color of my roses take may breath away every season. I hope that every individual with their depth knows that they take someone's breath away.

Still trying to work on sharing pictures. I do have some on another site but I don't want to be illegal and mention it because I enjoy this wonderful outlet and community. That is what I was prior to finding Gardenstew, in a soup barely bumping into anyone and now I am in the thickness of a wonderful stew. Just in time for the cool weather.

My roses are still blooming and adding fragrance to my yard. My pink oleandar is in bloom and has been since I planted it this spring. I have a white one that has been struggling for three years and is just this year blooming well.

Enjoy nature and enjoy life.

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