Under a Red Roof

Happening Now…

July 12, 2013 in Gardening + Nature by Colleen | Permalink

Good morning sunshine!

The garden is alive with chirping, buzzing, zooming life. Oh, and flowers! That top one is asclepias, just planted yesterday.

And sweet Paris, she likes to sun on the path.

I am going to meet a new baby today and kayak for the very first time.

Life is good!

XOXO

Thursday’s Flowers

June 30, 2013 in Gardening + Nature by Colleen | Permalink

For my Grandparents, Mom, Martha, and Hef, who ask what flowers are blooming.

Two sunflowers in the south yard, with more than twenty on the way, all of them volunteers from last year, which makes me happy beyond words. The little white spot on the red one is a spider, zooming past my lens.

California Poppy – with bee running circles around the pollen. I’ve got a tiny circus in my yard.

Fuschia blossoms, freshly fallen

Mallow

Verbascum

Sedum

I planted one pansy in the raised bed last summer or maybe the year before. Now I have scores of volunteers, thanks to the little bronze jewel of a seed. Happiness spreads.

“My Love” Dahlia

Day Lily

Spiderwort

Carnation – sweet and spicy. I should make a boutonniere, so I can smell them all day.

Sea Thrift – about the size of the tip of the hubster’s thumb.

Foxglove

Hidcote Lavender

Jasmine – our back porch is heady with the scent!

Me at three, rosebuds blooming on my dress.

Tags: Gardening + Nature

Strange Plants

May 30, 2013 in Gardening + Nature, Quoting by Colleen | Permalink

The answer is never the answer. What’s really interesting is the mystery. If you seek the mystery instead of the answer, you’ll always be seeking. I’ve never seen anybody really find the answer. They think they have, so they stop thinking. But the job is to seek mystery, evoke mystery, plant a garden in which strange plants grow and mysteries bloom. The need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer.

Ken Kesey

…

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Tags: Gardening + Nature, Quoting

Howl

May 23, 2013 in Gardening + Nature, Quoting by Colleen | Permalink

Let all of life be an unfettered howl. Like the crowd greeting the gladiator. Don’t stop to think, don’t interrupt the scream, exhale, release life’s rapture. Everything is blooming. Everything is flying. Everything is screaming, choking on its screams. Laughter. Running. Let-down hair. That is all there is to life.

Vladimir Nabokov

Tags: Gardening + Nature, Quoting

Wildflowers

May 20, 2013 in Exploring, Gardening + Nature by Colleen | Permalink

We ventured to Eugene yesterday for the Mt. Pisgah Arboretum Wildflower Festival. It was a sweet affair, with booths for selling treats of the edible, garden, and treasure variety. We ate and drank, bought some gifts, and walked the paths to spy as many varieties of wildflower as we could. We saw fourteen in the wild and countless others on educational display, which I wish I had looked at before hiking around, so I would not have gotten quite so close to the poison oak. Thankfully this silly goose only touched the flowers!

That’s Camas pictured above