Saturday, July 8, 2017

It's A Garden Party! - Have A Rosy Saturday, All


https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-xUMMwSRLBzNqkDj1hoiMMOg61KugUQuJWUBnEG-1_m2wBLd74_9Uz9oADi1UU-hIy8NZoTRYX73-CFzNKv4fMLteW3RirhdKpAiXzQptfFUoj8eb-Uuetdp0XUHg-yY2qoTxmLK0gfA/s1600/P5050138+c.JPG
This feature, originally known as Saturday Farmer's Market, was created by Heather at Capricious Reader, and was then hosted by Chris at Stuff as Dreams are Made on.



 If anyone would like to share their own gardening adventures with me - large or small, inside or out - 
I would love to see them.
Just leave a link to your post in the comments.


My Roses started blooming early this year too. In fact, my bushes were full before the last frost hit. (Sorry, I was out of commission, so no pics.)

As the weather warmed up they continued to flower, but something strange started to happen. (Now I'm sounding like all those click bait headlines. Lol) As the weather continued to warm, the flowers stayed fine and abundant, but the bushes lost most of their leaves.

At first I thought something was wrong with my irrigation, (a not infrequent occurrence) but they were getting plenty of water. Then . . . dun dun dun . . . I found that others were having the same issue.

Turns out that, best guess is they are shedding their leaves to better tolerate the dry, relentless heat.

Smart of them, no?

Anybody else having similar issues?

Saturday, July 1, 2017

Oh . . . Hi there!


https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-xUMMwSRLBzNqkDj1hoiMMOg61KugUQuJWUBnEG-1_m2wBLd74_9Uz9oADi1UU-hIy8NZoTRYX73-CFzNKv4fMLteW3RirhdKpAiXzQptfFUoj8eb-Uuetdp0XUHg-yY2qoTxmLK0gfA/s1600/P5050138+c.JPG
This feature, originally known as Saturday Farmer's Market, was created by Heather at Capricious Reader, and was then hosted by Chris at Stuff as Dreams are Made on.



 If anyone would like to share their own gardening adventures with me - large or small, inside or out - 
I would love to see them.
Just leave a link to your post in the comments.


Hope all is well and everyone is enjoying their Summer so far.

Remember,
think happy thoughts
- and stay hydrated!

Friday, June 30, 2017

How many years has it been now . . . somewhere around 200?


( I couldn't find an attribute for this image when I posted it, but I have since found it's owner.)

If you go to Etsy, you will find a shop called ButterTogether
belonging to a very talented Kim Keitner
She offers an assortment of sweet greeting cards with hand drawn designs.

Please . . .

Let America Be America Again 
- Langston Hughes

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!

Wednesday, June 28, 2017

Quote of the Day


A tragedy has taken place on our land, and even though it did not take place on our watch, we are its inheritors, and the earth remembers.

 - Dan, Neither Wolf nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder

Tuesday, June 27, 2017

If only we could learn by example . . .


How happy is the little Stone 
- Emily Dickinson

How happy is the little Stone
That rambles in the Road alone,
And doesn't care about Careers
And Exigencies never fears -
Whose Coat of elemental Brown
A passing Universe put on,
And independent as the Sun
Associates or glows alone,
Fulfilling absolute Decree
In casual simplicity -