My Bit of Earth

Sunflower update

They've finally gotten as tall as the house!

An Excursion On Mt. Oread

It was a drizzley sort of day, which made it nice and cool for a walk around campus after class. The law school is near the edge of campus so I generally don't make it up the hill very often. I forget how nice and green it is up there. And today with the rain it smelled incredible--wet, warm grass with nice wafts of cedar and pine blowing by on the breeze.
I started at the Southeastern edge of the ridge and walked down through the bowl where the lake is. I had an errand to run in Strong Hall so I cut up towards it, and then walked back to my starting point up along the ridge.

On my way down the hill, I found a group of trees with fruit on them. I looked them up when I got home. The one with green fruit is a "common apple" and the once with the peachy fruit is a crab apple. There was also a little berry tree with fruit on it that looked like small cherries, but I can't decide for sure what it is.

There was a carpet of lilies spread across the lake, but not too many blossoms. The leaves are prettier anyway. Especially with the wind today they were all moving just a bit--a little like they were talking to each other, telling wonderful secrets that humans can't hear.

I spent a few moments hiding from the rain under this willow tree. The tendrils were blowing back and forth in the wind, but I was protected from the rain. It made me think that I'd like to sleep under a willow tree sometime--very soothing.

The bridge near the lake from the opposite shore. Blaine told me once that he had a friend that slept under it once (not sure if I want to know why!). I've always thought it seemed more like the type of bridge you'd find in a fairy tale--or with a troll hiding under it!

And I finally made it to Strong Hall. As I was walking in I noticed the door handles on the main entrance. All the other handles are new, but these looked like they grew there--all blue green and worn.

This is the Chi Omega fountain, which was on my path back to my car. On warm days people wade in it. I've never really been to a fountain that it was legal to play in so I've been meaning to go try it sometime. But, alas, today was not that sort of day!

These black-eyed susans were so sunny near the memorial wall. Yellow flowers just seem to pop on a grey day--someday I need to plant fields of them!

It makes me really happy that, despite educational cuts, I still get to call such a pretty campus home. It seems like one of those things that people would cut into when the going gets tight, but it seems like most of the powers that be still realize that these nice big green spaces are not a luxury for learning--they're a necessity. Imagine if we all had to go to school in a grey/cement/icky environment--I certainly would have more trouble getting out of bed in the morning!

Beautiful Tomatoes!

I had a yummy egg scramble this morning with my first tomatoes. I had three little Mexican Midgets and three yellow pears.

The Mexican Midgets are super concentrated--like a tomato bomb. They're just about the size of a quarter, and they kind of explode in your mouth--good things come in small packages.

The yellow pears have really been beautiful ripening on the plant. They almost taste like a really mellow green pepper. When I was cutting them up this morning I couldn't help but notice how pretty they were on the inside too.

More to come!

Patience is the best remedy for every trouble...

...quoth an old Roman dead guy, and how very right he was! I got a beautiful deep, shiny green Gardenia bush at Sunrise for my birthday--which is in NOVEMBER, mind you--and it just bloomed for the very first time today!

I had it inside all winter and it had tons of buds, but they kept falling off before they bloomed. Then it started to get all brown and icky and I felt guilty wondering what I done to it. I'd kind of given up on it a bit, so when it got warm enough I put it outside to fend for itself. A few weeks ago I was about to throw it away even, but I figured it wasn't hurting me to just let it sit there and give it a chance.

And wouldn't you know it--after all my babying and mollycoddling, it finally bloomed when I left it alone! It's still far from a pretty plant at this point, as you can see from the brown leaves, but the flower is very redeeming. I think it means there's hope!

Laura Conyers Smith Municipal Rose Garden

As a midsummer celebration, sweet husband and I went to Kansas City today to see the Rose Garden in Loose Park. Just getting there was an adventure! We have a pretty bad habit of setting off with vauge directions. I knew it was "near the plaza" and I thought that would be enough to find it. Not so much!

We drove around lost for awhile and then finally stopped at the Kauffman Memorial Gardens to see if we could get directions. I walked into the Kaufmann gardens and amidst the lilies--the smell of which was worth getting lost for--I found two couples and a group of about 10 very nice looking older ladies. Didn't feel comfortable disturbing the couples so I asked the ladies. They had to decide amongst themselves for a few minutes to tell me how to go, but they were able to tell me to get on Wornall street and that ended up being enough to find it. (Thanks nice ladies!)

We pulled up at about seven in the evening and enjoyed a nice sunset stroll, taking pictures and sniffing as we went along. It was a lot of fun realizing how much I've learned about roses in the past few months. I was able to tell sweet husband a little about the classifications and the bloom types--made me feel smart.

Most of the once blooming roses were already done and forming hips--I'll have to get around earlier next year to see those! But the continuous bloomers by themselves were still a feast as you can see below....

This was one of the first roses that caught my eye. It is a "Fabulous" (Floribunda). It's related to the Iceberg rose that was next to it (alas the picture didn't turn out) but apparently a little less disease resistant. It smelled better than the Iceberg though and the petals were a little more...fluffy (in a good way).

I've loved the Dainty Bess (Hybrid Tea) since the first time I saw one. It doesn't really scream "rose" and I love that it's a bit unusual. They smelled just sweet enough, and they're apparently pretty rugged.

I loved the color of this Honey Perfume (Floribunda) but the smell was the best part. Sweet husband usually doesn't like the smell of roses because they're almost too strong, but even he liked this one. It smells like a rose, but it's perfectly mellowed--just strong enough without making your head swim.

We couldn't resist this Mister Lincoln (Hybrid Tea) which looked like it should have been packaged up as the perfect long stemmed Valentine's rose.

The Paloma Blanca (Shrub) was such a pretty creamy white.

I really liked the color of this Heritage (Shrub-Austin). I don't usually like pink roses, but this one was nice and mellow.

This Milestone (Hybrind Tea) was kind of screaming out, "look at me! look at me!"

Chickens--my imaginary flock

Ok, so I feel kind of silly for posting this, but I've been thinking about it for awhile and I think (you know, "someday" as usual) I'd like to try keeping chickens for eggs. I like the idea of free-range (or at least not crammed into a tiny cage) chickens--sad, scared chickens aren't a fun thing to think about when you're making breakfast. I also like the idea of helping to keep alive cool breeds of chicken (no ugly white chickens in my pretend coop).

It's funny, with all the animals we had when I was little, we never kept chickens. So I was doing some research (i.e. what do you have to do to keep the darned things) and I went through and picked some that are (sorry, the law student in me has to say it) "allegedly" good egg layers and pretty and easy to keep too.

Without further adieu, my flock ....

Chamois Campine

Gold and Silver Cuckoo Marans

Maran eggs--don't they look like perfect easter eggs?

Welsummer

Lakenvelder

Thanks for the pictures nice people at feathersite.com!

Pittsburg Garden Tour

The Garden of Weed'n belongs to Eva Smith.

My way cool mother-in-law and I went on the Pittsburg, Kansas garden tour this weekend. We had a nice morning, and made it through most of the gardens.

But the real treat for me was when we stumbled into the garden pictured below. I've driven past it for at least two summers and always wanted to stop, but I'm a little shy about doing stuff like that so I hadn't ever gotten a peak. It was one of the gardens that we didn't intend to stop at, but when I saw that it was open for the tour I knew we had to make time to see it.

It was just like my garden (the one I'm planning in my head for when we have fields of earth 'stead of just a "bit") except that I would do more raised beds I think (just cause I'm a little lazy). Nice-sized beds of veggies, all kinds of flowers, a nice pergola with grape vines growing on it, a little bench all tucked back in the shade--even a little boardwalk path. And outside the fence huge fields for a background--it was pretty much perfect.

Grape vines on the pergola

What a place to curl up with a good book!

A great idea for old broken pots

Moral dilemma

I'm not all about using chemicals to garden. I've done well so far without and (even though they say it's harmless, yadie, yadie, yadah) I just don't really much like the idea. But, a few weeks ago the roses got aphids, and then powedery mildew, and then they looked like they were going to die (pesky hybrid teas). And--as pain in the butt as they are--they're absolutely beautiful. Sooo...I freaked out and got some systemic (fertilizer and bug killer) rose food...and then I sprayed for the powdery mildew. It worked like a charm--goodbye aphids, goodbye other icky stuff. But I hate doing it. It stinks and I have to make sure I keep the dogs away and I look like a masked bandit because I have to cover my face so I don't breathe it in. This gets me funny looks from the neighbors, which further adds to the unplesantness.

But it worked like a charm. Why do things that are so bad have to work so well?

And I know there are other ways to deal with the roses, but they were expensive enough that I don't want them to die while I experiment. And I don't want the cost of experimenting when I know the icky stuff will work.

The broke-ass college student in me is defeating my moral scruples for today, but someday, when I have lots of space and cash and time I promise I'll be better. I'll grow native roses and give them lots of good compost and beneficial bugs and all kinds of happy stuff that doesn't smell bad or hurt the earth.

RIP Aussie

Forgot to mention that my little bonsai died. Not even sure what happened except that maybe it got a little dry. Leaves started coming off and I couldn't make them stop!

I picked up a little Sedum at Sunrise the other day to try in the pot, so hopefully it will work better.

Yeah, yeah, I know stuff dies....but I'm bummed.