Sundrops trailing in a Winecup

Sundrops trailing in a Winecup

Today was a lovely Spring day in Texas. The wind was blowing a bit but not too bad, blue skies and sunshine makes up for that. So off I went to one of the many plant sales held at this time of the year.

This was a sale that sells nothing but native plants that are native to this specific part of Texas where I live. It is run by a good organization of very knowledgeable people and they are all too willing to share their wisdom. So wandering up and down I bought about 4 different plants. One Sundrops is supposed to be a low growing perennial with showy yellow blossoms. I sure hope this one grows well.I need some color .

 Another was a trailing winecup and this is supposed to be a plant with beautiful red flowers. I can just visualize this beautiful display of red and yellow flowers with butterflies flying around. Maybe just a dream but a nice one

Every year I put in a few more plants  and I am always quite surprised at what returns after the winter. Equally surprising are the plants that not only return but want to take over the whole yard and because I just hate to pull up anything that is actually growing, I have quite a dilemma on my hands.

You see I am not a good gardener like my 2 sisters are. I am a pottering gardener. I love to get out on a nice day and just potter around, digging here and there without too much planning ahead. I start and dig up a plant to put somewhere else only to find there's too much in there and then I don't know what to do with it. I am also very capricious because if it looks like it will get too hot , dreary or even cold outside, forget the gardening , I'll go and paint instead or read a book.

A true gardener would battle on whatever the weather.

Anyhow please keep reading my plog and if and when my new plants flower , I'll probably do a blog with a picture of them. Of course if it turns to summer heat too fast, it might just be a painting.

The Beautiful Bluebell Woods

My bluebells

When I was young , I mean very young. possibly about 7 or 8,one of the great pleasures was to go with a group of other kids to the bluebell woods in the spring. I can still remember the masses of bluebells and the new green of the trees. Strangely enough I can't remember any scent from the flowers .

There were so many bluebells growing that you would have to walk through them. We would pick armfuls of them to take home with us. I just hope they have survived the sprawl of suburbia. It was creeping ever close to the woods when we left over 40 years ago so who know now.

That is probably why last year I picked some bulbs from a catalog that sort of looked like English wood bluebells. I was pretty disappointed last year when all I got was some spindly green leaves.

This year they have done much better although I have only a few growing. Still they were enough to remind me of the beautiful Bluebell woods.

Today I met Barney

Barney

Today was my shelter visit day. I do this about every 2 weeks or so to take photos of the cats and dogs waiting to be adopted.

I have to guard my emotions very carefully as I do this as it is very easy to become overwhelmed by the future I know awaits many of these creatures.

Many pets that were dumped ,badly treated or just pushed aside after the novelty of pet ownership wore off probably feel that this shelter is a good refuge .At least they are in a dry warm place and get food and water.

Pretty soon though they must feel very disappointed ,as days go by and they sit and wait for an owner who never comes.

I see this when I arrive to take their photos. As we get each dog out of the run you can see them almost thinking , "Finally I'm going somewhere. Outside .I haven't been forgotten after all”. How sad they must feel when we put them back in the runs after a just a few moments outside.

Today I took a photos of a little dog we called Barney. He is just a mixed mutt, labeled shepherd mix, just a term used for the mix breed you often see in shelters. Barney was sitting almost shivering with fear as we open the gate of the run. I asked what his story was and was told a lady with kids had found him and although he was great with the kids she couldn't keep him. I bent down to pet him and saw that this little fellow was desperate for some love and attention. He brightened up and even stood up while we fussed him and told him what a good dog he was.

I wondered what his real story was? Was he one of these cute pups that someone took from a friend and when he got bigger,  got tired of him and put him outside even though the kids loved to play with him.So he just wandered off looking for some attention and company.

I also wondered what would become of him. He doesn't show well. Most people looking for a new dog want a status dog or a cutesy fluff ball or a pure bred.

Poor Barney will probably not even get a glance and he might just possibly be the best dog that anyone could ever have.

Happy 40th Birthday Cell Phone

Happy 40^th Birthday Cell Phone

From This

Amazing isn't it that nowadays the major way of communication is via cell phone a device that wasn't even invented until 1973. Just look around you at any public or come to that any private place and you will see people talking and texting and communicating with invisible people. But at least they're communicating which to me is a good thing.

At the time the cellular phone was invented there was no personal computer, no wide world web , no internet and really no way you would have known they were even coming.

The first experience we had with this new device was when Mike got one for his business. At that time he was a marketing man and spent a lot of his time traveling around calling on people to talk the business of airplane engines. The cell phone, heavy and cumbersome as it was in those early days made life a lot easier to keep in touch with his clients. Before that he had to either get in touch with his office by regular pay phone or wait until his secretary would Beep him on his beeper and then find a payphone to call. You still had to use the cell phone with caution as it was heavy due to the very large battery. Talking was limited as the battery although huge ran out of power and took 10 hours to recharge At first the service area was very limited and only grew gradually.

To this

Well as we all know things developed fairly rapidly over the years. The device got smaller and smaller, the batteries did the same with more power becoming available and the service areas got so good that now you can call most anywhere you want to.

Now the next step, never even thought about when the first cellular phone was invented, came about. You can, if you have a smart phone ,be linked at to the internet and can use your phone as a miniature computer with all the power that goes with this form of communication.

So we certainly should wish Happy Birthday to the cell phone.

After all many of us would be lost without it.

To this
Where to next I wonder.....

Painting the Puppies in Watercolor

Lola and Stella

So I thought I'd try a new thing. Painting using water colors. I had never done that before except as a child I had a box of paints and a paintbrush and I guess those were watercolors. At that time I was more intrigued by the lovely names of the colors ; vermillion red and emerald green and other exotic names.

I had already bought a lovely box of water color crayons and found those interesting to use and wanted to find out more. So I looked on You Tube where you can find videos on nearly anything these days. Sure enough there were masses of videos on different types of watercolor painting techniques. I watched a few of them. Some are very detailed . Some are useless in as much as they have no commentary, or at least have no commentary that you can understand and some are too quick and short for you to get helpful details.

But armed with a few techniques from watching. I got out my tubes of watercolor paints. Threw a few out they had dried up. Then got Mike to open the rest for me as some of the tops had dried on. Found a sheet of watercolor paper. Sketched Chrissy and Ben's new puppies and started.

Original photo

Well it is harder than it looks but very enjoyable. You have to work to get the right color and to get texture and light in the painting. You have to keep adding layers and you have to make sure the first layer is completely dry. Those were the main techniques I learned in this first painting. I also learned that you use very little paint, quite different than using acrylic or oil paints.

I felt the painting was good enough to give as a present for Easter to the grand kids and will serve to remind them in future how cute their grown dogs were as pups.

Puppies grow up so fast !!

Easter Celebrations.

Easter Celebrations.

Lola and Stella

The weather men had been forecasting storms and rain and cloudy skies but none of this happened. We even managed to have our Easter lunch outside on the patio at Chrissy and Ben's house. Ben cooked some lovely spare ribs with a great sauce and Chrissy and Laura made all kinds of veggie dishes. Both Mikes, old and younger and Trevor all ate well and we were so full that my carrot cake had to be eaten later.

Easter lunch

Introduced to the family were Chrissy and Ben's 2 new puppies, a German shepherd called Lola and a boxer called Stella. Laura and Trevor brought their 2 golden retrievers Chloe and Natalie with them so there was lots of fun all around. Chrissy even managed to get a picture of all us  dogs as well with her new camera. I hope we get to see it sometime !!

Family group minus youger Mike and me. 

My Favorite Cook Book

Today I have been doing a lot of cooking,unusual for me but Mike went out looking for new cars today and I was the lunch cook.He had already selected the recipe for me to follow from one of the cook books he uses but it was a book I rarely use and so I had to keep stopping and looking very carefully to see if I was getting it correct.
Then this evening I wanted to make a dessert to take with me for  lunch tomorrow with the family. First I looked on the web at various pages to see if I could find something that would be suitable, I found a carrot cake. I love carrot cakes. However when I looked at the recipe it had a great many different ingredients in it and I have made lots of carrot cakes so I discarded that idea.I had thought if I found a recipe on the web I could use it on my tablet in the kitchen and be a very modern cook. Not this time.

I decided in the end to go back to one of my favorite cook books and you can see by the photo how well used it is. It is one of those self made books put out by various charity organizations, This one, Meals on Wheels ( Roanoke TX) cook book  was one I helped to make . I also knew many of the ladies who submitted the recipes so it is very special, Many of them have passed on by now.  The best thing is I knew which of these ladies were great cooks as I had eaten many of the dishes at the Senior Pot  luck lunches so I know which recipes are the very best in the book

So I found my usual carrot cake recipe.

Smells delicious!

Post script: wrote this on Saturday but didn't finish icing cake until Sunday.
Anyhow the cake was fine; Sticky and tasty at Carrot cake should be !!