sunny garden, rainy quilt

garden put to bed

2006-11-17T13:00:00.000-08:00

It's been a long hot summer, but now everything's quiet. The annuals are out, the bulbs are in, everything is mulched, and the catalogs haven't arrived yet. I surf the web and make ambitious lists of veggies for next year.

The front flower bed did very well IMO. The butter daisies settled down -- i.e., one died and one never made much growth, but one became a giant and the other 2 did very nicely. The lantana also did very well, and lasted into several frosts. One lantana had a root stretching clear into Kansas. In late summer I planted some Salvia pitcherii and some Aster 'Monch' from High Country Gardens. The asters were horribly pot-bound and one never looked good (HCG will replace it if it doesn't make it through the winter), but the salvias just love it here and are still popping the odd blue bloom. A few weeks ago I added some specialty daffodils from RD Havens (aka Grant Mitsch), and Narcissus 'Mondragon', N. 'Hillstar' & Tulipa 'Antoinette' from Brent & Becky's Bulbs. Spring bulbs blooming in the lawn are so charming IMO, so I also planted N. 'Bahama Beach', Crocus 'Lilac Beauty', C. 'Romance', Scilla sibirica, and a grape hyacinth whose name escapes me, in a gentle curve echoing the driveway. All these also from B&BB. Some friends of mine went to a Korean wedding, at which they were given little favors of jonquil bulbs. They gave me a pair, and those are also now in the lawn.

The future is yet to come in the mail, but I have ordered, from Pickering Nurseries in Canada, 3 rose bushes for April 15. Kinda takes the bite out of Tax Day! I intend to plant Applejack, Dr. Eckener, and Alchymist in the front flower bed right up against the house, so A'jack runs up the side of the chimney, Dr. E tantalizes the kitten through the living room windows, and Alchymist wrestles me to the ground every time I go into & out of the carport. Bliss! I was in Phoenix for a workshop a few weeks ago, and happened to walk through a rose garden during some time off. Not much was blooming there, but the general rose perfume was still intoxicating.

The veggies are another matter. Next spring I hope to plant them all in a raised bed in the front yard, where I'm reliably reminded to water and weed. I have some large pots and hope to get boards & fasteners. Into the pots will go, I hope, potatoes from Ronniger's and leeks. In the 4x8' raised bed I would put globe artichokes, snow peas followed by tomatoes, lettuce, bok choi, swiss chard, and some plants that will repel the bad bugs -- marigolds and either feverfew or rue -- and some that will attract the good ones -- hyssop and dill. The idea is to grow myself stuff I like that either is too expensive in the store, or that tastes so much better fresh it's silly not to grow it, or that's so easy to grow it's ditto. I'll get 3 catalogs I've asked for (Ronniger's, Seed Savers' Exchange, and The Cook's Garden), plus lord only knows how many more, and will be in clover (New Zealand White from Johnny's Selected Seeds).

The situation is getting very elaborate, what with the raised bed frame, the soil I'll fill it with, where I'll put it, and tomato towers, seed starter kits, grow lights, and repairing the organ. Oh, yes -- the idea is, not having had any guests in the past year, I'll convert the guest room into the music room, swap the organ (currently in the living room) with the futon bed/couch, and also put in a table on which I'll have the grow light and tomato & artichoke seedlings. And have someone in to make the organ playable, and dig out some of my old organ music, and try to practice while defending the tomato seedlings from the kitten. My old organ teacher has already indicated she'd be happy to have me back. Somebody please remind me also to get the lawnmower serviced!

I even got a little something done in the sewing room -- but that's for another episode.

gaude, gaude

2006-06-20T13:27:00.000-07:00

Well, today the quilt "Serendipity" is renamed to "Gaude, Gaude". I just cannot resist a pun, and whenever I describe the border to someone that's what I call it. May as well make it official! The border, btw, is colorwash, mostly red - orange - yellow - tan - cobalt - magenta - pink - mint. Actually much more attractive than the color list makes it sound. The darkest of the 28 fabrics curve in a vertical wave from edge to edge, and at the extremes I've inserted half-stars, fussy-cut. 8 2" squares will make a 12" border. I'll have some plain slabs outside the colorwash to frame it.

The butter daisies are drama queens: every day it's either "I'm dieing of thirst!" or "I'm drowning!" I'm going to plant lantanas in their place. This is a major change for me: I first saw lantana growing as the perennial it is in Sta. Barbara, CA, and ever since I left hardiness zones 8+ it has just seared my soul that they're too tender in the colder areas. Well. Now it's also seared my pocketbook. I may have to dig them up and try to overwinter them indoors.

Meanwhile, my first daylily has popped a bud; today there were two blossoms glowing a pastel terracotta and yellow. I have others, all different colors, but the first one is magic -- as all the first blossoms are. My tomatoes have laboriously squeezed out a single button that may become a fruit if the squirrels leave it alone. I've already eaten some of my chard, the victims of the first thinning. In addition to the lantanas I have baggies full of daylilies and irises, from the garden of a friend who wanted to thin out her plants a little. If it weren't so dang hot I'd transplant them tonight. But they'll keep for a little while. The rabbits and squirrels have gotten out of the habit of munching on the baby Cladrastis, so unless it gets buried in ice this winter it looks like it'll live. Gaude, gaude indeed.

with butter daisies all in a row

2006-06-09T12:03:00.000-07:00

Front flower bed stretches across the front of the house from the front step to the carport. It's bounded by the step & driveway, and the house itself, and the brick paver walkway I laid by putting the pavers right down on top of the grass. Don't scold. I'm 54 and not about to dig up the sod, even things out, pour sand, tamp it, grunge up some concrete, lay the pavers, sweep more sand into the crevices, and then curse the whole mess because 2 pavers are in wrong way round and immoveable. Nor can I pay for someone else to do it -- the school salary isn't that much more than the church salary was!

Two weekends ago I dug out the irises and most of the weeds in the flower bed -- quite enough digging without laying the pavers! -- including the sod in the notches created when I laid the pavers diagonally. (It looks fantastic, btw, much nicer than laying them normal to the house would have been. And I had a purpose for those notches, too. Read on!) There had been two problems with the irises. First, they had grown together so tightly they were hardly blooming. Second, when they did, the flowers were white, which just disappears against the white siding. Rather than paint the house I decided to replace the old irises with younger, more widely spaced, and more colorful irises.

It wasn't just irises and weeds, either. A previous owner had edged this bed with limestone posts set on their sides, 10 1/2 of them, each one about 4" square by, what? 15" long? Something like that. A bear to pry up out of the ground, and then they left a trench. I filled it with what I had at hand: cotton burr compost for part of it, and composted manure for the rest. They're now on my useless sidewalk, getting the dirt washed off in the rain when we have rain. They're good for keeping pots off the concrete, so they can drain properly.

One evening we had a rain shadow -- cool air blowing westward from thunderstorms traveling east -- and I was able to get out there and dig out the last 15 square feet of wild violets, dandelions, bindweed, and grass. So the following Saturday, that would be last Saturday, I went to a nursery and got plants. I hadn't been to a real nursery in a while: there's one in Independence but they're odd -- they go through spasms of not wanting to sell me stuff. So I went to one in Liberty. I was shocked at the prices -- they seemed so high! But later I went to the local hardware store and their prices were almost as much and the plants were in wretched condition -- so I'm glad I paid the dollar more for a trunkload of healthy, robust plants.

I did get what was on sale, mostly: portulaca, thyme, potentilla, and melampodium. The potentilla is a low-growing version with the standard buttercup-yellow flowers, and they popped into those walkway notches very nicely. I got 4 varieties of thyme: T. serpyllum, T. praecox, wooly thyme, and silver thyme. The first 3 are also very low-growing, and also went into the notches beautifully. The silver thyme is a variety of T. vulgaris, so it grows taller, but it is so lovely, and very strong-scented, I just went ahead. Some of it is in the notches, some in a row behind the first.

A previous owner had sedum, a very large, compacted plant of large blue leaves, in a corner of the bed, and I had kept it as other things left -- a white rose, the irises, volunteer oak, maple, and redbud trees, and those weeds. Now that all the grunge was out, I also dug up the sedum, but instead of throwing it away I split it into 8 pieces and planted them, some in the notches and some behind, between the notches. Aside from one section which the mail carrier has a hard time not kicking, they've settled in well and look like they may be growing, too!

Behind the notches, up the middle of the bed, I planted 38 portulaca (I'd bought 40 on sale, but one cell was innocent of all plant life and I broke a 2nd when I stopped mid-planting to pull a violet and pulled the portulaca off its root instead). Doubled flowers, a soft yellow, a variable peach pink to rose, and a good strong reddish orange. They didn't like life in their cells and flopped around a lot during the planting ordeal, but we had 3 hours of a good, gentle rain and they couldn't be more pleased now.

A couple clumps of melampodium, common name butter daisies, add a little higher punctuation of yellow, and I'm promised that they will seed all over so they will join the wild violets as something I'll never be able to get rid of. Today this is a good thing! Ask me again in 5 years. All these annuals and crawly perennials join a witch hazel which I put in the bed next to the front step a few weeks ago, and 3 daylilies which were refugees last spring from a bed around the corner of the house, which would have a long row of them except I hit bricks where the last 3 would have gone. So they're out front. Add a layer of cedar mulch (and it needs another one, to cover the bare spots I missed because it was getting dark as I finished up) and you'll see a warm-colored nice little flower bed with lots of potential and a bunch of rather happy plants.

The irises are ordered, also daffs and tulips. The irises will add some blue and pink to all this yellow & orange, although I'm thinking of putting the pink irises & daffs off to one side, where there are currently pheasant-eye daffodils in sore need of thinning out, and dark irises. (Now, where's the sense in planting dark irises in the shade and white irises in front of white siding?) I wish to order some more daffs, and there's space in that bed for 3 roses. Oh, so many lovely plants! So little time, space, money, and energy.

Irises: www.suttoniris.com
Daffs, tulips, crocus, grape hyacinth, squill: www.brentandbeckysbulbs.com
Very special daffs: www.web-ster.com/havensr/mitsch/index.html
Roses: www.pickeringnurseries.com

futurequilt

2006-04-19T13:41:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to get down on e-paper my ideas for future quilts.

- Feathered Star (UFO border round robin): put 1/2 Bethlehem Stars on the pillow end; add slabs to the other three edges and applique vines and 3-D flowers on them, the vines crawling up onto the top of the bed & blooming. Maybe some patchwork flowers and/or mini-stars in the slabs. Pixie may try to eat the 3D flowers; otoh, she's growing more sluglike every day, so by the time they're done, they may be safe. Broderie persed birds, too.

- Streets of Heaven (UFO block round robin): split the collection of blocks into 2 piles, sash and tie them for 2 baby quilts to raffle off.

- Tree Skirt (UFO block round robin): make it!

- Card Trick (DW (dream-work) block round robin): see how many I get and what colors; sash; maybe baby quilt(s)

- Balinese Roosters (DW): if the panel's colors are good for Margaret or Hugh, make her/him a bed quilt using it as a focal point. I see lots of triangles in bright red or blue with this but nothing more yet -- pretty good as I haven't seen the rooster fabric in person yet!

- Something with curved seams.
- A Log Cabin or Pineapple quilt.

Aside from Margaret and Hugh, I would like to make quilts for Deanna, Darrelyn, Dolores, and Judy, and baby quilts for Isabella and Amy's tot-in-progress.

serendipity

2006-04-14T08:50:00.000-07:00

Yes, the newest quilt is still called "Serendipity"! The medallion, the part that lies on top of the bed, is completed, and it's a wonder how the two streamers, one mostly blue and the other red & orange, swoop around each other on it. I did draw it on graph paper, but seeing it in pencil with "red" written in one space and "blue" on another gives no real indication how it'll look with the actual fabrics. It's really extraordinarily cheerful, so the name is good.

I've now designed and started to make the borders, the part that hangs down the sides. I like to make the corners fancy; even my very first quilt, which has plain slabs of fabric for the borders, has little squares marching diagonally across the corners. What I'm putting together now for each corner is a fussy-cut star, edged with some other fabric, itself edged with the very pastel mottled fabric that on my graph paper I've labeled "white", and then the 12" square finished off with more of that other fabric. It looks like the f-c star has a white halo on it. My f-c stars are stitched all together, and now I'm adding the background fabric, squares and triangles, to square the blocks. It looks really cool.

The head of the bed, I don't put much of a border on it -- if I did it'd only get tucked down between the mattress and the headboard, if I had a headboard, or the wall, which is my current situation. So instead of working hard on something creative that won't be seen, I don't make a border at all. Well, just a little one, the bit I grab onto and pull when the quilt slides down at the foot, and what Pixie noses at when she wants to nap under the quilt just like her mom. What this has to do with the corners is, there isn't a corner to put a haloed star on! OTOH, I don't want the border to just run on and then stop, as if I'd run out of ideas! Heaven forbid anyone get that impression! So at the head of the bed, the border will start (or end) with a half a f-c star, with a halo. Between the two corners, on the 3 sides, I plan to scatter 1/2 f-c stars, without haloes, against the top or bottom edge, and between the f-c stars, a colorwash streak, really, in a curved flow. I've picked out 22 fabrics, including the 12 "colored" fabrics of the top, for the borders. I expect it'll look very nice, too, and a little heavier than the medallion, which seems appropriate to me as the borders' job is to anchor the medallion. The whole border will be about 15" wide, maybe 4" wide on the head end.

Meanwhile, outdoors it feels like someone is running a mondo enormous hair dryer -- hot, windy, and dry. Yesterday's high, 92, broke a record for 4/13 of 88 degrees that stood since 1935 or something ridiculous like that. The daffs are shriveling. I've mowed my front yard 2ce and back yard once, and run the sprinkler on the front 2ce already. I've ordered a Cladrastis and a witch hazel for the front yard, to be planted on Mother's Day weekend, but I have to keep watering if I'm to be able to get a spade in the ground at all by then. And it's way time for me to start the tomato seeds! They predict rain for tomorrow night, just when people are going to Easter Vigil services, but really if any is to hit the ground the air has to get a lot more humid. At this rate no one will need umbrellas tomorrow.

patchwork

2006-03-01T10:50:00.000-08:00

The quilt heretofore named "Doppler Shift" or "O My Stars and Garters" is coming along nicely. All five fussy-cut stars are made, even the one that will droop across the border, which means that the border is also designed. Slices #7-19 are in the process of being sewn together. #17-19 actually have the first fussy-cut star embedded in them, and it looks just dandy. And I can't think of a name for the thing. I want a happy name that's neither flip nor gooey, and also doesn't indicate something that that kind of name would normally indicate. For instance, "Razzle Dazzle" implies a lot of metallic ink, or at least metallic rick-rack. Nope! Oh, well, the right name will come along.

In response to the warmest January on record, and a February that had its warm days, too, the daffodil blades are slicing through the earth both in my front yard and on the school grounds. I was reminded that I also have itty bitty crocuses along the side of the house, and if it doesn't rain this weekend I should go out and water them. We had our driest Feb. on record just now. The front yard is covered with leaves but the back is gasping -- and I should put up the birdbath, too, give my girls some entertainment, not to mention the birds.

A grove of trees grew on a hill, and someone found the shade, beauty, cool breeze, and singing birds highly conducive to meditation and prayer. Likeminded friends agreed, and the words, song, and movements they made to bring them into a meditative state evolved into what they considered to be a religious ritual. At some point someone decided that this ritual was what made the space sacred, and an equally beautiful, healing, and utilized grove on the next hill over was not because the ritual had not been performed there to this self-proclaimed authority's satisfaction. Then a tree died, undoubtedly of old age or disease. So the religious community replaced all the trees with a marble shrine, and the authority required that the ritual be repeated so that the marble tree space be officially sacred. Then the next hill over could not have a sacred grove even if the worship were ritualized, because the grove had to be made of marble to be sacred. Later on, someone from out of town took shelter from a storm in the marble shrine, and herded his goats into it so they wouldn't get soaked and catch pneumonia, and the authority declared that this un-sacred use of the shrine desacralized it and the ritual would have to be performed all over again. Finally, the religous community gave up on all this bumpf and moved away, and the authority looked for other people to hold power over, and the roof fell in and the birds flew in and out and the trees grew up through the floor. And romantics from far away came to look at it and exclaimed at the sacredness of the space.

We have two bishops at present, an Emeritus and an Ordinary. The Ordinary, well, I don't know if he requires the ritual, the marble, or both to call a space sacred. He has looked at the chancery's meeting space and declared it not sacred. This is a building filled with people who spend their days laboring, for very little pay, for the benefit of the greater religious community of this area. IMO that by itself makes the entire building a sacred space! The meeting room itself has seen many masses and other prayerful meetings, and IMO that by itself makes that room a sacred space. The Emeritus agrees. He, and the employees who were there with him, walk into that space, and for them it resonates with the sacred events it has housed. The Ordinary sees nothing sacred about the employees' devotion to the purposes and needs of the Church. He walks in and sees only a place to stable his goats.

Update on the quilt name problem. Today I'm liking "Serendipity."

a star is born

2006-02-20T06:26:00.000-08:00

A week or two ago, after creating a transparent plastic template for 45-degree diamonds, I spent a few minutes putting the template here and there on the different fabrics of my bargello WIP, "Doppler Shift". I concluded that none of the fabrics was particularly good for fussy-cut stars. I considered sewing strips of two different fabrics together and cutting diamonds with the seam line down the middle the long way, but an 8-pointed star made like that, though spectacular, has 16 seams meeting all at a single point. Very bumpy. Or I could make just plain ol' 8-pointed stars. That was a disappointing thought, so I set the whole issue aside and watched skaters and skiers fall down for a while.

This weekend I decided on the plain ol' 8-pointed stars and sat down to start cutting. One fabric, however, observed that it'd be cute to put a single flower in each diamond and although it'd technically be a fussy-cut star, it wouldn't produce the elaborate kaleidoscope effect generally associated with the technique, so if it were the only f-c star it wouldn't make the others blush. So I did it.

I don't care how you define it, those 24 seams were ALL set-in seams. However, it came out beautifully! I ironed it carefully according to dimly-remembered instructions, and the dog-ears of the 8 seams meeting at a single point fanned out very prettily. The back is almost as cute as the front! So all 5 of the 8-pointed stars on the top of the quilt will be fussy-cut, even if not as gorgeous as what I remember seeing in QNM years ago. (Apparently they're no longer fashionable.) That was definitely 2 1/2 hours well spent.

Last night, while I watched more skaters fall down, and how about those Italian cross-country skiers, eh? hooray for them!, I wielded transparent template and pencil on a poppy print, putting two leaf designs into the frame 4 times each. It'll be lovely. There's a fussy cut awaiting a 3rd floral, and just now I thought of sewing two strips together and then cutting the diamonds such that the seam crosses the diamond diagonally, not straight down the middle. Still only 8 seams to fan out in the center, but nothing plain or even old about it.

Category: small things amuse tiny minds. The coolest thing about set-in seams is how you put the two fabrics together in a configuration that looks like the one fabric couldn't possibly fill the space. Sew the seam. Then rotate the one piece of fabric so that in spite of itself there's a raw edge meeting the raw edge of the other piece of fabric, and sew. Folded fabric everywhere, except right on the seam line. And then you open it up and press, and lo! The space is nicely filled, just as intended. If it weren't that sewing seams edge to edge were so much faster and less demanding of careful needle placement, I'd be tempted to set in seams all over the place, just for the pleasure of seeing the highly improbable come out perfectly.

Tomorrow I have the great pleasure of going to work for someone new -- yes, today's my last day working for my church for the ever-shrinking paycheck -- and my life in general seems much more delightful. This quilt is coming along so nicely (strips #20-35 (of 73) look real good sewn together, and I created strips #7-12 yesterday, too), and I'm feeling so good about the change in employers, that I'm thinking of renaming this confection "O My Stars and Garters". I acknowledge this is something my father might have said, or maybe his mother, but I'm feeling much too playful for the somber "Doppler Shift". And it looks like my fabric choices will make it quite a perky quilt.

what makes a champion

2006-02-13T11:14:00.000-08:00

At the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Hitler packed all the events with German athletes (and some German non-athletes) in the belief that with a preponderance of attendance the teutonic types would have to win all the medals. Any German athletes who lost their events were required to leave immediately; Hitler didn't want them in the stands watching the competition and providing visible proof that the "master race" can lose to members of other ethnic groups. We all know what happened when Jesse Owens won his event.

Among the German non-athletes competing in 1936 was my mother. Well, face it, she was only 12 years old at the time. Why anyone would think even a fast little 12-year-old girl would be able to outrun seasoned athletes of any ethnic type is beyond me, but that's why we peg Hitler as insane now. Be that as it may, there she was, with 3 other little 12-year-old girls, running a relay race in the 1936 Olympics. Of course, they lost their first heat, and since Hitler didn't understand what the Olympics are all about, they were packed off home, not allowed to watch any of the other competitions. Understandably, those Olympics were kind of a non-event for my mother, who remembers it more as a time of frustration, disappointment, and exhaustion than anything else.

So she doesn't have, as I would if she lived with me, a neon sign, or even just a plaque on the door: "Home of Anna Schneider Bryan, Olympian 1936". But unlike Hitler, she does get it. She was there, and she competed, even if only briefly. She's right up there with Mark Spitz, with all his medals. She did her best, just like Michelle Kwan who, when she decided her injury wouldn't allow her to compete as well as she knew she could, stepped aside so that the young hopeful Emily Hughes would have a chance to compete. All those Olympians who are faint hopes for their nations, even jokes for the media of countries sending "medal hopefuls", are as much Olympians as any of the best athletes in the world.

The ones who don't get it, those who take forbidden drugs, those who pout when they don't get a medal (or their medals are the wrong color), those who gleefully accept the rulings of suborned judges -- now, those are NOT the true Olympians. The point that they don't get is that the Olympics are not there for people to win. They exist for the free exercise and demonstration of peaceful, open, honorable competition, and the celebration of excellence in all matters of sport.

I love the Olympics. My family ranges from weekend athletes to confirmed couch potatoes, but we have watched them on TV ever since US networks started showing them. We cheer the Americans and the Germans and the athletes of the host country, we cheer the great runs and performances no matter who does them, we cheer and tear up for the very last runner or skier straggling in exhausted, we ache for the athlete sidelined by accident or sudden injury. We sneer at the NHL, who refused to tweak their schedules so that the Olympians who play hockey for them could attend the opening ceremonies. We sneer at the sore losers, the cheaters, and the pompous, all those who don't understand that they are winners, they are Olympians, merely by being there. The podium is wonderful, no doubt. But all national and international competitions have podia and medals. No competition is like the Olympics. Nothing is like the Olympics.

The chance that a past, active, or wannabe Olympian is reading this is even more slight than the chance my mother had to win a medal in 1936. But I say to you who are reading this: if you were there, remember: you are for all time an example of the best humanity can be: able to strive to be the best and to strive honorably in peaceful concord. If you are learning your sport and training in hopes of going, remember: it is the achievement of being there that makes you great, not the result of your competition. Just do your best, and like Mark Spitz, Michelle Kwan, Emily Hughes, and my mother, you will be an Olympian forever.

around the rosary

2006-01-23T12:22:00.000-08:00

Before "rosary" was applied figuratively to a group of prayers, it meant, literally, a rose garden, or the part of the garden where most of the roses are. Nyah. My rosary is still in its dream stage, with the very great help of Peter Beales's books Classic Roses and Modern Roses, mostly the former. So, herewith a game of ring around the dream rosary.

First up is the Alba rose Mme. Legras de St. Germain, a very long and easily misspelled name for a delightful lady. The flowers are white with just a hint of yellow at the very center, and very fragrant. No thorns! In my dream rosary, she's at the western edge of the bed, just where the postal carrier may brush by her in passing. No catching on his (or her) clothes, she's too much of a lady, but a nice little waft of fragrance s/he won't be able to ignore.

Her handmaid is Dainty Bess, the only Hybrid Tea I'll tolerate. She's a single, i.e. has only 5 petals, a very pretty soft pink, with unusual maroon stamens. Peter Beales says "golden brown", but his books are of England and English weather. In the AARS garden in Milwaukee, WI, her stamens were definitely dark red. I've never grown Dainty Bess, but I'd like to! A tad awkward as all Hybrid Teas, but anyone would be awkward between Mme. above and ...

Tuscany Superb, whom I envision as a very dashing, sexy Italian gentleman. He's a Gallica, with very dark red semi-double blooms that turn purple, real black-violet, as they age and fall. Very fragrant as anyone nicknamed Old Velvet should be. T.S. breaks very late, the latest I've ever had the experience of, but he's well worth waiting for.

Celsiana is a Damask, which Peter Beales believes to be a subset of the Gallicas. Now, I must say I adore the gallica flower forms, and I find the damasks to be a bit untidy, or a lot untidy, in comparison. But I did grow Celsiana once, and she was lovely. Light pink, lots of fragrance of course, and in one flower one summer a second bud grew right out of the middle of the first blossom. There's a name for it, and rosarians dither between calling it a fault or a virtue. I say, the more the merrier, especially if both are lovely, as it was those many years ago.

La Belle Sultane is another Gallica, with 5 very large purplish red petals. Not a lady at all, she sprawls and throws her arms -- er, canes -- all over any of the gentlemen within reach. Hot stuff! Her blossoms can be so big and purple (like T.S., they empurple with age) they can be mistaken for Clematis Jackmanii. Fending her off to the east is ...

Baronne Prevost, a Hybrid Perpetual who would be new to me. He's ranked as the most fragrant rose in cultivation nowadays. The pix show his blossoms to be very large, full, and pink, well able to bear up under the Sultane's enthusiasm.

And nearest the street, I save the best for last, the Gallica rose Charles de Mills. I must admit that for me Tuscany Superb is like an exciting lover, but Charles is like the ideal husband, utterly reliable, faithful, and really fantastic -- a prince among roses. His blossoms are quite fragrant, as you can expect by now, and not very large but very, very full of petals -- classically quartered. A medium-dark rose with silver reverse. It balls in the rain, but oh, how delightful to stand in it afterwards and gently stroke each blossom until the outer, glued petals split apart and the blossom opens up in its fragrance and utter rose-ness. Who says gardening is all dirt?

There are other roses I'd love to grow, but there's only so much space and money. If one of these 7 fails, there's Leda, a Damask rose that opens a very untidy white with reddish tips; Salet, a very pretty pink moss rose; Rosa Mundi, Rosa gallica versicolor, striped red and white; just for starters. In this rosary there's no room for climbers, but there is room elsewhere for Alchymist, the color of whipped honey and remontant in my experience although not in Beales's; Dr. Eckener, a hybrid rugosa bicolor of yellow and pink, fragrant and with extraordinarily vicious thorns; Dortmund, Kordes's masterpiece, a single rose of fire-engine red with a white eye and glossy, utterly pest-free foliage; Applejack, an eglanteria hybrid with semi-double pink flowers and soft green apple-scented leaves; Zephirine Drouhin, a Bourbon that enjoys shade, with double rose-red flowers and a fine scent (and for some reason very available this year); I could go on for hours.

So many roses! So little space!

a charitable act

2006-01-17T13:03:00.000-08:00

One summer many years ago, I was feeling a little pinched for cash, so I signed up to deliver phone books. By this innocent act I learned what a truly selfless act was. The day was stifling. The phone books were heavy. No maps were provided, and the one I had on hand was hopelessly obsolete, I'd guess a good half of the addresses weren't on it at all. We were required to not talk to the householders, just drop off the books and go. And we were paid considerably less than minimum wage. So I achieved none of the satisfactions one might reasonably expect to attain on doing any kind of work.
- Exertion was unbearable in the hot, humid, still air, so there was no satisfaction from the physical exercise.
- Contact with other people was forbidden, so there was no chance for the satisfaction of being thanked, or even of achieving a simple "Hello".
- As I never found something like half the addresses I was to deliver to, the satisfaction of having completed a job was absent.
- The act was done on behalf of a major corporation, so there was no satisfaction in working for someone who needed the charity.
- The pay was incredibly low, so there was no satisfaction in collecting it.

Now, I authorize Oxfam to charge a small amount to my credit card every month, first to help with tsunami victims, eventually to help with some other disaster in the world. It requires no exertion on my part, except to email them to say yes, please continue. They thank me every month. They may even send a tax statement! As I need more pumping up in my self-esteem during the year, I write another little check to one or two other organizations. They get my money, and in return I have the satisfaction, with greater or less failure in humility, of obeying my religion's recommendations on almsgiving and the hope of a seat in the nosebleed section of heaven some day.

Which is the greater act of charity? The first, an exercise in futility on behalf of a corporation that neither needed nor appreciated my labor, to accommodate people who took that labor for granted, done neither for a greater good nor, as it turned out, for my own? The second, help given to the truly needy, and the warm fuzzies for the giver? For the second, I get paid in psychological and emotional coin. That's the bottom line for me: I get paid. If a miracle occurs and I get paid enough wages to donate enough money in charity every year, even the government will reward me, with a tax break.

I work for my church now; that is, I labor in return for a paycheck. My take-home pay is less this year than it was last year: my raise, the same percentage increase that everyone at work got, was not enough to cover the increase in medical insurance. The raise was figured as a percentage; the medical insurance increase was a flat amount, thereby hammering the more poorly paid. "To those who have nothing, even that little shall be taken away." Is my church striving to make my work a true act of charity? Will I work for inadequate pay for an organization that does not value my contribution? It's leaning in that direction. Will I be more holy? I will be colder in the winter, as I set my thermostat lower. If you see smoke coming out of my (nonfunctional) fireplace, you will know I'm burning my living room floor to stay warm. (Just call me Cratchit.) Not this winter, fortunately. But -- stay tuned!

who's flying this plane, anyway?

2006-01-13T07:52:00.000-08:00

Let's face it: for most people, even -- or maybe especially -- the ones who claim to put God at the center of their lives, God isn't even on the plane, let alone a member of the crew. But what exactly does this "God is my co-pilot" cliche mean?

Well, to put it baldly, the co-pilot doesn't fly the plane: the pilot does. What the co-pilot does is help the pilot fly the plane. He or she does what the pilot tells him/her, and once the plane's at cruising altitude and on auto-pilot, if the pilot wants to take a nap, the co-pilot keeps an eye on the instruments. If the plane flies into trouble, the co-pilot's job is to (wake and) tell the pilot. The pilot is the one who decides what to do and then he/she tells the co-pilot what part of that the co-pilot is to do. The co-pilot obeys or he/she starts reading the employment ads. The only time the co-pilot's actually in charge is if the pilot's incapacitated.

Which is, admittedly, a very accurate description of the relationship most of us have with God, assuming God's on the plane at all, like I said. But is it something to boast about, to say to the world, "I tell God how I want god to improve my life, and by God, god'd better obey because I'm the pilot here"?

If pilot and co-pilot fly together frequently, they may, and I hope do, develop a close working relationship and the pilot may give the co-pilot greater responsibilities. But if the worst happens and they drill a hole in the ground, you'll never hear the FAA talking about "co-pilot error": no, it's the pilot's responsibility entirely to keep the plane in one piece.

Of course what other people plaster to their bumpers, what they mean by it, and whether they pay any attention to it, is their own business. I can take advantage of that cliche and reflect on God's and my relationships with my plane. Is God on my plane? Is god on my planet, for that matter? Do I insist on hogging the pilot's seat, or am I God's co-pilot? Am I on the crew or just a passenger in my own life, and is God merely my stewardess?

Note on pronouns: As they say, God isn't a great big invisible man: god is beyond gender. However, English doesn't have a pronoun that can denote a person who is beyond gender. "It" denies personhood. "He" and "him" are the traditional pronouns, but in actuality they are no more or less correct than "she" and "her"; and there are folks out there who feel desperately threatened by the use of the feminine pronouns to refer to ordinary people, let alone to God! There is the Gullah "shem", but that properly means "he or she, I can't tell from here"; i.e., the person does have gender, the speaker just can't specify at this point. So "shem" would have to undergo an expansion of meaning. So, and I'm not the first, I've started using "god" (note: lower case!) as the only useable pronoun for God. You might have seen other people use "godself" when referring to God, instead of "himself" or "herself". A little back-formation results in "god" substituting for the incorrect "he" and "she", and also substituting for the incorrect "him" and "her".

You don't like it? That's okay with me: you're welcome to come up with your own pronouns. And, of course, to reflect on who's flying your plane.

a pair of young ladies

2006-01-11T06:49:00.000-08:00

Blossom is my dearie dear, who took care of me when I needed it most. Her official birthday is Oct. 4, and by that reckoning she's a bit over 5 years old. She's a most lovely tortie-siamese mix, with the tortie fur coloration muted by that creamy siamese coat color. She also has slightly scrambled points: they are cut diamond-wise across her face, in a sort of harlequin design. She's multiple shades of gray and cream, with touches of peach-pink. With a house set at 60 F for the winter, she has grown a very thick, fluffy coat, longer than the typical siamese and very plush. She's small (8.5 lbs) with extremely large dark blue eyes, the round "apple" head of the old-style siamese, well-placed ears, and the short, chunky body of a true tortie. I call her my teddy-bear cat because she's so extraordinarily cuddly. Oh, yes, gray nose, pink toes. Blossom's full name, and she's earned every one of them, is Princess Molly Apple Blossom Mombiter. Her favorite toys involve feathers. She's good at being a slug: her two favorite activities are sleeping and rolling around rumpling up sheets and quilts. She has sheepdog genes and practices the craft on my ankles.

Pixillia N. Sillia Mischief Sunshine Wavingtail, aka Pixie, is just under two years old (official birthday: Apr. 4). She's an American Shorthair, i.e. a commoner, as Blossom takes care to remind us. Very soft white fur with islands of coarser black, gray, and reddish striped fur. She's a star on kittenwars.com: just type in "Pixie" and scroll down until you see 2 identical thumbnails: they're both her! I don't know who put the first photo in. She has very long, thin bones, and enough tail for two cats, but she's only 8.2 lbs so officially smaller than Blossom. When she joined the household as a kitten, her eyes were a rather nasty yellowish green, but as she's matured they've changed to a very clear sparkling peridot. Pink nose, gray toes! As you may guess from her name, she's a very friendly, cheerful, perky little girl, always ready for a nose rub and enjoys being carried around. Nicknames include Imp-fant and Get Away From That! Pixie loves all toys but especially ones that jingle or that move by themselves, like bugs and mom's feet. All grown up now physically, she's still pretty near 100% kitten on the inside. Her two favorite activities include exploring cupboards and leaping up onto high shelves that hold fragile objects.

Pixie also likes to pounce on things and people, and Her Royal Highness seriously disapproves of that sort of thing, but just last night I spotted them curled up, snoozing, almost within touching distance. HRH woke up and glared at Pixie for a moment before removing herself from the contagion, but I have hopes that they'll end up being buds, especially once Pixie enters slugdom.

into the garden

2006-01-09T07:51:00.000-08:00

My little bit of property is a 50x150' lot. The house and carport take up about 30x40' of it, which leaves a front yard about 45x50' and a back yard about 65x50'. The back yard also has a little bit of a slope partway down, with flat areas right behind the house and at the back end of the property. Alongside the house, on the N side, there's only about 5' off the boundary, and 15' on the S side, much taken up with paths. The back yard is fenced.

Yesterday being sunny (sunny garden, rainy quilt, ya know), I raked some leaves away from the house. I should point out that gardening mavens are saying that one needn't rake all the leaves off the grass in the fall, or rather, it depends what your leaves are. Most of mine have been maple leaves, which will decompose over the winter. Therefore it's good for the lawn to leave the leaves on it. As I raked yesterday I saw some leaves with little pinholes all over, spaced with machine-like precision. So I'm happy to take the mavens' word for it. Oak, btw, takes a lot longer to decompose, so if you have oak leaves, you'd better rake. My neighbors have oak leaves, which mean there are oak leaves among my maples, so it's really inertia and not obedience that keeps the leaves on the lawn most of the winter.

I raked the leaves off the flower bed nearest the house, in the front, plus a 4-foot space from the front door to the driveway, in order to lay pavers for a sidewalk. Now, I already have a sidewalk. It runs from the front door straight toward the street -- but it stops cold about 10' away from the street. That is, it goes nowhere. I had all kinds of elaborate plans for it, but they all take money, which I don't have. Yesterday's, and today's, plan is that I lay a new sidewalk myself from the front door to the driveway, and that I use the old sidewalk as a border for my future rose bed, and scatter attractive pots along it and plant annuals & maybe a veg or two, in a most artfully casual and fetching way. Now, to paraphrase the song "There Was an Old Lady", I raked the leaves to expose the grass, I exposed the grass to lay the pavers, I laid the pavers to make the sidewalk -- along which the postman can walk. So I laid 20 pavers, but I didn't dig out the sod like I was supposed to: I just laid the pavers right on top of the grass. So? I have moles. They'll cause the pavers to subside into the lawn very nicely. You should see what they did to the patio in the back yard! My next task is to buy more pavers, 58 in all, to make a 20x3.5' walk, a herringbone basketweave sidewalk with little triangular edges in which I can grow thyme, creeping jenny, clover, and suchlike. And next winter I can shovel this sidewalk instead of the grass, so the postman doesn't slip and break something and the USPS collects alot more from me than 39c per letter.

The maple tree, btw, is toast: it was badly damaged in a snow storm in Nov. 2004, and rather than pay big bucks to prune out the damage then, and then big bucks in a few years to cut it down altogether in pursuit of my 30-year garden plan, I paid the big bucks to cut it down this fall. Not soon enough to keep the leaves from piling up. Next year I'll have only oak leaves and then I'll have to get off the couch and rake them up. Meanwhile, I plan to put a Cladrastis kentukea (American yellowwood, native to NW Missouri) in the middle of the front yard, clear of power lines, sidewalks, and maple roots; and a witch hazel, a spring-blooming variety, right next to the front door in front of the chimney bricks that go all the way down to the ground. IMO that'll make a pretty picture, golden-yellow and/or orangey flowers blooming against all that red brick. The bed already has daylilies & irises and I plan to put in more, plus roses (Alchymist and Applejack, if you must know), asters, and crawlies like the creeping jenny, wild violets, thyme, etc. But this spring it's only the 2 trees, and annual seeds broadcast with wild abandon, to duke it out with weeds.

quilt idea percolating

2006-01-04T13:34:00.000-08:00

The current idea is a bargello quilt, with an island dotted with fussy-cut stars. The island is a mottled white fabric. Fabrics north of the island are 6 yellow, orange, and red fabrics, from v dark red calico to white with orange and purple thread-like squiggles. Includes a neon-bright yellow/red floral batik, a v pretty pink/sage/cream/white v busy rose floral, and a mottled pink/yellow. Fabrics south of the island are 6 green/tan/blue fabrics, from v dark blue batik with dime-sized golden blobs to an art deco pale pink poppy floral, with blue-sage leaves and off-white bkdg. Includes a gorgeous cobalt, turquoise, nile green, and goldy tan print of, of all things, grasshoppers, butterflies, moths, scorpions, leaves, and wheat ears; a blue/orange v busy butterfly print; and a v ugly acid green & acid pink batik. Truly blech but if I leave it out the fabric sequence is seriously blah. So it's in. Just don't ask me to wear it.

Stranded in the island will be, I hope, fussy-cut stars. At least one will overlap onto the border somewhere. All the conventionally patterned fabrics would make interesting f-c stars, esp the bug fabric focussing on the wheat ears.

The whole package sounds like it'll have a lot of zing, but if I use pastels for the f-c stars, it'll be more restful. The f-c stars will pull most of the attention away from the brighter fabrics.

The border's a problem. Bargello's a busy pattern, f-c stars ditto, but I do not want to slap some strips around it and call it done. Ricky Tim's style (Convergence whatsit) looks like a possibility, but I don't want to buy his book to find out how he does it and then create my own version. (No money.) Also whatever I choose should, at this stage, go nicely with f-c stars crossing the boundary btw the medallion and the border. And if I go f-c crazy, the border should be compatible with more f-c stars scattered here & there.

Today's title for this quilt is "Doppler Shift," which should be obvious, but not as obvious as "Milky Way," which I blush to admit I considered for all of about 18 seconds.

And -- I'll get started on it right away! I mean, as soon as the quilt back for "Refractions" is done, and I've got exchange blocks to make, not to mention laying a sidewalk and feeding the cats. Oh, and work, too.