2009 Garden

This is a blossom on the butterfly bush. The flowers are really a little bluer. I love the orange center with the light purple. And I wish you could smell these flowers...So sweet!

I've heard a lot about "square foot gardening" this year. You make small manageable 1 foot square plots and plant them with different seeds. We are looking forward to next year's season and we are going to plant vegetables in each of these tubs that we had left after April and Zach's wedding. Ed started to rearrange some plantings that we already had there and found a large bone in one of the tubs.

This is Jabez with her bone.

When my mom was here in July, we made chokecherry jelly from the trees in my yard. That really gave me incentive to make more jam. I made plum jam, and plum/pineapple jam.

We planted two Asian Pear trees last year (2008) in the Spring. This year they set fruit which was a surprize to us. They are sweet, crisp, and juicy!

This tree had to be propped up because the fruit is too heavy for the thin branches. Below is an experiment. We planted fennel seeds. I have a lot of recipes that call for fennel bulbs. I know you can get them at the store, but these are easily grown.

Last Fling of the Summer

These are out of sequence, but I wanted to have one picture showing that the firewood I tried to pick up was "too much attached"!

Fly fisherman, Ed and his gear, which includes a custom made fish net that my son Paul and I gave Ed for Xmas last year.

Well, Ed and Jabez (dog) and I went camping this weekend for one last fling of the summer. Ed needed to get in some premium float tube time. This photo was to show the lake we stayed near, and the many mountain ranges behind it.

Jabez and I wandered the hillsides exploring. There are many tall, bare trees where we go camping, and also many mossy covered trees.


The fall colors were out, as well as the usual summer annuals, mostly lupine.

There is a dragonfly in the center of this shot, but I was really interested in the pattern of light in the water.

Here is Jabez content. She had at least 5 walks a day!

This is what one looks like after fly fishing!

The danger of mistaking a cooking aid for bug repellant is shown here. After a while we just got used to saying things like, "Are the eggs sticking to the pan? Just put a little bug spray on it!

We were on top of the world. We were at the crests of all the mountains. It was a beautiful weekend.

The lake, as viewed from our camp spot.

I am getting pieces ready for the 1000 Springs art festival the last weekend in September. The process starts with making slabs of clay and texturing them. Then shapes are cut from patterns that are made from plastic containers.


The cut shapes are made three dimensional by joining the sides. For these conical shapes, a circle was cut, then in half. Joining the sides gives the pieces strength to stand up. In this position the pieces can dry a little before putting two pieces together.


When the pieces are pretty firm, but not quite "leather hard," I cut a hole in the top and bottom of each piece, and I adjust the top and bottom where it was cut, to make it level so the pieces will stack straight.

When the pieces are dry, they are loaded into the kiln. The purple flower you see is a white clay that has a lavender underglaze on it.


These pieces have been bisque fired already. The final phase is glazing the pieces and putting them in the kiln for the final fire. Then the pieces will be packed up and set up at the art fest in September!

Corn Tomato Salsa

This is a recipe that I found in the newspaper. It is a recipe for corn and tomato salsa and is really good. I hope you can click on the image to see it better. If you don't have a grill going, you can by pass the roasting of the corn and tomatoes. What I did is cut the corn off the cob, and stir it in a skillet with olive oil. Then I added the other ingredients. I used scallions instead of an onion.

My mom was here for April and Zach's wedding, and we made choke cherry jam. It was good! Today I made a very small batch of apricot, pineapple, cantalope jam. I put all the fruit in the food processor and added about 3.5 cups of sugar, because I had about 5 cups of blended fruit. It is so good! I hope you are inspired!

Chinook: Information from Answers.com

Chinook: Information from Answers.com

Shared via AddThis

We just watched the movie "The truth about cats and dogs" We thought the dog looked just like Jabez, only 20 lbs heavier/bigger. We went on line to find a breed like Jabez. Here is what we found!

This summer flower has tiny purple blossoms and wide thick leaves. I'm not sure what it is called but it reminds me of a lavender straw flower, but those are actually much different.
Yes, you can see one moon vine (weed) blossom. Nothing kills those!


Summer flowers in the perennial garden -bove, Gloriosa daisies
below hardy hibiscus



What is faster than a hummingbird? watch the video and imagine a hummingbird trying to feed on the trumpet vine. We sat outside and watched the high, dark clouds in the sky two nights ago. We have been having hot dry weather with heat lightening. There are several grass fires around as a result of lightening strikes.

Jabez is my camera shy dog. It is hard to get a picture of her!