...I Could Teach You A Really Cool Dance - It Goes A Little Bitta This, A Little Bitta That....

I only have to share this link and a really cool cd I am listening to. Oh -- and I hope all of you had a completely amazing holiday. :)

First, the link. I love clever satire almost as much as I love eating fistfuls of skittles to alleviate the stress of watching the world economy squeal like Ned Beatty in "Deliverance". Satire, to me, is at least on the par with "dancing like an uncoordinated cracker in my underwear like you just don't care" mixed with a little "saucy 'tude"™ which I have all the time, in spades.

...

Wow, I digress a lot. Sorry. So at this site 23/6, they provide just the tasty snark I love. Did you know there are, for example, vids now of the "Get Your War On" comics? You did? Oh. Well....I'm not hip. I need to have this kind of crap pointed out to me. Never the trendsetter. Here is the link, prepare yourself for lolz:

23/6: Control Your Evil Urges With the 23/6 Virginity Pledge-a-Tron!


As for the aforementioned killer cd, I am referring to the Charlie Hunter Quartet's "Songs from the Analog Playground". Jazz, zydeco, salsa, little soul and cool guests on it, too. Very cool cd. Might impress the opposite sex. Just sayin'. ;)



Current Music: Charlie Hunter Quartet w/ Norah Jones -- cover of Brian Ferry's "More Than This".

Currently Reading: "Storm Front" by Jim Butcher (Dresden Files, Book One.) Re-reading it. Awesome series.

Why I Hate the Phrase "See Ya When I See Ya!": Only Jerkoffs Talk Like That.

Oh, and if I don't make another post before then, please note that I extend holiday greetings and christmas cheer to all in the form of "lolz":


Please Note: If you are unaware of why this is funny and the historical context, George Washington and troops on Christmas in 1776, crossed the Delaware and launched a surprise attack against the Hessian mercenary forces in what become known as the Battle of Trenton during the American Revolution.

;)

You know what this means? The next time someone tries to bore you to tears acting like there's a biiiig controversy about what to call the winter holidays, you can look at them straight in the face and tell them deadpan that you're not celebrating Christmas per se, you are sacrificing a tree (or lighting a Menorah) and gift-giving in honor of the ass-kicking George Washington served the Hessians in the Battle of Trenton on Christmas in 1776. Viva La Revolución!

Screw controversy. I want cheer, goodwill, gift-giving and to eat so much food I consider investing in a vomitorium ala ancient Rome. Call it whatever you want. Just don't try to hone in on my mounding plate of stuffing, hoss.

Current Music: Kronos String Quartet - "Purple Haze".

Stir Crazy.

I can't even remember right now when exactly the snow first showed up, but at this point it's less like Dean Martin's beloved "Marshmallow World" and more like "Three Unkind Words, Ten Seconds and a Dry Meatloaf Away From a Bloodbath That None Will Survive". The point where the snow is novel and interesting has long since passed for us here in the Sky Valley and now we've reached the point where there is no law except the law of snow.

I saw a guy driving down the middle of the road with his window open and a beer in his hand. You can no longer tell the homeless people from the norms. THIS, my friends, is the Law of Snow. It's like Thunderdome ala "Mad Max" meets "Insomnia" and "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation".

In the epic words of Eddie from the aforementioned film, "Sh*tter's full!" That should be our new motto in our quest to just stay sane right now.

Me, I'm hanging in there. I was trying very hard to read "High Fidelity" by Nick Hornby and drink coffee, but I'm not the only one here getting stir crazy. I realize that other people cope differently than I do and they don't know they've told me that story five times in the week we've been cooped up together and OH, SWEET ODIN'S EYE -- MAKE THE WHITE MENACE END!

...

I'm cool. I'm fine. Really. Phew! Just...blowin' off steam. Oh, and all this endless time trapped inside my house has given me plenty of time to finish inane creative projects of mine. Such as making Midge the Merciless pug of doom a glorious new shirt. Don't look at me like that. It isn't "crazy", okay?



Pugs with their tiny squished noses and paws cannot regulate temperature or pant like other dogs can. She needs the extra warmth. So, ha. Don't knock it until you try it, you smug, equally snowed-in person.

No, that's MY coffee, lap dog!

Current Music: Modest Mouse - "The Good Times Are Killing Me".

Nothing Can Go Wrong.

My ear drum has burst like an overripe bratwurst sausage. I have hives and have been medicated to nearly hallucinatory levels for about a solid month and I have to wonder if it's A) advisable and B) risking permanent spaciness, thus endangering my ability to blend in with the lot of you here in the Sky Valley. Hi-de-ho, neighbor!

Oh and there is 100% chance of snow and lots of it, so says NOAA.

On the other hand, at this point things are so brilliantly skewed, that NOTHING can go wrong! The only way down is up!*


Current Music: The Jesus & Mary Chain - "Just Like Honey".
Current Read: Charlaine Harris' "Definitely Dead".


*Could be the medication talking.

...and then she forgot to update.

Yeaaaah, so...I'm bad. I know. I don't call, I don't write...next thing you know, I haven't updated this thing or remembered it existed for months.

My only excuse is that the sun finally did come out, so I was thoroughly distracted with plant life. It's funny - ever since a Lowe's opened up and expanded my nursery shopping stops to 3 in number, I've been practically frothing in ecstasy from a horticultural perspective, of course. (If I did that literally, they might ban me from the store. Suffice it to say that one discreet drool cup should keep the workers there from catching onto the fact that you're a plant junkie, just in for "one more fix", shopping in a black-out haze where two days later you'll realize you brought home some bizarre daisy thingie on discount and it looks like alien fingers on its petals. Hahaha. Ha. Ha...)

At this moment, I'm trying to get my image manipulation program to behave so that I can at least post some choice pictures for you all. (All three of you all. Err...) It kept crashing. Oh! Here we go.

So clearly, it's been a long time since I've both updated AND cleared out my digital camera. Wince! Okay, this is the bed known as "the rockery" (one side of it, anyways), chock full of tulips, verbena, hydrangea, rosemary, Japanese maples, black mondo grass, roses, a magnolia...lots and lots of plants are in there. Especially right now, a few months after this pic was taken. Like I said. Blame nursery stores and my torrid plant addiction.

The best part of these pics is that they come with a very special guarantee. I "guarantee" that if I can grow it and keep it alive in this Northwest weather that keeps getting more bizarre each year, then so can you! Trust me when I say that I'm not Super Gardener. You do not need advanced degrees or hyper-attentive work to grow the things I do. I tell people that I garden under the Darwinian principle of "survival of the fittest" - all plants that fail to meet or exceed expectations are savagely ripped from their beds and displayed before its peers in a threatening manner (in hindsight, this may not be what Darwin was thinking of and more of a Rambo principle of gardening). Too much attention to your plants may indeed spoil them - I once had about 50 roses and took great pains to meet their needs and they still died. Never again will I be fooled into thinking that tough love with your garden isn't a better idea. It must be working, too, because frankly most of them don't have the balls to die on my watch.


Here's two of the back garden beds, also known as the "geometric beds". You can't see this effect due to my vigilant weed-eating of the area around the edging just the other day, but I assure you that they are shapely and attractive. This is a garden bed that mixes up the common area into multi-functional uses, which I discovered last year make it look even more attractive. There's a plum/apple franken-tree (trees grafted together that are two different trees is so Mary Shelley that I can't think of what else to refer to it as), Lily of the Nile, Spanish Lavender, two kinds of cabbage, Alyssum, three roses, assorted Asiatic lilies, two mini hydrangeas, a peony, Salvia, pansies and more. This bed is easy to care for and the local birds love the area. That reminds me. I need to put a suet cake or at least some seed out there for them. I give a 50/50 chance that I'll remember that.

Gah! I'll have to post more photos later. The one I'm using needs to be strangled and thrown to the place where bad computer programs go when they die. Tired of it crashing on me. Have a good day, everyone.

Gardener Blues: Is Winter Over Yet??

Okay, so the extended winter season may be getting you a little down. I know I am - I've had to postpone planting my seedling starters due to snow flurries where I'm at. So, what can be done? Other than the mediocre tedium of de-weeding garden beds, that is.

Start seedlings indoors, is my advice. The bright side of this is that you can get a head start on your annual and perennials while also giving you the opportunity to watch something -- by god -- grow, rather than start considering re-enacting scenes from Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" after seeing one too many grey skies.

Here's a pic of some of my starters. I really recommend those cheesy mini-greenhouse starter kits. They're reusable and consider it an investment in your sanity if you cannot excuse it any other way.


As you can see, I've gone with a labeling system which, while resourceful, isn't terribly attractive by any means. Scrawling each starter's plant type in Sharpie marker on duct tape may not be for everyone. ;-)

Also of note, I've seen some very interesting birds around the feeders lately. Just yesterday, we spotted a Red-Winged Blackbird, but of course it flew off before I could retrieve my camera. No matter - I've found a picture of one online so you know what I'm speaking of, assuming you're as novice at birding as I am.


Keep sane, fellow gardeners. Spring has to come eventually......right?

The Mystery of the Disapproving Garden Visitor.

At first, I thought it was my imagination.

My new garden bed, which I'm building upon in stages, with its carefully laid-out and planned organization...has had some changes. I have, for instance, a row of Sweet Peas in front of the Magnolia. Pristine, orderly. Until I noticed that one of the fledgling plants had been moved and a mound of dirt was piled up where it once was.

I laughed that off, of course. Put it back.

The next day, it was placed back in the out-of-synch place I'd found it in before. After the third time this happened, I simply let it stay there and made sure it was more firmly buried. It hasn't been shifted about since.

Other weird things, too. Like a bud snipped off and placed near its plant. A leaf growth likewise pruned and placed near where it belongs.

I'd blame deer by default, but the problem is that I know that when our local deer come 'round to forage, they operate on a scorched-earth policy. Even plants that are decidedly poisonous to eat can and will be eaten by the deer out here. Now, if everything were eaten down to nubs, that would be no mystery. But this? This is like some bloody brownie has come in the bed, turned its elfish nose up at my sweet peas and done little changes.

Don't worry if you think I'm gone mad - some loopy gardener that no doubt speaks to cats. I really do not blame you.

Today, there were some tracks or something in the dirt. I tried to take a picture, but you still can't make it out much. Behold, the bemusing mystery of the midnight garden critic I'm encountering:


The tracks, though relatively unclear (my apologies) are the darker indents in the mulch. Who knows? It is, however, funny to me, so I thought I would share it.

Also - look who is fully blooming at last!

Waiting For Blue Skies and Watching the Robins...

A strange cat has recently decided to live on our porch. It's very sweet, albeit I suspect it has mange. Oh and also, when it yowls at us (which is every time anyone steps outside), it has the kind of voice which sounds like it's been chain-smoking, drinking low-grade bourbon and singing cabaret in seedy bars for 40 years. Oh, if only I were being entirely facetious here.

Anyways, today's share for you all is the Pasque Flower specimen I have growing in the newest garden bed (along with a Magnolia, Grape Hyacinth, Dwarf Tulips, Heather, Dusty Miller, Dahlia, Sweet Pea, red Asiatic Lily and Bachelor's Buttons). Right now, the bed looks spartan and thin, but come summer it will be a lot more abundant. I also plan on adding the Alyssium seedlings I've started up indoors and the Lobellia, maybe some Oriental Poppy.

We'll see how it turns out. In the meantime, I have a ton of starter seedlings in mini-greenhouses, need to till up the old harvest from last year and plant a ton of things after March 20th, the slated time slot for last frost of the season.

Fresh Beginnings with a High Chance of Rain.

And lots of it, at that.

I had intended to sneak outside and take new photographs of the plants, trees and garden beds gracing the yard only to be -- alas -- stopped by monsoon-like weather conditions.

I did manage to upload a few photos just now, however, from earlier explorations this week. I'm far too excited by the first hints of spring. Enjoy.

The picture above is one of our potted plant arrangements. The center is taken up by a Hellebore, which I highly recommend for an easy-care Northwest shade garden plant. At the front and to the left is a Dusty Miller and to the front-right is a Primrose.

Here's some early spring-time action in one of the front garden beds: Lily of the Nile, Narcissus, Pansy, a
thick and thorny stalk of our climbing rose "New Dawn" and a barely-visible grape vine.