wacky, weird, and wonderful

Today's post is going to be kind of a hodge-podge. Once again I have a little blog housekeeping to do, so I'm going to just throw all the miscellania together in one post. (Is miscellania a word - and if not, why not? I kind of like it! And if it were a word, is this how you think you would spell it?)

First, look what I got in the mail this week - more blogger seeds!! Jean at "Ms Green Thumb Jean" sent me some foxglove seeds - and a seed pod from her trumpet vine! Thanks, Jean - I am totally excited to see how these do next year.

Next, Lynne at "Lynne's Little Corner of the World" said awhile ago that she'd like to see our 'Vette. Mark and I were born the same year, and in honor of our turning 40, we bought a Corvette. Our first one was a '79 Stingray - black with red interior - a gorgeous little classic. We had it, I think, two years before we totalled it. No one was hurt - but the car did not come back home with us. The good news was we about doubled our money in that two years - cars as investments: what a hoot! With that little windfall, we moved up to an '84. We have totally loved this car, but we're finding that we drive it less and less each year, and we're thinking it may be time to let someone else have fun with it. I'll keep you posted. Today it was washed and sent to the storage garage for the winter. The best part of having summer toys is bringing them out in the spring - it's like having a brand new toy each year. But it is incredibly sad to put them away each fall.

These are from my scarlet runner beans. I have a question - will these reseed on their own this winter? I've never done scarlet runner beans before. I'm going to save some of the pods so I can start new ones next year, but I'm wondering if there's a chance they'll come back next spring. I have grapevine growing on the fence along our neighbor's cement wall, and I planted two runner bean plants there. They grew up into the grapevine - it was really cool because the grapevine is nice and thick, and the runner beans added wonderful little red-orange flowers everywhere. I got a lot of comments on these over the summer.

Today I emptied out my window box planters on the fence by the patio. I had some sweet potato vine in the planters - and I found this HUGE potato growing in one planter!!! This is a normal-size shovel. I have never had this happen before. It has both Mark and me laughing.

NOTE: Peter Hoh just left a comment about another sweet potato posted at http://martagon.blogspot.com/2007/10/avert-your-eyes.html

Check it out - it is too funny!

I cut down my dahlias today and dug out the tubers. They look really good, so hopefully they'll grow again next year. This is the biggest stalk I had - that's a quarter beside it. Are dahlias related to the bamboo family? This stalk looks like bamboo to me.

And finally, I just had to show you the high score I got playing Bejeweled 2 last week. It took me about a month to finally break 600,000 after getting into the 500's. I play one or two games maybe 3 or 4 times a week - major time waster, but also totally addicting!

The last couple days have been pretty productive. Mark stained the shed yesterday - and I just realized I didn't pull a photo of that - so something to look for tomorrow!! It came out really nice. I planted all of my tulips - dug up dahlias - and cleaned up the last of the containers. I shredded the last of the leaves and drained most of the hoses after Mark pulled the lake pump out. I still have compost to move, and I need to cover some things like the fountain and wood pile with tarps. But we are getting very close. I feel like I need a vacation!

too much work evidently

Good grief - September 5th already! I am running as fast as I can and still falling behind. I am very behind in checking in with friends' blogs - sorry! I'll be there soon.

I want to thank all of you for the nice comments about my first video. It was fun to do - and hopefully future ones will be more polished!! Thanks for the encouragement!


I'll just take a minute and catch you up on some of my current projects. First, Zoey at Perennial Passion sent me a seed packet. I think this is so fun. Next year I'm planning to collect seeds and share too. She sent the cute seed packet above and an information sheet. I've never grown rose campion, so this will be fun. I think I have a couple perfect places picked out in the gardens. I can't wait until they come up next year. Thanks, Zoey - I loved getting the seeds and the packet you made!



I've been busy weeding gardens and think they are all finally done. So no doubt I can plan to start all over again in a couple days. Weeding is a never-ending chore in my gardens. I still have several areas that need mulch added - another big chore. I'm also hoping to get some cooler weather to move some things around - something I seem to do every year! My neighbor has some beautiful dark coral daylilies that I'm going to divide and add to my garden. And I want to put the Knockout rose in the ground (it's in a half-barrel planter in the driveway now). And I'm pretty sure I'll find several varieties of tulips etc that will have to go in this fall too. I think I'm going to be busy for awhile yet!


This is my hibiscus that was supposed to be a pale yellow. Still looking pretty white - but I see in the photo that the camera picked up both a little yellow and a little red - cool! The center of the hibiscus and the rose are very similar in color.

This is an iron table and chair that was on Craig's list. Mark ran over and picked it up yesterday while I was at my French class. It's child-size - which was a surprise - but way cool. I think I will probably end up putting it in a garden and let the flowers grow up around it. In the bottom photo you can see that it's quite a bit smaller than my "normal" size table and chairs on the patio. (Well, actually, it doesn't look all that much smaller does it? Hmmm...guess you'll have to trust me on this one.)

I also read an interesting article the other day about butterflies. In my previous post I referred to the caterpillar and the cocoon for the Eastern Black Swallowtails. In fact, moths come from cocoons. Butterflies come from chrysalids. I had thought that chrysalis referred to the process. It's good to learn something new!

Also, I wanted to share how my French teacher, Nadine, prepares her tomatoes to put in the freezer. She washes them. Then she puts the whole tomatoes in large freezer bags. When she wants to use the tomatoes, she removes as many as she needs from the bag - puts them under running water - which removes the skin with no further effort on her part. I'm not sure I have the freezer space to do this - my little bags of roasted tomatoes lay nice and flat in the freezer. But it sure sounds easy!! And it would be much nicer to roast the tomatoes for an hour in the winter before I make soup or lasagna than to heat up the kitchen in the summer. Thought I would pass it on to anyone who might be interested.

Note: my mom just left a tip in the comments section - she does the same as Nadine, but quarters the tomatoes instead of leaving them whole - so they fit into limited space better. Thanks Mom!! I still want the roasted taste when I add them to our meals, but it would be easy (with a little planning!) to do that before you use them with either the whole or quartered tomatoes.

blogger seeds

A while ago, Chris & Laurie at "Miss Flower," offered seeds from their garden to anyone who would like some. Today I received a delightful package from them!


This was the note card - a photo of theirs - what a gorgeous butterfly. And inside were the cutest seed packets I've ever seen! Thank you so much, Chris & Laurie! I love them - both the seeds and the beautiful way you packaged them up. Very fun!

Today was an outdoor day for me. Both Tristi and Beth had recently inquired how much time I put in each day to keep my gardens up. I blithely said, oh just deadheading and pulling the occasional weed during these hot summer months. Yeah, well, that is definitely catching up with me now! The gardens look like quack grass city. And I have some weird ground cover weed threatening to take over every other inch of dirt. So this morning I spent about two hours cleaning up the two lakeshore gardens. They look much better. I'll try to get some fresh mulch on them tomorrow or Thursday, and then move on to another space. My summer vacation is over!

On a happier note, we just returned from kayaking. It was beautiful out there. I am definitely hooked!

I went out Sunday night at midnight to catch the Perseids. I saw 5 gorgeous shooting stars in 1 1/2 hours. At 1:30, I decided I was too tired and came in and went to bed. Five is better than none, but kind of disappointing just the same.