Along with everything else, for this morning’s respite:
If I had enough space, I would have tree peonies everywhere! Except it would be sad to do that, because they last such a short amount of time, and it always seems like we get a hard rain and the blooms are destroyed. I may have to rig up some sort of umbrella this spring to protect them when the inevitable rain comes the day after the blooms open!
The tree peonies are all from the same plant. The blooms seem to open all at once – there’s none of this a few blooms open at a time stuff.
The darker pink peony cost me $4 at an “it’s the end of the season and these perennials are all very sad so please buy them at this ridiculously low price” sale one year.
The tag didn’t say what color it was, how big it would get, or anything. In fact, I’m pretty sure there was no tag at all. But how can you go wrong for $4?
***********
A gardening philosophy after my own heart!
Already starting to get Spring 2020 catalogs in the (snail) mail, and trying to resist their charms. Got a few perennials reserved from last Fall already, and I really want to concentrate on digging up & replanting all my irises and daylilies, because they need it badly. (Especially the raised bed where the species irises have out-competed the expensive named hemerocallis.)
What’s going on in your garden (planning), this week?
sab
What is that white critter behind the dark pink peonies in the second picture? I am guessing a cat.
Jay
Anne Laurie
@Jay: Yes, that was the lead on my Saturday morning post, Mr. Sunshine.
Jay
@Anne Laurie:
some things really, really need to be repeated ad nauseum.
one of the KKKonservative Brain Trust KKKids twitted out that “inherited wealth” doesn’t last.
one of the twitter responses pointed out that of the top 20 Genoa wealth rankings in 1492,
19 were still in the top 20 wealth rankings in 2019.
Jay
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/dec/27/australias-environment-minister-says-up-to-30-of-koalas-killed-in-nsw-mid-north-coast-fires
Jay
Jay
JPL
The flowers are beautiful.
Anne Laurie
@Jay: You know, there’s a warning going around that Repubs and other Russian sock-puppets are relentlessly tweeting bad news, with the intent of discouraging decent people from voting.
Don’t be so relentless as to be mistaken for one of those bots, okay?
Jay
@Anne Laurie:
sorry that I am getting you “down”. There is tons of “news” that ain’t Doltus, not Im Peach Mint, not American,
somebody reposted earlier today that millions of real people are getting hurt, killed, everyday, by this “Administrations” actions and inactions,
it ain’t a reality TV show.
that Gwen Snider is Uncivil is finding it hard to hunt Nazis, because so many anti facists are taking them down in real time,
thats a good thing,
Epic Institution fail, however,
Amir Khalid
@Jay:
There is a kind of Balloon Juice post where we take a break from lamenting the ills of the world, and look at pretty flowers, beautiful scenery, animals we love, and dishes we savour. These posts are a much-needed respite from the usual kind.
Do you have nice pictures of pretty flowers to share, perhaps on Instagram? Or at least nice things to say about the flowers we see here?
Jay
Jay
@Amir Khalid:
BJ dogma is that all threads are open threads.
Do you have a photo/tictock/instagram thread of your retuning of Baby?
Do you have any idea how misogynist your naming Baby is?
Baud
@Jay:
For the record, many of the tweets you’re reposting are not “news.” They’re just opinion and commentary.
Jay
@Baud:
for the record, if you actually open them, ( it’s like reading the links, you know how that works, right?) they lead to other places, like Uttar Pradesh, Little Houses, places that arn’t opinion, but facts and reality,
not really relevant in TrumpAmerica these days.
so 2014 Home Alone II.
Baud
@Jay:
Great! But that doesn’t mean that you are posting news for our benefit. You could do the work and follow the links to post the underlying news. But that’s not what you’re doing.
I’ll leave it to AL to decide whether the Sunday Garden thread should formally be declared a respite thread.
Amir Khalid
@Jay:
There is really no such thing as BJ dogma, only an evolving tacit etiquette around certain things like respite threads.
I doubt anyone would really care to see a picture of a guitar in Keef tuning. Aside from the missing string, it looks the same as a guitar in regular tuning.
My Squier Affinity Telecaster is named The Girl, not Baby. There is nothing misogynistic about that name — unless you somehow think the word “girl” is itself misogynistic — or the names of my other guitars: Sister, Lady, Missy, and Queen.
Jay
@Baud:
I keep the “news” out of the pet threads.
There is this feature called pie.
It blocks posters you don’t want to read like the Rage Uncles.
You can also scroll, for example the “Ask Watergirl” stuff where the “technically challenged” still don’t get something after the 45th explination,
Pretty sure however, that it’s early am, and you are just picking a fight out of boredom.
Jay
@Amir Khalid:
yeah, that’s all very misogynistic. Seek therapy.
frosty
@Anne Laurie: Thank you!
Jay
@Amir Khalid:
yeah, that’s all very mysoginistic, seek therapy.
I have a bunch of hammers, all different. They have no gendered names. Weight, application, unique features, but yeah, not gendered names.
Jay
Test
Jay
NotMax
Sounds as if some easy Sunday morning casually get the cylinders chugging music might be in order. With pretty pictures.
Baud
Beautiful garden, WG.
raven
@Jay: Let me put it another way, back the fuck off Jay.
Amir Khalid
It’s a bit of a shame that flowers as lovely as these are so delicate; but that is Nature’s plan. All we can do is appreciate them while they last, so that they didn’t bloom in vain.
TS (the original)
@Jay: The current Australian PM is not a boomer and he is one who will not admit that climate change is partly, if not totally to blame for the current disaster which is/has encompassed every Australian state over the past few weeks. The previous PM who is a boomer was totally committed to climate change and what we could do to face the reality of same.
Given what happened in California we should have known this was coming but it has been continuous and very frightening over the past many weeks. I am lucky to live in a state that has been granted a respite over the past couple of weeks with slightly lower temperatures and even some rain.
The only thing that will save the country and the koalas is some heavy and continuous rain. Our PM is skirting around the ridges with not many ideas, but maybe we should be thankful he is not telling us to rake the forests.
Edit: sorry to interrupt the garden thread, I didn’t handle the post I replied to very well. To add a garden thought
The rain we have had in the past week has had a wonderful impact on our brown grass & not very happy plants. They are looking wonderful again and adding some joy to a southern Christmas.
NotMax
One house wherein I was a wee lad had peonies planted along the outside of the sun porch, which ran the full depth of the building.
Very pleasing sight but also remember them seemingly attracting every ant in the tri-state area. Yours truly was often appointed to go out there with a Flit gun and spray clouds of FSM only knows what.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Jay:
Your item at #7 is from July 2017. Maybe you could curate your news pearls a little when spreading them before us woefully uninformed swine.
Anne Laurie and the others do have a point. You pepper a lot of threads with a barrage of usually dire items, not with any commentary of your own or an opening to discussion but to—what? Educate the sheeple? Vent your own anxiety?
Yeah, some of your links are interesting and informative. And, yeah, you could give it a fucking rest now and then.
NotMax
@raven
Ever considered a second career in diplomacy?
:)
NotMax
Boo. Merely sitting atop the desk, minding its own business, came a minute ago a sudden loud CLINK and a long crack appeared down the side of the martini glass, running from the lip to halfway down the side.
Steeplejack (phone)
@NotMax:
I hope there’s not a T. Rex stomping around the vicinity.
Amir Khalid
@NotMax:
I trust the martini in the glass was unharmed.
NotMax
@Steeplejack
The fog crept in on little T. Rex feet…
:)
Not at this particular time but someone in the immediate area has been setting of big booming fireworks intermittently over the past few nights. The kind that make an M-80 sound like the crinkling of a cellophane wrapper in comparison. Found an emptied assembly of 12 2-inch tubes down by the street the other day when went to bring up the trash can.
Amir Khalid
@NotMax:
Sounds awfully close to the boundary between fireworks and munitions.
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
Unscathed; no leakage.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Amir Khalid:
Have you ever posted a link to pics of your guitar(s)? Because I kind of would like to see them.
OzarkHillbilly
Who doesn’t love peonies?
Gin & Tonic
My daughter, who is not at my home at present, is accustomed to getting up at 0600. I am not. However, her dog is at my home while she is not.
Dogs are creatures of habit.
Amir Khalid
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I am an amazingly untalented photographer. I might someday post guitar pictures, if I ever figure out which end of a camera you hit the nail with.
Steeplejack
Damn you, Google! I usually search for “epl fixtures sky” to get to the Sky Sports list of Premier League matches and related pages, such as the league “table” (standings), and usually the link I want is at the top of the hits returned. But now Google has some damn ad-related Radio Times link up top. #FirstWorldProblems.
Looks like Arsenal vs. Chelsea at 9:00 a.m. EST will be the match of the day. Liverpool shouldn’t have too much trouble with Wolverhampton at 11:30, unless they’re coasting after their thumping of Leicester City on Boxing Day.
Steeplejack
@Gin & Tonic:
Silver lining: be thankful you’re not in cat world.
Gin & Tonic
@Steeplejack: It’s approaching a year since the passing of our last cat, who was, for much of her life, an Olympic-caliber sleeper.
ETA: Cats, even when they wake you, do not usually require you to put on pants and a coat and go outside in the sub-freezing dawn so they can sniff for 10 minutes until they find precisely the perfect spot to poop.
Amir Khalid
@Steeplejack:
Liverpool are not going to coast. It’s not in them. And they know not to underestimate a team that just came back from 2-0 down, late in the second half, to beat Manchester City. When you’re world champions, you too have something to prove.
Steeplejack
@Gin & Tonic:
True, cats are Olympic-level sleepers and don’t need walkies, but their crepuscular nature seems to have them always getting you up to feed them long before you’re ready.
Cheryl Rofer
I love tree peonies too. I had a giant plant at my last house, medium pink with very yellow centers. The two I have now are a dark purple, much darker than any of the photos up top. I would try to post a photo, but I’ve been having enough trouble with the comments.
There is at least one mail order source of tree peonies. I should find them again and get some more.
satby
@raven: seconded.
@sab: it’s WaterGirl’s smaller dog, I believe.
MomSense
I love the pop of yellow in the center of those peonies! It’s so true that it always rain on itchy after they bloom. I use that as an excuse to go out and cut them and make outrageous bouquets of peonies inside the house.
@NotMax:
There was an old wives tale that those ants are necessary for the buds to open, but it turns out they aren’t. They do, however, kill the insects that would harm the flowers so I just leave them be. Once the flowers open I just brush them off and they don’t come back.
Amir Khalid
By the way, Steven Gerrard’s Glasgow Rangers are dominating hosts Glasgow Celtic in the Old Firm derby, but have yet to be rewarded with a goal. Rangers need the three points to challenge Celtic for the Scottish Premier League title. Rangers keeper McGregor has just saved a Celtic penalty.
ETA: Rangers lead 0-1!
satby
I planted 6 different peonies in spots around the border of the yard over the summers I’ve lived here. For three of them, next summer will be the third year in the ground and I’m really hoping they take off.
I’m pretty much done (she says hopefully) with the major plantings in my yard. I have the raised beds and shrubs I want, the front bed done, and pretty much all the trees, daffodil, tulip, and small bulbs I want in. I’m hoping the next few years to shepherd it all to maturity and just replace the failures along the way. A few tomato plants will be all I need in the summers. My goal has always been to have a garden I can mostly sit and enjoy, not slave over.
Amir Khalid
@Amir Khalid:
1-1 at halftime.
satby
@Steeplejack: @Gin & Tonic: since the passing of both my big old dogs this year, the cats formerly restricted to the upstairs now have free run of the house (Hershey was not cat friendly, and after he passed I just didn’t want them tormenting old Rosie. They avoid the other two dogs.) The new dynamics for all of us have been…interesting. A lot of jockeying for dominance, except by my oldest and sweetest kitty girl Snuffy, who still prefers the bed in the main kitty bedroom. Cats are also creatures of habit, and I upended their whole system. While still having to truck outside with the two remaining dogs on the regular. Keeps me young, I guess.
JPL
@TS (the original): The crazy factor spreads when there is money involved. There’s always money involved when someone wants leadership to ignore climate change.
Immanentize
Good morning All,
It’s nice to see flowers this time of year. Thank you Watergirl. The snow here has all melted, doing the extra shovelling for me. But it is getting dangerously close to enough days in the 40s to trigger some spring growth. I am looking for buds…. Worrying.
satby
@Immanentize: it’s 53° on the way to a predicted 61° today here, and we’ve also had a run of warmish days, though it gets frosty most nights. I’m hoping that’s enough to suppress budding.
Immanentize
@satby: I was going through old pictures and came across one of my tomato box that I planted per your instructions (2017?) I had painted “SATBY” on the side, sparking odd looks and curiosity from visitors. It worked great, but the space I used is now a Rose garden. Which no one promised me. Thanks again for that idea. The roses get the good soil and the chopped up box in that bed.
Immanentize
Also, too,
Any news from Kay?
sab
@Immanentize: Yep. Our neighbors magnolia has buds, and all the maple trees do too. In NE Ohio.
Baud
@Immanentize: What kind of news?
satby
@Immanentize: that’s so nice! Good luck with your roses, I’ve had very poor results with them here. I have two replacements coming this spring for ones that died late last season and were under warranty, but those will be the last ones I attempt. Of the maybe 10 I planted, only 4 are still alive but not particularly thriving. I don’t think my yard has enough sun, except on one side where I grow the tomatoes. ?
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ? ??
On my way to work.
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
Immanentize
@Baud: Grand Baby news. She was hoping to get out of work early last week…. I haven’t seen her on the threads I have checked in on.
Immanentize
@rikyrah:. Good morning. I thought today was a day of rest?
debbie
@Jay:
It needs to be repeated for those who don’t know about it.
Baud
@Immanentize:
She was around yesterday. Didn’t mention the baby that I saw.
Immanentize
@satby: I planted roses from my yard that were volunteers that poked up when some trees were removed. Four plants. Two seem to be root stock (those pink ones that are very hardy, but I don’t particularly like them.). One is a nice light red but not pink variety. And one seems to be a type of drift rose in mauve. I may end up buying a plant or two to diversify. It is a sunny slope and seems to be working.
Amir Khalid
Rangers lead 1-2! I’m supporting Rangers because the manager is legendary Liverpool attacking midfielder Steven Gerrard, now widely seen as Jürgen Klopp’s successor-in-waiting as Liverpool manager.
debbie
One more time:
I’ve only seen one tree peony around here, but there are tons of (bush?) peonies around here, no matter the socio-economic status of the homeowner. I’ve only seen one Japanese peony, though, and I’m wondering if it’s because they are more difficult to grow?
debbie
@Amir Khalid:
Stupid question from a guitar ignoramus: Is the name Keef for Keith Richards?
debbie
@Amir Khalid:
So, so true. I live for spring and the sadness I feel when I see piles of blossoms on the ground under azaleas, for instance, is on a par with SAD.
satby
@debbie: I guess initially itoh peonies were expensive and harder to grow, but they’ve continued to hybridize them and so now they’re cheaper and easier.
MomSense
@Immanentize:
Well I didn’t expect to read your comment and end up with such a stubborn earworm. You went to the wayback for that song reference. I’ve pretty much given up on roses. The last 4-5 years we have had blasts of arctic cold late in the season and my roses gave up. The rugosas that the previous owner planted randomly on the berm are, of course, thriving. I don’t know what to do with that area. Dreams of terraced gardens are thwarted by the work involved and the stupid randomly planted rugosas.
My son had an “ok boomer” expression on his face during the entire Classical Mystery Tour Beatles plus the symphony tribute concert last night.
i really enjoyed it, especially seeing some of those wild orchestrations and sound effects performed live by people. That whole day in the life is mad brilliant.
Immanentize
Has anyone grown daphne in their gardens? I was in London once and saw some and really liked them. But have not seen any around where I live either in yards or in nurseries. Makes me think this may not be the place for them?
Amir Khalid
@debbie:
It’s how Mick says his name. You know, of course, who Mick is.
Amir Khalid
@Jay:
???
Immanentize
@MomSense: Ha! That song has the most cliches per line of any song ever written. Hence, earworm.
Those Beatle boys knew what was what. Funny your son didn’t like it — maybe the context. If you just played “Day in the Life” without any explanation for any random young music phenom these days and put their reaction up on YouTube, it would be solid gold “First time hearing…”
satby
@Immanentize: the one thing I did which seems to have improved survival (a tiny bit) was buy “own root” roses, which almost all the shrub roses you have are. Those are normally the base roots they graft the beautiful tea roses on. They’ve started trying to hybridize those for more variety, so I got a couple in my preferred colors. They were about 6 inches high, though they had developed new growth before I started mulching and covering them for winter. We’ll see how they do over winter and next year. Hope, eternal ?.
satby
@Immanentize: had to look them up, but looks like they’re not hardy enough for a lot of the northern U.S.
Immanentize
@Amir Khalid: I don’t pie anyone ?. But I do just ignore a few.
debbie
@MomSense:
I’m not sure which part of the state you’re in, but I remember all the roses on Nantucket. Has climate change affected them too?
debbie
@Amir Khalid:
Indeed. I assumed that’s what it was, but one never knows.
Immanentize
@satby: thanks. Fussy things, it seems, those Daphne. But we are now a zone 6 here near Boston. Maybe I will try one….
satby
@Amir Khalid: now he’s just pissed that the rest of us objected to him tweet bombing a thread that most of us consider a respite one.
it has its place Jay, but every single thread is not that place.
MomSense
@Immanentize:
One of my all time favorites. I had a beauty years ago at my old farmhouse. I say go for it.
I think he enjoyed the music, but there were a lot of boomers dancing in the aisles and jokes aimed at an older crowd. He liked the George Harrison songs, especially While My Guitar Gently Weeps and hebdid like the orchestra.
O. Felix Culpa
Please share your secret when this garden is attained. ?
WaterGirl
@sab: Good eye! That’s Henry, my little white dog.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Great point! Good answer to the reply troll.
Immanentize
@MomSense: anyone who likes the George songs best is my friend, indeed.
WaterGirl
@Jay: I’m with Team Anne Laurie on this one. Who needs doom and gloom on comment #2 of a Sunday Morning Garden Chat?
Amir Khalid
Glasgow Rangers hang on for an important 1-2 away win over Old Firm rivals Celtic. Stevie G is very happy.
ETA: Per the Guardian liveblog, Stevie is apparently uttering some “Bad Words of Joy”. A lovely phrase; I shall have to steal it.
schrodingers_cat
@debbie: I have them growing in my front yard. I want to transplant them but don’t dare because they have tiny deadly little thorns.
Baud
You can do what I’ve done and learn to appreciate the inherent beauty of weeds.
MomSense
@debbie:
Rugosas will be here long after the last human, but I’ve been having trouble with hybrid teas and grandiflora. Our weather patterns have changed. We have cool, rainy springs (they love) and then we go straight to high temps and near drought. It’s a shock. Winters have changed, too. Intense cold without snow has been a problem for more than roses. I could probably figure out how a work around, but I haven’t had the time.
debbie
@Immanentize:
Seconded. Even the merest of his ditties surpasses anything McCartney has done.
WaterGirl
@Jay: Wow, 5 of the first 8 comments on the Garden Chat are hit you on the head with doom and gloom, and one more is a reply. Maybe think about a different approach next Sunday?
Immanentize
@schrodingers_cat: That’s why they make long leather rose gloves. I just use cheap leather work gloves from Costco to handle the prickly ones
Kay
@Immanentize:
No baby yet. My daughter’s fine though-she’s patient. The new plan is I go to work until she calls me but keep hearings off my calender as long as I can- everything else can be rescheduled.
debbie
@schrodingers_cat:
I remember my grandmother girding herself with huge gloves before working in her rose garden.
MomSense
@Immanentize:
Try a Carol Mackie Daphne and put it in a sheltered, sunny spot. It will mound nice and round if you don’t crowd it.
Immanentize
@debbie: Thanks for that. The images are great too. I didn’t know that was co-produced by Phil Spector! And the last picture of George, in the rain with umbrella, surrounded by garden gnomes brings it all full circle to the thread.
Immanentize
@MomSense: I am going to do just as you say! In late April.
Immanentize
@Kay: Thank you. I know you don’t owe us a thing, but I was curious. Fingers crossed for your daughter.
germy
@Immanentize:
Giles Martin (son of George Martin) remixed Abbey Road this year. The new edition also features some previously unreleased stuff, like the orchestral part to Harrison’s Something. This track reminds me that George Martin was the fifth Beatle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnYc4mQtbHM
Kay
I love peonies too. I put them in the back in what I think of as the “vegetable area” because they’re so floppy and have such a short bloom time. It’s gotten so it’s more flowers than vegetables back there. Calendulas, violas, sweet peas and last year I grew a bunch of poppies. More poppies this year. I went to the Cleveland Botanical Garden and bought seed for a poppy called “Lauren’s Dark Grape” – purple-black.
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl: I have had Jay pied for months.
It’s my best chance of seeing Catcake! LOL re this morning. Current events news is hard enough; why go looking for more ugliness? I think it’s some kind of weird virtue signaling by Jay: he’s so woke, he knows about all these perils.
FIDO.
WaterGirl
@MomSense: I had never heard of Daphne, but the google shows me pictures of a million different kinds.
germy
@Immanentize:
I’m one of the few people who dislikes what Spector did with George’s records. (Although I read recently that George later came to regret how over-produced his first solo album was and wished he could strip it down). I’m not a big fan of the wall of reverb Spector covered All Things Must Pass in.
George’s last album, he instructed Jeff Lynne to keep the production simple and clean.
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle: Yeah, I feel like it kinda ruined the whole thread, and not just because it was my peonies being featured.
I’m so glad you share my love of Catcake!
Kay
@Immanentize:
Oh, you’re welcome. I caused a big ruckus because they’re naming baby “Anne” if she’s a girl and I have an Aunt Anne who had a 50 year long grudge match with my mother. So I told one of my sisters – joking!- that this grudge would be handed down to baby and she told everyone I said it and they were all horrified. Because they’re “better than that”. Yeah, sure they are.
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl: The peonies are beautiful. Thank you for sharing them. Now I gotta look more closely for Henry!
Lovely, steady rain in central VA today. It was 66 degrees yesterday. We have a respite weather week in store. Mild, warm, some rain. With Christmas lights up.
stinger
WaterGirl, is there nothing you can’t do??
Two years ago I rediscovered the tree peony that I’d planted at least 15 years back in what turned out to be a neglected part of my property. Astonishingly, it has survived, and in its weedy, shaded spot still produces one or two dinner-plate sized blooms each year. I do plan to take better care of it now!
Herbaceous peonies also live forever, and I’m gradually adding to the varieties I have. Love the pics here!
MomSense
@Immanentize:
I had mine in the back southwest corner of my house next to the back deck. You will want it where you can enjoy the fragrance of the blooms. They don’t last long but holy tamales they smell fantastic. A little like jasmine. Delicate pink blossoms with yellow and green variegated leaves is lovely.
Elizabelle
@Kay: Good luck to you. First grandbaby is prime position. Lucky little one.
Immanentize
@germy: Knowing Spector was involved with production explains some things indeed. I mean Spector = highly produced. Sometimes great, sometimes not so.
Then He Kissed Me I put in the great column.
Immanentize
@MomSense: It’s the variegated leaves that sold me on Daphne. It seems there might be a white flower version of Carol Mackey too.
*Garden Dreaming
stinger
I really like the new pie quotes!
MomSense
@schrodingers_cat:
Wear eye protection!!! Trust me. You don’t want to scratch a cornea.
germy
I got curious and found this on wiki:
In China, the fallen petals of Paeonia lactiflora are parboiled and sweetened as a tea-time delicacy. Peony water, an infusion of peony petals, was used for drinking in the Middle Ages. The petals may be added to salads or to punches and lemonades.
My wife has become a rose enthusiast. They’re all in front of our house, with some in the back yard as well. She’s tried buying them from all over: our local greenhouse around the corner, as well as the big box stores and from mail order. She’s had the best results from our local greenhouse store.
Her latest rose variety last summer was the Coretta Scott King.
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle: We had a long, steady rain last evening, too. I do love the sound of that.
So shocking that someone named WaterGirl would love water in all forms, right?
Come spring, I will take a cue from MomSense and will (sniff-sniff) cut all the tree peony blooms right before the inevitable rain begins.
germy
@Immanentize: Yes, I agree. His best work was in the early ’60s. But by the time he hooked up with Harrison (and Lennon) he was overindulgent, in my opinion.
Immanentize
@Kay: That’s so funny. They curse of Aunt Anne. I come from a family of people who always talk (within our family) about how ugly any baby is. It is a kind of reverse curse thing because everyone believes if you say a baby is cute, they will turn out ugly.
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl: Loved your story about how you just could not get enough of seeing the ocean off Maine’s coast.
It’s a great name. Water is life.
debbie
@germy:
I like to think George’s music overpowered the orchestration. Or maybe it’s just that my hearing’s going. //
WaterGirl
@stinger: Ha! I’ll make you a list. :-) At the top will be directions. I have absolutely no sense of direction. Well, maybe that’s not exactly right.
If I’m somewhere where I don’t really know my way around, if I think we should turn right, there is definitely a better than even chance that we should turn left instead.
And please don’t try to give me directions using those ridiculous North, South, East, and West!
Years ago, my 8-year-old nephew was visiting. We went for the usual walk. Go to the end of my block, turn left (that street is only two houses long), turn right and go into the long park that stretches for miles, on and off. Walk across that part of the park, get to the street, turn walk a couple of blocks, blah blah blah, and we are home.
We got to my house and Cody said, “cool, we just went in a square”. I had taken that walk a million times and I had no idea. My parents both had an amazing sense of direction, and so did he, but it most definitely skipped me.
Steeplejack (phone)
@rikyrah:
Good morning. ?
Kay
@Elizabelle:
It is fun. They don’t know if it’s a boy or girl so everyone is guessing. Her coworkers think it’s a boy. They may be right. She showed the ultrasound to the surgeon she works for and he started saying “he”. She said “you can’t tell from that image” and he said “I know what I know”. He has 4 kids so we’re giving his pronouncement a lot of weight in our poll.
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle: Thank you! So glad I picked it. I remember trying to figure out a nym and that came to me.
During the months of website testing, I needed to be able to distinguish between comments I made while logged in, and when not logged in. ruemara had just given me the photo for her image on the Author page, where she is holding a bunny. She made reference to the grumpy bunny, and I loved that.
So my test nym when not logged in was Grumpy Bunny. Still love that, I didn’t have a band to name, so that was the next best thing.
Kay
@Immanentize:
My middle son was a really big baby and the nurse pretended his cart-cradle was hard to push, like “oof- push this GIANT baby around” knowing, perhaps, that is just the sort of thing that makes me laugh. She probably gets in trouble a lot. No making fun of the babies.
joel hanes
@OzarkHillbilly:
When I was three, my family moved into a lovely old Prairie School home built in 1906, with an elaborate formal garden in the back yard. Dad mowed the long sinuous walkways between the peony beds for a year or so, and then just mowed all the peonies down. He was not a gardener.
WaterGirl
@joel hanes:
I read that and my eyes literally got very big. That’s terrible!
I know someone, by the way, who recently moved into a big old schoolhouse. Not my style, but such an interesting thing to do.
sab
@WaterGirl: Sense of direction. Mine is just like yours, 180 degrees off. In my defense, I grew up on a sandbar, where I didn’t need to know more than north and south since east and west were underwater.
debbie
@WaterGirl:
Years ago, This Old House converted a San Francisco church to a loft-type of home. Timber frame, all that kind of stuff. It was very cool.
WaterGirl
@sab: In my defense, we didn’t have a car until I was 12, and we lived above the business my parents had, and because we lived just on the cusp of the business district, all the stores were less than 3 blocks away.
So basically my whole life was 10 blocks in any direction, until I went to high school.
joel hanes
@MomSense:
Intense cold without snow has been a problem for more than roses.
Back in the day, a back fence neighbor couple were serious rose gardners — in North Iowa. Winters to 30 below F. Every late fall they pruned severely, put a styrofoam “rose cone” over each rosebush, buried the bed eight inches deep in mulch, and then eighteen inches of straw to bury the cones almost to the tip. I don’t think they ever lost one.
WaterGirl
@debbie: I would love to see that. Lofts definitely hold a certain appeal for me.
O. Felix Culpa
@sab: My ex had an infallibly wrong sense of direction. If I didn’t know where to turn, all I had to do was ask him and go the opposite way
@WaterGirl: Beautiful peonies. My ex also had a gift for raising peonies, which I remember much more fondly than the
fightsheated discussions over which way to go when we were traveling.Gin & Tonic
@Elizabelle:
Good advice, which I myself follow when I see the nym.
stinger
@WaterGirl: Great story!
Personally, I’m not happy until I know where north/south are, whether walking, driving, visiting a new city or friend’s house, and I love reading maps!
Miss Bianca
@Jay: Oh, you’re back. A presence that feels like an absence.
JPL
@Kay: We will welcome you with open arms to the grandparents club. You too will discover that it’s okay to brag about the little one’s feats.
sab
@O. Felix Culpa: That is how my husband uses me to navigate. Unfortunately I am not invariably wrong, just mostly.
Kay
@joel hanes:
Peonies are tough as nails though. If the tubers are established they’ll come back after mowing. You see them here blooming like crazy around house foundations where the house is long gone. I divide them by slicing them with a spade and they’re nearly as big as before the division 2 seasons later. The only thing they’re fussy about is depth of planting. They have to go back at the prior depth.
chopper
@Jay:
really? my framing hammer is named Jeff.
O. Felix Culpa
@sab: Well, then you mostly end up in the right place together. ;)
WaterGirl
@stinger:
At some point in the 90s when my -ex left, I didn’t have the heart to garden and my whole yard turned to shit over a few years. When I got back to reclaiming it, and got all the weeds out, I was astonished to find that my
specialblushing bride hydrangea had made it.It hadn’t been blooming or thriving but the next year it was so lovely. I have the utmost respect for plants that make it through, even when neglected!
One year my best friend brought over two plants that weren’t thriving at her house because she had too much shade. I wasn’t crazy about them and never got them planted, so they stayed out all winter in their plastic grocery bags, unplanted in the middle of a bed.
Come spring, they were still alive, and even though I wasn’t crazy about them, I thought they deserved to live after making it through an entire fall and spring, freshly dug, unwatered, sitting in grocery bags.
stinger
@debbie: In a nearby town, an old church is for sale, described as “could make a glorious home”. Not interested in moving, but I’d love to see the inside with that in mind.
(A quick google shows that it’s already been sold.)
WaterGirl
@stinger: oh, good!
WaterGirl
@MomSense: Spoken, I imagine, by someone who learned that the hard way?
CarolDuhart2
@Kay: Watch. Your grandkid will arrive on New Year’s Even just at the time the fireworks start.
debbie
@stinger:
Google says it happened in 1998 (time flies!). I found this photo of the main room (not sure what they’re called these days).
stinger
@WaterGirl: Oh, what were they??
WaterGirl
@O. Felix Culpa: Thank you!
It’s funny what sticks with us. An -ex and I still played on the same volleyball team, and one night a year or so after the split, I heard him at the bar telling someone how much he missed my homemade cherry cobbler and my homemade pudding.
I thought, wow! He doesn’t miss all the good times we had, or the way I loved and took care of his son, as if he were my own. Nope, he missed the pudding and the cobbler. Too funny!
Miss Bianca
Love peonies. Love roses, too. And totally love all the photos, because I have a grey thumb and live at altitude and thus must get most of my gardening thrills vicariously!
WaterGirl
@sab: I know! If we were always wrong, it would be like a navigational superpower. We would always know where to go!
Miss Bianca
@Kay: what depth do peony tubers like best? Mind, I ask merely for information, not because I’d have any crazy idea about planting them myself. ; )
CarolDuhart2
@debbie: Our condos are from an old school. There’s a certain beauty in doing so. A lot of the old buildings have interesting and even pretty architecture, and are larger than more recent buildings. Where else are you going to find 16 foot ceilings alongside 6 foot ceilings? Which is what I have-12 foot windows with a view not available otherwise. Any replacement building would have been just a brick block with 6 foot ceilings and just a narrow view. Here I can see all the way to the hillsides surrounding my neighborhood and even some stars
And down the street,there’s an old church that’s been converted into housing. A little big for me, but the people there (at least before the current owners) had a recording studio there.
It’s a trend now, and a good one. Saving historic architecture by making it housing keeps the neighborhood interesting and fends off the mcmansion trend. McMansions remind me of Trump-all facade and no quality-so big they don’t even try for a yard on the assumption that nobody really goes outside, built on a lot with no trees. All chandeliers, marble everything, and if it weren’t for the cost, would be just as covered with gold leaf. Its for people who want to pretend rich….
It’s people who have a million dollar line of credit, but real assets, but want to pretend they are really rich. It’s two couches and a table and a thousand dollar monthly utility bill. They could live comfortably on less, but it wouldn’t look good. Saving historic buildings like our neighborhood has has kept home prices reasonable and the tackiness out. And many of those people as well. Real houses make for a real neighborhood where people don’t obsess about status.
WaterGirl
@stinger: The hydrangea? It was a blushing bride hydrangea. I absolutely LOVE pink that is so pale that in certain light you wonder whether it’s pink or white.
That’s what the “blushing bride” is, and there is a different shape to the flowers.
laura
@Immanentize: Do it! My late mother had a potted daphne that spent 9 months of the year tucked into a shady corner of the yard. Come the first cold snap it moved to center stage just next to the front door. The scent was just beautiful – and to catch a whiff of it’s perfume late on a frozen winter’s night was so unexpected and lovely. Please give a daphne a try.
Amir Khalid
More football, this time from the English Premier League:
Arsenal threw away a 1-0 lead against visitors Chelsea and conceded twice in the last ten minutes of regulation time. Fans cursing Chelsea manager Frank Lampard early in the match for his lack of ideas suddenly had to change their minds.
Next up are world champions Liverpool at home to Wolverhampton Wanderers, and after that Manchester City-Sheffield United. City lost face on Friday when they squandered a 2-0 lead at home to Wolves and ended up losing 3-2; they’ll want to take it out on Sheffield United.
debbie
@CarolDuhart2:
Totally agree. These McMansions with their unimaginative, over-busy facades are a blight on us all.
debbie
@WaterGirl:
I must say, I like how you’re using alium in the rear of the plantings. Here, they all seem to be planted up front and really just look like alien lifeforms.
WaterGirl
@debbie: Thank you!
I love allium, but if you do it wrong (and I have!) they can look like awkward soldiers that don’t belong in a flower bed. I’m still experimenting – glad you like my latest effort. :-)
I have always coveted the really big allium, but I am discovering that bigger isn’t necessarily better with allium.
Ruckus
Had to check, when I started reading this post, if I had opened the tab for twitter. By mistake.
Once again.
Came for the flowers, got the twitter.
WaterGirl
@Ruckus: Yeah, definitely jarring, and brutal for a Sunday morning. Disappointing until you get past the mass of negativity and get to the rest of the comments.
Ruckus
@NotMax:
Some times the direct approach is best.
Irony and indirect are lost on some people.
zhena gogolia
I recommend Little Women for the acting, scenery, costumes, cinematography, and music. I am not a big fan of the story, but this is about as good as you can get in that regard — she mixes it up so it’s more interesting. I was crying through the whole thing, which I regard as a success. Last time that happened was Paddington 2.
Charluckles
My favorite local greenhouse had all their Amaryllis bulbs at 75% off. I didn’t get to grow them earlier this year so I came home with quite a haul. I figure they will bloom about the time I should be outside doing my spring chores, but it was sure nice getting my hands in some dirt.
Amir Khalid
Liverpool are outplaying Wolves, but they have yet to put the round thing in the rectangular thing.
Ruckus
@debbie:
Not sure about climate change but mom grew roses all around the house when I was a kid, here in socal. And no, I don’t mean around inside the house. Different colors, they were gorgeous. She had a green thumb. And the peacocks from the Arcadia arboretum would come over and spend time in our yard admiring them. That was about 6-8 miles away. And then do what peacocks do, spread those feathers. Roses and peacocks, pretty amazing front yard display.
J R in WV
I had Jay pied for a while, took him out when I realized I missed the others posting in reply to him. I don’t get him, over sensitive, always ready to fight, but when two of three people all post hostile comments, he pouts and runs away, which is a good thing.
He can’t seem to get the difference between posting links to things currently related to the various subjects of a thread and randomly posting hostile stuff, sometimes years old stuff. Nor the point of posting a list of stuff all to a given point as opposed to just random stuff flung onto the wall.
I remember when the FL State Attorney was pulled over by a hapless bumble-cop, it was a curious mix of oops on the part of the bumble-cop and holy shit on the part of the AG, who seemed a mix of professional and intimidating.
I have had a years long series of helpful encounters with cops, but understand seriously the position of our black neighbors who must feel intimidated and threatened by the constant presence of bigots and haters in the police community. Driving while black and shot by a bumble-cop racist is no way to die!
Must confess Jay really irritates me, and I hold back to not just erupt with antagonistic vitriol when he gets all holier than thou, which is every day. He doesn’t know half what he thinks he does, and is confused about much of what he does know.
Kay
@Miss Bianca:
They have a tuber with “eyes” and that’s where the stems will spring from, so they need to be close to the surface. The easiest way would be to buy them growing a container and then plant them at the depth they’re at- dig and put the pot in- when it’s level with the surrounding soil you’re good. Obviously then take them out of the pot. You should be able to see a circle of the soil they came in when you fit them into the hole. Then when you divide them later you’ll have the older stems as a guide. Where stem meets tuber is depth. In older gardens the tubers get old and knotted and sometimes stick up out of the soil. They’re close to the surface.
Ruckus
@Immanentize:
@debbie:
They make heavy leather welding gloves that mom used to wear, that will basically keep out any rose thorn, red hot or freezing cold.
They are used by ship and large pipe welders, too thick for any feel of what you are doing but the heat never comes through.
Here’s an example from Harbor Freight.
Elizabelle
@J R in WV: You can just hit the “toggle” switch to find out what others are replying to.
Life is short. Catcake is adorbs!
All the best to the puppies. Are you getting the springlike weather in WV??
Kay
@WaterGirl:
Ha. So true. I like hollyhocks and have them, but they’re a mess. A big old scrawny six foot flower. They all revert to mauve eventually when they go to seed too- 5 years into self-seeding they’re all a muddy purple-red. I still keep them along a fence though. All I do is thin them.
Immanentize
Amir Khalid
After some deliberation, a man in a faraway London location decides that Liverpool’s Adam Lallana did not handle the ball in the buildup, so Sadio Mané’s goal stands. Liverpool 1-0 Wolves.
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
A woman and her husband used to work at events when I worked in pro sports. Really nice people from Muncie, IN. She seemed to have a reverse direction detector. If you told her left she went right and vice versa. Not sure why but other than her sense of direction she was a real sweetie. Once we traveled with them for a week in their motorhome between events and we stopped at their home. Their daughter, who I’d never met, came over and she and I played a joke on dad. We told him we fell in love at first sight and wanted to get married. I can’t remember whose idea this was, I’m guessing hers, but this joke worked great! Dad was speechless. Fun times.
Amir Khalid
And the man in London rules out what would have been a Wolves equaliser for offside-by-a-toenail.
Halftime!
rikyrah
@Baud:
The baby’s coming?
Oh yeah :) :)
Ruckus
@debbie:
To me, worse is that the lot is all house, at least 2 stories, most likely 3, to get the most sq footage possible. Seems to be a bragging point. A friend, who does landscape architecture, has a client who lives in one, inside a gated community of lots of them, they cost min 3-4 million. His client’s family is the husband/wife and 2 kids.
Another Scott
@Kay: Bob Braun on his TV show out of Cincinnati decades ago would often do a parlor trick where he’d get a pregnant woman in the audience to stand up and he’d look at her in profile and could tell her if she was going to have a boy or girl. Apparently they usually sit on the belly differently for some reason. He was usually right.
Cheers,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@Kay: I know what you mean about hollyhocks.
I like columbine along a fence line. They just keep reseeding themselves.
WaterGirl
@Ruckus: Ha! I did something similar with my puppy once. I was in a public place and the woman I knew wanted to tell her husband (the volleyball coach, who was returning from a tournament) the Tucker was their new pup.
Oh my god, his face was so crestfallen when she admitted that she was kidding. I will never do that again.
Cowgirl in the Sandi
Such lovely pictures Watergirl! I love peonies – my great grandmother used to grow them and they aways reminded me of girls dancing with big fluffy skirts (along with the ants)! Unfortunately, I have had no success with them here in the East Bay CA.
Roses are very long-lived. When we lived in Texas there was a group called the Rose Wranglers who went out to old homesteads to find very old roses that were still alive and then brought them back. It was very cool.
satby
@O. Felix Culpa: perennials, flowering shrubs, bulbs repellent to critters, and mulch. With a heaping helping of @Baud’s advice.
joel hanes
@J R in WV:
I hold back
I have gotten to the point (old/jaded) where I mostly don’t feel any urge to respond when someone is wrong on the internet, or to push back when my own comments are criticized, rightly or wrongly.
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
Her husband wanted a new puppy.
Her dad didn’t want a new son in law. Particularly one he knew and who had a full beard…… I didn’t add that we went to him arms around each other, less than 5 minutes after she walked in the door. And we both sold it. He was stunned. And almost pissed when he found out it was a joke.
Amir Khalid
Liverpool beat Wolves but it was a very close 1-0. Not the imperious performance that saw them crush Leicester City 4-0 on Thursday. Still, three points is three points, and Liverpool are once again 13 points and a game in hand clear of the rest of the Premier League.
Meanwhle, defending champions Manchester City, at home to Sheffield United, are still level with no score because some guy in London declared Sheffield striker Lys Mousset’s foot offside when he put the ball in the net.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Amir Khalid:
No coasting there! No, not at all. ? But congratulations. A win is a win.
WaterGirl
@Ruckus: Sounds like fun! Until it wasn’t. :-)
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
No, it was fun all the way around. His wife caught on right away and just let it happen. Dad sulked for less than a hour, then realized that it would be worse if he stayed pissed off. BTW he was retired and his daughter was fully grown and on her own so he never really had a lot of say any longer anyway. If he ever had. I called him dad for the next week, just to rub it in. He was a good sport. After a while……
WaterGirl
@Ruckus: Yeah, earlier when I read that he was upset when he thought it was real and then mad when he found it out wasn’t..
My first thought had been “the food here is terrible, and the portions are so small”.