New Quilt!

This weekend while I was away at Chincoteague for the last time this year I finished my latest quilt. I had my doubts about bringing it while I was away but I was glad because I finally finished it. It took me more than a year because I prefer to hand sew. The night it was done I had a nightmare that I was working on a quilt and every time I thought I finished it I found something else that needed serious work. Also, everyone hated it. This quilt, however, is really not for public show but simply because I needed a new quilt for my bed.

Evening at Chincoteague

This is on the wildlife loop at Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge.

Wordless Wednsday: The Shenandoah River at Harper's Ferry, West Virginia

Stinkbugs on My Mind

No, not really, but they make good fodder for articles these days. Personally, I only see a few here and there in the city. They drop in through my bathroom skylight and end up in the bathtub. I hear from friends that actually have sheds and other outbuildings full of them. Plus, they are all over the news as the critters are busy worrying about summer crops, so I guess stinkbugs won't go away soon.

Last week I needed a quick article for Examiner and wrote "How to protect your garden from stinkbugs". Then I forgot about it and didn't post it until today, mainly because I was busy playing with Squidoo. I'm investigating this as a different source of residual writing. I used to get residuals from old articles I wrote for eHow. But, they had an author buyout recently because everything is now commissioned by Demand Studios (which I also occasional write for).

So far I'm enjoying Squidoo and the freedom to add lots of stuff. (I often end up with too much research to put in those 400-500 Demand Studios articles and Examiner also likes things short.) I never played with it before because it seemed a bit confusing. Well, I put aside other things on Friday and Saturday to just spend time learning and got my first Squidoo lens up. I called it "Stinkbug Invasion!" which is not the best title, but it works. I will add more later, but for now I just wanted to finish one for the expierience. I have other topics for there in the hopper, time permitting.

This great photo of stinkbug eggs and nymphs at various stages is by Gary Bernon, USDA-APHIS, on Wikimedia Commons. I couldn't find many decent pictures of stinkbugs but when I searched for the Latin name of the brown marmorated stinkbug (Halyomorpha halys) his excellent work came right up. I'm going to use some more of his work when I get a chance to refine the Squidoo lens.

Wordless Wednesday: Charm City Tulips

Ode to Artificial Flowers

One of the reasons I’ve been so busy this month is that I’m working on a Baltimore themed luncheon with others. We decided that the centerpieces should be artificial flowers. I went to the dollar store and they came through for me because they had racks and racks of them on display. I got in line and it seemed that everyone was buying them. No one seemed to think it was unusual that I was buying 30 bunches. Ahhh…springtime in Baltimore!

As I work on this and neglect my real garden, people all around me are placing these very dollar store flowers and pots on their front porches or in the dirt of their front yard. Living rooms here all seem to be full of plastic flora. Like with fake Easter grass, I can’t say that I hate them, as they are just a part of life here. If it makes other people happy, fine. I’d rather have real flowers though, which is why I grow some specifically to cut every summer.

Over the weekend I finished the fake flower arrangements. Here they are growing all over the floor in the middle bedroom.

Mmmmmm...free samples!

On Thursday evening I got home to find a pair of large boxes waiting for me. Well, I didn't order anything and opened them with some curiosity. Inside were these two trays of plants from PanAmerican Seed. Left to right we have:

Marigold Bonanza Deep Orange
Begonia Dragon Wing
Begonia Gryphon
Petunia Shock Wave Coral Crush
Angelonia Serena Blue
Wave Purple Improved Spreading Petunia

When I got them it was too cold to put them in the ground and so I kept them on the back porch. In fact, it was so cool that I was concerned enough to put a sheet over them at night. But, the weather is now improving so once I get a chance to get a little garden clean-up going I'm going to stick them in the ground. Some will go out front and some will go in the back yard flower bed.

Love that Easter Grass!

Examiner.com is getting better with the ads and pop-ups so hopefully I can get back into promoting it a bit more. Though, April is going to be a busy month for me and I just put up "Growing natural grass in an Easter basket" as a placeholder. After that there are probably going to be a lot of events posts as so many local garden festivals happen in May.

Ah, as for Easter grass. I never grew winter rye specifically for an Easter basket but I do use it for my outdoor pots. I just scatter seeds over the tops of the soil in the pot and let it go. In spring I turn it out into the compost pile and let the grass rot. It doesn’t look very Eastery at that point but the grass did its job (soil conservation and enrichment so I can reuse the soil). I never had real grass in my basket when I was growing up but then I never felt deprived for not having it. I mean, if I had kids I’d grow a basket of live grass for a centerpiece or something but I’d just give them baskets full of the fun fake stuff. I can’t imagine any kid would enjoy loosing jellybeans down in the dirt.

While I’m busy, enjoy this seasonal photo from Maja of stock.xchng. (I promise I’ll get back to my own photos sometime soon!)

Cold Day at the Cherry Blossoms

This year I was happy to get away and check out the Washington DC cherry blossoms a bit early. They were just about to peak but most of them were out and the display was quite nice. Not may people were around because it was COLD! I bundled up in a winter coat, hat, scarf, and thick sweater. Well, it usually is chilly but this year there was a bit of snow the day before we went. (Which did not harm the trees.) I was glad to get over there and enjoy it while the crowds were away.

Windy Winter Weather

With all of the storms I thought I’d be more timely and post “How to dispose of yard waste in Baltimore City.” I think I posted something similar but I can’t remember. Anyway, it is a timely topic what with all of the wind damage we’ve suffered lately. My yard is fine, with a few minor branches down from the Japanese maple (which needed pruning anyway). Around the neighborhood there were a fair number of trees down but I saw the most damage out at Lake Roland. As we walked down the paths trees and large branches littered the forest. It seemed to be mostly the smaller, weaker trees that blew over but there were a few big ones too.

Since I accidentally erased the pictures on my camera I’ve included this tree lovin’ photo from Shlomit Wolf of stock.xchng.

Spider Plant Nostalgia Trip

Well, this has been a quiet winter for me over at Examiner.com. The site redesigns over the past few months have been difficult to deal with. The site is problematic to navigate and I'm not comfortable with the types of ads around my work. Even though I don’t get paid much there I wanted it as a place to direct people to when they want to see samples of my work. But, I can’t do that in good faith until it looks a little more professional.

So, this winter I planned to do a series on house plants but only posted “Caring for spider plants” and “How to grow spider plants from cuttings.” When I was growing up there was always a massive spider plant around the house with a million babies. I always wanted to “save” them and ended up with jars full of water and little plants in my room. Surprisingly, I don’t have any spider plants now. Even though I like them a lot I think they will just happen, like kittens. Plus, it is like getting sour dough starter…it starts out innocently enough but then you’ve got a lot of it on your hands.

So, since I don’t have a real spider plant around the house I used this photo by marmit of stock.xchng.

Snowy Mountain Road

This is the road that we drive down when we go swimming in the summer, in the Catoctin Mountain Park. Well, no swimming today but it was very quiet and peaceful out there.

Backyard Dove

After last night's snow I went out on the back porch to play with my camera. I caught this dove resting in our tree.