Last week Jim got a new guitar — something a little more challenging…

jim playing his new guitar (taken from the balcony)
Last week Jim got a new guitar — something a little more challenging…
jim playing his new guitar (taken from the balcony)
These ruby slippers from Ahmet Baytar are all Dorothy from Wizard of Oz grows up.
The original are in the flash gallery on his site.
Last weekend the front bed with the cedars in it got new shrubs.
Continuing the theme of happy flowering shrubs and brooding conifers that we started with the cedars and the (now gone) buddleias we’ve added more happy and more brooding.
Starting with the happy, a flowering currant. I’ve seen this plant on both the lists of -plants that birds like- and the lists of -plants that deer don’t like-. We shall see. The shocking cerise of the flowers is a nice stunner — at the far edge of the bed.
And now a little gloom. Okay, maybe not so gloomy. This little White Cedar cultivar has a lovely fluffy, bunny look up close.
Contrasting nicely in form is this whipcord Western Red Cedar. It’s an Iseli introduction. I’m always happy to see that they’re still in business and still developing interesting plants.
Also along the back of the bed there’s a white flowering quince. I know, I know, flowering quinces are supposed to be that red-orange color. But this one is so pretty… I also like how well the wrecked, stick-figure angularity of the this particular one is already developed. (I’ll plant one of the properly colored ones down by the farm sign, I promise.)
These creamy flower clusters were irresistible.
There are three of theses little red twig dogwoods. The variegated leaves will contrast nicely with the green wrinkly currant leaves behind them.
The other gloomies. Two nicely colored conifers. The juniper in the front will have a purplish cast during the winter, the yew in the back will be somewhat bronze. Both will head more toward full green in the summer.
Now I just have to be patient. And diligent with the deer repellent.
Hm, the weekend picture-taking didn’t end Saturday morning, though that was my plan. We headed out Saturday, late afternoon, to hit up the lumber yard for 2x4s and grab some dinner before heading back home to finish the chicken aviary improvements. (more on that later) I grabbed my camera and threw the 50mm lens on it just in case we were out late enough to catch the picture of our little town at sunset that I’ve been seeing but not getting for a couple of weeks now. That wasn’t the picture I got.
Bad news, the white truck spit the binkie — or rather a fuel pump. Luckily in a convenient parking lo. But not the hardware store lot, which was probably a good thing.
For some reason yesterday was a terribly busy day for the AAA and tow truck guys. (There’s a long story here but only those involved care 🙂
So I had a couple of hours to sit around and cool my heels. But hey, what luck, I had my camera with me and it was getting to be late and the light was getting interesting and well here you have them. A handful of things that I shot in a suburban parking lot. Just goes to prove that you really can find something to look at no matter where you are.
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I’m also using this post to try out the NextGEN gallery plug-in. I need something for using on this blog. I also need something to build a portfolio site in but that’s taking way too long and has been way too much of a mess. Be warned — there are a lot of crap WordPress “portfolio” themes out there. Expensive ones too.
But before we can do anything about that…
Yeah, that’s pretty much half of the dash pulled out. Tomorrow night the other half comes out. All because I don’t like cold feet.
(Update to the update — Jim got it all done and buttoned back up on Sunday. Good thing too, because there’s snow forecast for tonight.)
You can find it here.
I’m not actually signed up. Because I’m chicken shit and all that. Mostly because I don’t write novels. At least not with any success. I write short stories. And I plan to write 4 this month. It’s my own little version of NaNoWriMo.