In which I draw a rose

I do not worry all that much about dementia.  First of all there is zero history of early on-set on either side of my family tree.  & second, no ones mind really started to go until they were in their 90s (& by go, I mean change in any real way from when they were in their 20s-yes there are plenty of squirrely people in my family but they have ALWAYS been squirrely; the old lady who cannot name the last three presidents in her 70s would have had to think long & hard about it in her 30s).  That being said, I am not interested in losing any mental ground for whatever reason, most especially including inertia. 

To that end, & because I have wanted to for a long time, I signed up for a beginning drawing class.  & last night was the first night.  As I understand it, each week will be a different technique & last night we began with blind contour drawing.  So I got to see my same old technique up close & personal:  I trace.  I don't mean plonk the object down on the paper & trace around it, I mean move my hand without touching the paper around & around & around the paper until I am comfortable with the routine & then I drop my needle...erm I mean pen & make my drawing.  Fast.  & with my eyes closed.

I said this when I was asked & the teacher is too nice to call me a liar (she really is very nice).  When we did it a second time, I saw her watch me.  Or rather, I saw her when I opened my eyes.  Later when she saw what I had done, her advice was to slow down.  I think I have given her a false view of my drawing skills though because blind contour drawing is a lot like free motion quilting, except you get to hold the pen in your hand instead of having to push the paper around underneath it. 

The best plant sale of the year

This past Saturday was the local IFAS extension/Master Gardener's plant sale.  & it was packed.  they open at 8am & at &7:45 I was waiting in a looooooong line of traffic to make the turn into the IFAS extension office building lot.  I have no idea if they opened early because by the time I got parked & out of the car it was after 8. 

I had planned to take pictures even though my camera was on a trip to Miami (next week it goes to Paris without me!); I have been learning the camera on my phone which s actually a nice one but my hands were full almost immediately.  I had brought sturdy bags which enabled m to carry plenty of plants but next year I am bringing a wagon!

I came home with one calendula which I immediately repotted (it had two unopened blooms & I was hoping to save one of them) & one cut-leaf coneflower.  I actually went hoping to find one of the varieties of purple coneflower but they were gone by the time I made it to the perennials section.  What I did find was a different variety of the rain lilies I am already crazy about.  I also go two lavender plants because I never can resist them & four roses: two Belinda's Dream & two Louis Philippe.  I forked over a whopping $26.  Consider if you will that roses this size cost >$15 a the local discount rose garden.  Yes I am delighted with my haul but that's not all.

The famously difficult to find UF campus IFAS bookstore had a booth where I could have easily dropped $100.  What I did buy was a book on native tree identification, an updated poisonous pasture plants guide & a small but thorough booklet on fruit plant propagation with a special focus on different kinds of grafting.  Yee-ha!

On the whole this event seemed to go smoothly.   There were two unruly people, both of them elderly men who were probably themselves overwhelmed, not that that is an excuse.  Still two cranks in a crowd of I don't know how many seems like almost nothing.  There was also a snafu as I was checking out; they kept coming up with a different plant count & I nixed it each time; all of their numbers added up to an even number & I knew I had nine plants.  In the end it was quite the headache to recreate the prices of what I had (they talked about going back to look but I knew the lavenders & one of the roses were already gone).  As I walked away from the table I could not help but notice the older lady responsible for pulling the color stakes used as price tags still had some of the tags from my plants in one hand when she started pulling them for the next sale.  Then she put them on the table & began to pile all the stakes  together.  The woman who was working with her caught my eye, smiled & shrugged.  I can see how the crowd of people no matter how happy to be there could easily fluster a person who would rather be gardening.

In all the sale runs for five hours (four actually but there are still people there even as the are wrapping up) & it is just once a year.  I have heard they made over $15K for the local Master Gardener program.  A good day.

52 Photos Project: My Reflection

I almost sat out this week on 52 Photos Project, the prompt being My Reflection.  I have limited patience with what I think of as naval gazing (I know I am in the vast minority thinking that Eat, Pray, Love & that ilk are overrated.  I feel mean saying it, but on the other hand if a person is going to put this monologue out there, some dissension is to be expected. 

We are reading Traveling With Pomegranates for bookclub this month & I am having the same kind of problems (I am sorry you are depressed when you know you have so much to live for & feel guilty & ashamed about being depressed but I am just not all that interested).  My attitude towards introspection probably is not helping here.  I have been accused of being MASCULINE in my views about those things (that's right I said it); I sort of wonder if depression & fear & boredom are all different approaches to the same paralyzing state of mind & a certain amount of "snap out of it" is required on the part of the beholder.

Yea, yea depression is chemical & needs to be dealt with like a disease, because t is a disease.  But there is almost no cure of any disease that is aided by watching the world go by & not getting involved (OKay, maybe addiction, but I honestly cannot think of any other right now & I think we can agree getting involved with the world & avoiding what you are addicted to is what addiction cures are all about). 

Next I am bogged down with the whole not getting as much out of it as you might if you were not depressed being a first world problem.  Maybe this book will dissolve my prejudices....but not so far.  My other lack of enthusiasm re: My Reflection is I have been trying not to stage anything, photographically & let each 52 Photos Project photo happen in the now (yep, I said that too).  There is no natural occurring moment now when I might take a picture of myself (my passport is unused but up-to-date).  I barely look at myself (no this is not self loathing, I'm just busy). 

When in doubt, go semantic.  In addition to being an image or counterpart, a reflection is also a meditation.  Meditation I understand (if that seems in conflict to my lack of introspection let me remind you that meditation begins with nothing.  I am a big fan of things about nothing).

I give you my reflection, in that other sense of the word: 

Last summer when my little dog died, M****** gave me this rose "white pet" & we planted it near the door to the greenhouse (she is buried under stepping stones at the front).  It has been doing well, pretty, unremarkable.  There have been only a couple of blossoms

Enter winter.  It has been below freezing most nights this week (hey, I live in Florida, this is not usual).  I cover all the roses overnight & uncover them in the morning.  Most afternoons I snip a little shaggy rose. 

I have a suspicion it being banked by the greenhouse that is creating this little winter-free oasis.  I have been reflecting on it all week. 

Labor rich Labor Day

Things have been a little quilt heavy here, at least you would think so from the blog posts.  The reality is most of our time has been spent outside.  We have had a very rainy rainy season (YAY) so there has been a lot happening out there & none of it has had anything to do with wildfires (YAY YAY).

This weekend we went grape picking at Loftus Family Farm.  We try to do this every year, but this year the grapes were bit behind schedule.  All this rain is good, but they need sun, too, to ripen.  Mr. Loftus told us that on Saturday 900 pounds of pick-your-own muscadine were weighed & sold.  We came home with 10+ pounds of our own.  I brought about a third of them over to W*****.  She is doing OKay with the radiation but she is so thin! & I know she loves them.

I also brought her some cuttings from the Reve d'Or which is going gangbusters up the live oak tree, probably because of the rain & being up high in rich well-drained compost.  This is the second set of cutting I have done for her.  The first set got so slammed with the rain, they flooded & never took root.  She will make a better rose-sitter than I ever was & if they all make it (& really they should) she will 14 tiny little rose bushes to plant along her fence.

Michael Faraday went squirrel chasing (nothing new there) up the banana tree (uhm...OKay) & took down the stalk with the closest-to-ripe bunch.  We have had seven banana blossoms this year (I can stop talking about the rain right?).  Those stalks are quite sturdy but Mr. Faraday is no lightweight.  Since they have already started to turn yellow, A cut the stalk & it is hanging from a rope tied to the covered walkway between the house & the garage.  We are hoping this will approximate the light it would have gotten in the banana thicket.  The blossom still had some petals, so I brought it over to W***** with the rose cuttings & the grapes.

So you see, it is not all quilting-quilting-quilting.  Of course, with all the rain I get a chunk of time inside to do something pick-up-put-down, like bind a quilt or...  No more about quilts or rain, for a few days at least.  I promise. 

Something to do

This is a monster big weekend around these parts. 

First it's graduation which means a lot of people coming & going which is good for local businesses (& hard on local-locals).  But unless you re a graduate or related to a graduate or otherwise student involved, you are not going to make a special trip for that.

Well, this is also my favorite weekend of the month:  the weekend the antique rose place is open.  They only do this once a month because they have other pay-the-bills jobs but once a month it is like a little rose festival.  This is where I got I got my Reve D'Or.  They are out of stock today, but keep checking they are worth it. 

& finally it is the Tree City Quilt Guild's every other year quilt show.  It is not a huge show, but it is still interesting.  There are a lot of outstanding local quilters & what with snow birds, there are a few outstanding not-always local quilters.  Also that snow bird thing means techniques from other parts of the country seem to make there way here & sort of mix together.  Whatever the reason, despite being a local guild show, there is usually something new to me every other year.

Reve D'Or

I have written before about the local roses people.  It was not until I went looking for the link I realized it had been a couple years; trust me I head over there more than once every couple years.  & about a year ago I went & bought several different roses including Reve D'Or.

I chose Reve D'Or on the basis of it being a climber that could handle some shade.  We had removed a diseased (three, actually) cedar tree from the backyard & two live oak volunteers were coming in nicely more or less in the same spot as two of them, but because it is a spot we mow & walk & so forth, we know we would be removing any low branches that made an appearance & keeping most of the area around quite clear.  & I thought wouldn't a nice climbing rose in one of those old cut-down whiskey barrels be just the thing?  & it was.

I did a little (very little) research, but mostly I asked the antique rose lady.  She actually recommended Maggie, a lovely Bermuda that I did purchase but put elsewhere (& she is doing fine), but I got to liking Reve D'Or.

While this is Reve D'Or's second year in the barrel (just beginning her second year), the complete lack of any substantial freeze means she has had plenty of grow time.  & she has given our very healthy potting mix an A++; the lower 2/3rds of the barrel are filled with greenhouse dried manure (what else can you do with all that manure & a greenhouse the hits 120-136 most of August?) & the top 3rd is whatever that rich mix is right in front of the barn where all the animals run & the rain seems to gather off the roof on the day I shovel it into the barrel.  After the heavy rain last week & the days of sunshine since she is showing a new bud & bloom almost every day.

Not entirely unrelated, last week was that one-of-two-weekends a year that is my most favorite days of the year:  the Friends of the Library Book Sale.   & yes, I did some damage in the horticulture section, specifically old world roses, new world roses, roses generally & so on.  Not a single quilting book in my bag when I got home, but still I am happy.  I am especially happy with Shrub Roses & Climbing Roses by David Austin, circa 1993 (it cast 75 cents).  Of my newly beloved Reve D'Or he says "a first class climber " YAY & lists her birthdate as 1869.  She is the daughter of Madame Schultz & a granddaughter of Lamarque.

I feel a new obsession coming on.  Okay it has been coming on for a while.  Now I feel its grip.

What else

I realized this morning my blog has been quilt block rich with not much else, so here is the rest (the bulk) of my day:

• The bluebirds are back.  They are flitting around the faux starling house on the highest post of the round pen, just like last year.  I don't know if this means they have moved in there or of it is just a good place to catch bugs.  They are welcome either way.

• On the same note, the back yard bird feeders are seeing some action.  We set up a sunflower feeder, a thistle feeder & a wild bird mix feeder (& plan to add a cracked corn feeder) on a four-way thing A got me last year.

• We had no winter to speak of; no hard freeze so far.  This has meant a lot of work re: weeding because they never died back.  On the flip side, the roses are thriving.

• Becca (the horse) was diagnosed with Cushings late last year.  Did I ever say?  I don't remember.  Anyhow, she is on 1 mg of peroglide a day & doing much much better.  Last week, she was RUNNING. 

• Rebecca (the cow) AKA Cowgirl AKA Her Ladyship has become hand trained.  Kinda.  We have a routine in which she gets a treat from me when I walk into the pasture & when I walk out.  This keeps her from crowding me while I am trying to work.  She learned this routine in a SHOCKINGLY brief period of time.  I mean maybe four days.  I can never eat beef again.  It would be like eating dolphin.  Or dog.

• The kittens are still here, three of them anyhow.  They are just barely kittens now as they are coming up on 1 year old, but they are so much younger than the other two cats I suspect they will be The Kittens for the rest of their lives.  One of them has taken to killing snakes-more on this in another post.

• I am not yet running like I want to.  I am walking.  I am walking a lot.  I usually bring one of the dogs because since the kittens arrived, the big dogs don't get the backyard time they used.

• I  am feeling mostly better.  I still have a catch-cough, but that is likely to linger for quite some time.  The DR gave me an inhaler but it makes me feel weird, so I have never used it.  If I have never used it, how do I know how it makes me feel?  It is the portable version of what she gave me in the office to stop my coughing long enough to do an X-ray, among other reasons.   I liked not coughing, but the other side effects were yucky.  It was like being hyper-paranoid but without the paranoia.  I really don't know how else to describe it.

It doesn't sound like much, but it all takes a shocking amount of time.  It doesn't help that I am hardly a ball of fire these days.

We were expecting Mister Lincoln

This past spring there was this rack of roses marked clearance & of course I could not resist.  For six dollars I got six roses, four of them survived, one of those was given away & now those that made it are starting to bloom.

This one is the only one I bought on purpose; that is I had no preference re: the looks (color, size), style (climbing, shrub) etc. when it came to the others.  This was the one I wanted; the others were extras in one of those buy one get five free giveaways. 

I have always loved the rose Miser Lincoln.  I love the name, I love the look & we even hit the planet around the same time (Mister Lincoln had his big debut the year before I was born).  I was all set for a feathery, bushy, not-too-flowery rose bush.  & that is what I got, but this sure is not Mister Lincoln.  Who this blush beauty is I  don't know, but tall & red with strong fragrance it ain't.

Also not what they seem is a Joseph's Coat that shows every sign of being a small shrub rose (not climbing, not large) & small shrub rose that shows every sign of climbing, but is not, alas Joseph's Coat.

For now, I guess I will leave them where they are until I am certain how they are going to behave; I cannot put them thru another planting this season & expect much in the way of blooms (clues) anyhow.

By any other name

When we first moved here, someone had planted three roses (of different colors & types, although I did not know that until later) in a very narrow, smallish space right next to the main gate out of our backyard.  By main gate I mean the one we used from the cars, the one the meter reader used, etc.  The couple we bought the house from had made many positive changes in the few years they lived here; this was not one of them.  By the following spring, the first rose bush had grown the 2.5" inches or so required to start interfering with the gate itself.  Digging out all three of them for replanting (as opposed to just hacking them out) was quite a task & I am not sure would not have bothered except R***** said she wanted them & it seemed churlish not to pass them on.

Anyway, they got planted outside the bay window in her kitchen & that is how we learned one of them was a yellow climbing rose (it was eventually moved to her back fence), one of them was lightly bushy with very few large red blooms (Mr. Lincoln, I presume) & one produced a lot of the tiniest pinkish, yellowish little flowers you ever saw along with many, many, many thorns.  I have not thought much about roses from that spring to this.

That is when the local community education catalog came & there was a one-day class on varieties of antique roses.  One day I could manage & something more obscure (& frankly denser green without the super-abundance of fast dieing blooms that need a super-abundance of deadheading) appealed.  Let me stop here & say this is what I thought antique roses were:  less work, fewer flowers, more likely to be fragrant, not the same rose every local housing development would have somewhere in the landscaping of their show model.  & surprise, surprise I was mostly right.  I might be wrong about the fewer blooms thing, that depends on what varieties you compare.

I came home with an overload of information-I was without question the least gardening person there; which is not to say they were not all excellent & experiences gardeners, the truth is I do not set the bar very high.  So I had several handouts & a list of vocabulary used in class to look up later (I'm not shy but it seemed obnoxious for me to keep interrupting with "& what does that word mean?").

I also came home with three small roses to plonk down somewhere I can smell them & the name of the once-a-month antique rose dealer within walking distance of my front door (I know, right?).  I will let you know how we do.