Praying to be Rescued...

A few days ago we were all going home from the school day when this wonderful praying mantis was discovered trying to navigate the asphalt parking lot of our school. She had no chance of surviving the after-hours parking lot exodus, (it was a female and I know this as the female kills their male mates after doing certain things together), just no chance in the least of reaching a green sanctuary before getting totally squished by the many car tires heading out of the parking lot. I tried to pick her up and a student tried as well, to no avail. I went looking for a stick or something for her to cling on to, but in the interim, another gal found a paper plate that Ms. Mantis happily climbed on to. Her rescuer let her loose on a patch of grass - and I hope this had a happy praying mantis ending (though I didn't stick around to see that)!

~~~

xoabb
expect anything!

Hey, Dodgie, this one's for you!
All I could think of is how you would have rescued this mantis and made her safe!

Not at all like last year...

Last year, the colors of autumn were simply magnificent!
This year, not so much.
Though we see hints of color here and there,
It's nothing like the palette we were blessed with last year.
The colors of this year won't be as good,
But there's always hints of loveliness...
Always.

The Beauty of a Flower

The end of Summer
With colors of Fall painted
On a blue blue sky.

~~~

xoabb
expect anything!

Kate Bag 9/25

Interesting...

We (Remy, Timmy & I) have used organic products (fertilizers, insecticides, etc.) and have been blessed with a GREAT garden plot output for our very first try. I was there today and must tell you that our garden looks healthier than about 99% of the gardens in this lower garden. Upper garden? Not so much. They're well established & know what they're doing. We of the lower garden will get there eventually, but it'll take a year or two. ;-)

~~~

xoabb
expect anything!

SWF - St. Paul's on the Green

Above uploaded from iPhoto

This one uploaded from Flickr - colors are wonderful, but I just can't get the sizing down.

What's up with THAT???

I've taken many a photo of this beautiful,

wonderful church over the years.

It is simply impossible to take a bad shot.

~~~

xoabb

expect anything!

Sky Watch Friday

Do Join Us!

9/25 6:56 pm UPDATE!!!!

My incredibly computer-savy bud, the fabulous Daryl, told me you can resize downloaded Flickr photos when using the Foxfire browser (NOT on Safari)! I never knew that. Sooooo...The above photo is finally correctly sized. THANK you from the very bottom of my heart, my friend! TTFN - I'm off to resize my other photos!

CG Kate Bag (She's BACK! YEA!) Harvest...

Has become quite sparse to say the least...

But on a much happier note, I'm so very pleased to report that my Kate Bag has resurfaced! You simply can't imagine how glad I am about this. I missed that bag!
Found it in the garage buried beneath the Costco bag of 16 rolls of paper towels. Have no idea how it got there, but am quite certain I'm the responsible party. (sigh)

Onto other things, namely my home patio San Marzano tomatoes (with a few other tomato variety interlopers). They're producing sorta kinda ok. Not a big production, but the ones I've harvested have been quite nice, as you can see. No tomato blight, which is simply delightful, but the odd summer weather has really cut into the numbers of ripe fruit.
My Community Garden tomato plants? Blight loaded, unfortunately. Tomorrow I'm taking a big old industrial size bag to the garden and taking out the plants. They'll be sealed in the bag and tossed. No compost heap for them!
Just one last note. This past weekend I made a bolognese sauce from my garden tomatoes. The hubs said it was the very best sauce he'd ever eaten and would I please make it exactly like that again and again. Damn...didn't write down one thing I did...

~~~

xoabb
expect anything!

Perfection....Wood Works!

Must say, this totally looks like the perfect husband...

And more importantly, the perfect pets...

Just sayin'...

~~~

xoabb

expect anything!

BTW: Jules took the above photo for me. She was on the passenger side.

Last Day of Summer

Can you believe summer is over??

Nah, me neither.

Here in the Northeast we didn't have much of a summer. Can't complain much as we had nary a one hot 'n awful day, and so far the hurricanes have kept themselves out to sea. But rain?? O have we had rain! It's now tapered off a bit, but I'm sure it'll be back!

O, and for the first time in forever, we've had no ~dog days of summer~! Most years the kids go back to school and we have a string of days with triple digit temp and humidity. This year, not so much. Nice!

Fall/Autumn...one of my four favorite seasons. The flowers are slowing down, the veggie garden has seen its prime, and the leaves are suddenly turning. Another season. Where the hell does the time go???

Sunday Serenity...

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.

~ Emily Dickinson

~~~

xoabb

expect anything!

Steeple in the Sky

Lovely Baptist Church
Mathews County, VA
I'll see it again!
~

Spent a magical weekend there with 20 or so of my (now) close blogging friends. We've all written about it ad infinitum, and the good memories just don't dim. Can't wait till next summer when we get together once more! What a time we had!

~~~

xoabb
expect anything!

SkyWatch Friday
Do join us!

Plethora of Pepper Questions...

Dear Pepper People,

If I keep these on the vine,

will they ripen into red/yellow/orange peppers?

Here I have a surprise! A purple pepper from the get-go!

Will it stay purple??

What about these peppers?

Destined to be green?

Possibly turning yellow/orange/red??

Or just maybe purple?

~~~

xoabb

expecting all pepper questions to be answered!

Urban Road w/a HUGE Side of Amazement

In the last few times that I've driven I-95 North, out of the corner of my eye, I've noticed something out of the ordinary. Actually it's something that looks nearly impossible to be able to do.

So, I took 95 Monday with the sole purpose of getting a photo of the phenomenon. (That wasa before I misplaced my camera, and no, I didn't stop to take the picture, which accounts for the quality of said photo.)

Look closely at that overhead sign (click on it to embiggen). On the north-bound or right side of it, there are signs for 95 North and for East Norwalk's exit 26. On the other side, there's the back of another sigh. Above the middle of the 3-lane interstate. In the wide open where anyone and everyone can see, even at night as 95 is fully lit at all times. The back of that sign is completely covered with graffiti. Neatly and completely. Just one question comes to mind...HOW did whoever they are do that?

Well, while we're asking questions, I'd also like to know WHY? Just two thoughts come to my mind...gang marking/initiation, or some crazy-stupid young kids making their juvenile mark.

But much more than why, I'd like to know how. Sure, they could climb the scaffolding, but they surely had to do that at night to have the only chance not get caught, and that adds all kinds of obstacles (can't see what's being painted, can't see to climb, how did they carry all the cans of spray paint, surely there was more than one person needed to carry that out, etc.)

And I bet I'll never ever know the answer to one of those questions. (sigh)

On another note....

My CG Kate bag harvest for last Saturday. Found my camera, not so much my Kate bag, dammit! (I am truly bereft over losing misplacing it - SO hope it's found.) As you can see, production is quickly waning. Tomatoes (what there are of them - terrible season all around) are not as red, bean production is tapering off. Peppers, however seem no where near slowing down, and if we have just a few more warm days, I'll have another round of gorgeous eggplant! For a poor year of gardening for most everyone in New England, I'm sorta of pleased with my first attempt.

Here's to next year's garden!

~~~

xoabb

expect anything!

Country Road w/a Side of Irritation

(Above from iPhoto)

(This one's from Flickr - must figure out how to make this way work

without all the damned cropping that happens! Much better quality

photo, but I just can't seem to size the photos correctly.)

I've misplaced my camera, and along with it, my mind plus all usual thought processes. Pretty sure my camera's at work (Hope hope hope!). Pretty sure my mind is not. If you see it, would you send it on back home? Really beginning to miss it!

~

Photo is from earlier this summer. Some of the best times I've had in a long time were found at the end of that road. Of course, this was when we were leaving to return home (sigh).

~~~

xoabb

expecting to be back to my old self soon!

Sunday Serenity...

Beauty in the morning

Makes the rest of the day

Seem reasonable

~~~

xoabb

expect anything!

I really want this...

Really! I really do!

Desperately....

~

I've never found any car, young or
old "cool" enough that I think I must have it.
This, I've realized, is the exception.
I love this old antique car.
I want this!

~~~

xoabb
expect anything!

9-11

~~~

xoabb

Expect September 11 - never to be repeated!

~

SkyWatch Friday

The Goods...

Those who guessed that the bloom of Tuesday's post was a future eggplant were most definitely correct! Look at that beauty! One of two I picked, and there's more coming on.

Don't know about you, but I find the eggplant to be the most sensuous veggie. The shape, and especially in the above photo, the light reflecting...there are many wondrous shapes there...at least to me!

I am completely and totally bereft! Not only have I misplaced my camera upload cable (handily replaced today at Staples with a camera card reader), I also misplaced my CG Kate bag. Can't imagine where I lost it. (And I MISS it! It just has to be here somewhere!) So...this week's harvest comes to you courtesy of wooden bowl who kindly offered to step in for my Kate bag. Not quite the same, but guess it will have to do. (sigh)

On another note, I've harvested enough tomatoes (not in the above photo - in another wooden bowl and I totally forgot to take the pic, darn it!) and peppers that I was able to share with a friend! I was totally excited about that!

And this, my friends, is my zucchini plant. It is dead. Thoroughly and completely dead. After a total of two (2) zucchini harvested. I was told to only plant one because there are always so many zucchini on one vine, you'd never be able to use all of two vines. Really? I think not! I am the only gardener, novice or master, that can readily and ably kill zucchini. What's up with that??

~~~

xoabb

expect no zucchini from me!

Frustration Abounds!

I have a very wonderful photo or two from my very own community garden site of the most MAGNIFICENT eggplants I've ever managed to grow (the first and only I've ever grown, just as an aside)...and the download cord is missing! DAMMIT! I promised you a photo of yesterday's mystery flower (that some of you guessed correctly), but until Thursday when I FINALLY find my download cord and show you the most lovely Blystone original fully ripened eggplant photos, I hope the above will suffices.

An eggplant on the vine - here's the above in the original: http://tiny.cc/yJZMO

What Will I Become?

It just amazes me how a blossom is the beginning of something else.

Know what this blossom will become?

Guess away!

Answer tomorrow!

Sunday Serenity...

Sometimes (and gratefully) means all my children and local family are gathered 'round our dinner table...

On a Friday, not Sunday night, but still,

Absolutely nothing better...

However, it took a bit of yelling on my part (unruly gang!) to get their attention for the above photo moment....

The before yelling pic :

And then there is our youngest (and cutest) family member...

Miss Ella* in the

Kitchen sink, she really knows

How to use that soap!

*aka Little Miss Magic

~~~

xoabb

expect anything!

SWF: Ominous Sky Reflected...

While the actual sky doesn't look very stormy in this photo,
what's reflected in the water looks very stormy indeed!

Amazing how a different photographic angle
shows an entirely different sky story!

~~~

xoabb
expect anything!

Sky Watch Friday
Do join us!

~

Above photos taken about 30 seconds apart on July 31, 2009 in my backyard.

Janis Joplin*

Janis Joplin, originally uploaded by bbum.

Just the sweetest old dog.
One of the best I've known.
She lived her life fully -
Usually with a frisbee close at hand.
We had the pleasure of having her live
up the street from us for several years...
Just fell in love with her during that time.
~
She loved her people and was loved by many more
Rest in peace, my furry friend,
Rest in peace!
~
Janis Joplin*
1996-2009

~~~

xoabb

*My brother Bill & his family's beloved doggy
(We loved her, too.)

CG Kate Bag Harvest 8/31/09

Wow! Things are finally picking up at our Community Garden plot! Tomatoes, tho they're far from gorgeous, are finally ripening. And look at all those peppers! Yes, just look at all of them. As Rem said: "Mom, what were we thinking???!?! We planted enough peppers for 5 families!" In that bunch, there are hot ones, sweet ones, in-between ones. And we have no clue which is which. Makes for interesting eating. Another nice mess of beans - and they're some of the best beans I've ever eaten! Dad got them in Germany quite a few years ago and has been harvesting seeds ever since so they can be enjoyed each year. Gotta remember to let one or two beans hang on and completely ripen so I have seeds for next year. I can't imagine I'll have this big a harvest again, but...one never knows! Maybe the eggplant will be ready next time!

~~~

xoabb

expect anything!