flowers, the garden, and death

my karl rosenfield peonies!!  about quadruple the size this year, and such a gorgeous color!  i brought a couple indoors and aside from smelling just slightly sickly sweet, they lasted surprisingly well, until a gusty day brought aaaall the petals into a mass on the floor.  a couple more are sending out a second bud, so a few more weeks of blooms

vermonter miscellania

its growing on me.  but there's no coastline...

afuera de mi casa

if you ignore that little strip of blue in the dormer and the sad sack shutters i still have yet to remove... my house looks pretty damn cute.  and the all the green stuff around it is doing surprisingly well.  to the left of the porch, the forsythia expands every year with a vengeance, and was only about a month late this year due to crappy crap weather.  to the right is apparently named fairy queen, and has delicate looking wispy branches that flower all of a sudden.  when the wind blows, little petal tornadoes abound.  the bush furthest to the right is a type of flowering quince that only flowered after i hacked about half of it away last summer.  it filled in quite nicely but is again threatening to climb right in my kitchen windows and will be tackled shortly.

rhododendron overload

rhodeys in the kitchen

rhododendron season!

this pic was taken june 15th.  not that i'm behind on posting or anything.

dont you want to come sit in the sun and drink a beer and read a book with me?  i promise i'll move the other chair a bit further away instead of sticking my feet in your lap. 

more gratuitous blue sky day pics to come.

crabapples

i'd say these are pretty self explanatory.  the miniature park between my office and the parking garage may be fenced off now to keep homeless people from sleeping in it.. but it does still have some gorgeous foliage.

overprocessed flowers

some kind of flowering bush in my front yard - slightly washed out by the bright sun, repigmented in picasa [aka photoshopped]

faux flower arrangement

last weekend i spent some time at michael's.  always a dangerous prospect but i had certain things in mind.  and bought them.  and some fake flowers cos they were 50% off.  which i'm sure being michael's ..they usually are.  but whatevs.  i fell for it.  green and yellow match my apparent decor scheme and seriously?  who doesnt want a boquet with kale in it??

paperwhite update

that shit bloomed!

house happenings

the living room wall is slowly being populated with swanky mirrors - salvation army purchase, home depot purchase,  hand-me-down from grammie.  also a y from the salv army.  why you ask?  why not.  hah.

how to grow paperwhites

the floral type.  not the e-reader.  but if you find a way to grow those, lemme know.

step 1: buy paperwhite bulbs
step 2: buy glassware at goodwill that may or may not have formerly been an ashtray
step 2.5: wash thoroughly
step 3: find bag of pebbles in garage
step 4: dump pebbles in glassware
step 5: put bulbs in pebbles
step 6: water
step 7: wait

2 weeks later [possibly an ashtray]

probably not an ashtray

cemetery dq sunset

one gorgeous august evening while debating if i should get some ice cream or get some exercise... i remembered both was an option!  i live .8 miles from a dairy queen.  DANGEROUS.  i drove a couple times when it was 94 degrees.  but i decided the sun was just setting, the temperature was a balmy 70 and humidity was barely noticeable. 

boothbay botanical gardens

here's how awesome i am at posting - some friends from ny visited over the 4th of july and we spent one afternoon at the boothbay botanical gardens.  nearly a month later.. pics.  it was a gorgeous but oh so hot and humid day.  maine summers on the coast are supposed to be 75 and breeze with a slight chill in the shade.  not 99 and suffocatingly muggy.  but the pictures mostly speak for themselves.  we had a lovely 3 hour wander and then ice cream.  and showers.  and a nap.  but i digress.  prepare for lots of pics.

maine at it's finest - woodsy, some little hills, and water

every rose has its thorn

my roses were overrun by japanese beetles.  fuckers.  but they were gorgeous while they lasted. 

i think some research and pesticides are in order for next year

fleurs

the snowballs have bloomed!  eat those aphids little lady bug.  but if you bite me, i will not hesitate to smash you like i have your erstwhile brethren. 

happenings, aka the haps

i stumbled across a delightful blog awhile ago, harper's happenings back when mandy was doing hott - high on thrifting thursdays.  even though she stopped the thrift linkup, i keep reading.  mandy's writing is pretty delightful and entertaining [she swears much less than i do] and she manages to keep the OMG MY BABIES ARE THE BEST EVER to a minimum.  also, no religious propaganda shoved in your face.  check it yo.

but my haps.

i gots a new boiler and converted my heat and hot water from oil to natural gas.  i dont necessarily believe in and support the ways that natural gas is harvested/collected/obtained... but its the lesser of two evils at the moment.  slightly.  and its cheaper.

deer isle

two weeks ago i went home for father's day.  in between eating delicious foods and lounging about the house [inside and out] i helped my pops launch his sailboat for the season.  this involved some tidying of the boat, towing it allllll the way around the cove, futzing and putzing about while the boat folk raised the mast and the rigging, and then finally rollin the old girl into the agua. 

frank interlude

i say good sir, you appear to have something in your teeth

a ridiculous amount of flowering things

RHODODENDRON IN YO FACE!

outdoor happenings

the lilacs bloomed!  and i do mean past tense.. since it rained for a week and theyre all gone now.  but they were gorgeous for that few days