Floral foreplay

If you enjoy the bud as much as the flower, the emergence as much as fruition, then you extend the ‘season of interest’ of every plant you grow. (Click on images for a larger view.)

Blanched sedums:

blanced sedums

Clockwise: Emerging eranthis, hellbore bud, emerging hellebore stems, another hellbore bud.

emerging eranthishellebore bud

hellebore budemerging hellebore

Something I don’t even remember planting coming up around cyclamen.

emerging bulbs

As the snow retreats (again)

The first day of spring dawned at 4 F.  But since then, it’s been in the 50s and 60s and most of the snow has retreated again — except for the drifts in the veggie garden and some of the piles along the driveway and in the ditches. There’s a lot more to see than there was two weeks ago when the snow retreated the first time.

Crocuses are peaking where the soil is warmest. (Click on images for larger view.)

crocuses

What else is flowering? Clockwise, an orange crocus, an iris (cristata?), the now trite clump of snowdrops (still my favorite spring ephemeral), and a nice spotted hellebore flower.

orange crocusiris

spotted helleboresnowdrops

Politics and the English Language

George OrwellGood advice from George Orwell in his Politics and the English Language first published in 1946:

  • Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
  • Never use a long word where a short one will do.
  • If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
  • Never use the passive where you can use the active.
  • Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
  • Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

Sunday music: Water Song, Jorma Kaukonen w/ David Bromberg:

The stream out back runs (sometimes it only crawls) year-round. But it was gurgling today. Not exactly like the babbling brook of a song Jorma performs here. Still enough to be heard over the crows building a nest in the pines and the geese marking territory in the wetland.

I saw Jorma at SUNY Binghamton (as it was known then) in high school when he was playing with Hot Tuna. (Accounts for some of my hearing loss.) Bromberg and his band opened.

Frankfurter spectacular, Blowin’ smoke (#2)

Frankfurter spectacularIn the same snarky vein as Lilek’s Gallery of Regrettable Food comes candyboots Weight Watchers recipe cards from 1974. Will make whatever you’ve got cookin’ or even an 8-piece box seem that much better by comparison.

If you want to be truly inspired, food-wise, rush on over to Lucullian Delights. Even if you don’t like Italian cooking, you’ll like the photography, which includes some garden and floral themes from time to time between the sumptuous food shots.

Posting is light this weekend. #1 son is up from Florida for some end-of-season skiing. After the first day of spring dawning at a cool 4 F, we’ve had mostly 50s and 60s and the snow has pretty much retreated, except for drifts in the veggie garden. I’ve got more spring ephemeral pictures that won’t get processed or posted for awhile.