Wham Bam!

We had a doozy of a storm last night. The power flickered off and on several times, the rain was torrential and the lightning and thunder were epic. And then......we heard a loud boom. I didn't know until this morning, when I went out to check the pool skimmer, that this tree had fallen. It appears to have been struck by lightning, since the trunk is badly splintered.

As it fell, it took several limbs off a second tree, and skimmed the bark off another.

A slightly closer view of the trunk that splintered. when we left the neighborhood this morning, we saw limbs down and a few trees in three other yards. Since we moved here 29 years ago, we have lost more than 20 trees, but luckily we still have many more, and it didn't hit anything important on the way down.

Just A Wee Bit of Color

For some unaccountable reason, although it may have something to do with the drought we had all summer, our trees have not been as brilliantly colored as in years past. A few trees are showing color this week. These can be seen out my kitchen window, and I am grateful for even this small bit of fire. 

Edit:  I stand corrected. I had not been out in the car for 2 days when I wrote this - but we went out for an early dinner tonight and I was amazed at how colorful the trees had become almost overnight. Perhaps the colder nights we've had lately had something to do with that.

I Think that I Shall Never See......Part Two

I Think That I Shall Never See...

This one looks like something at DisneyWorld. See the carvings?





































I love art and creativity, but nature is all I really need. What could be more artistic than the branches and mossy roots of these trees?

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Al of a sudden, the gizmo on blogger that controls alignment won't work. What's up with that? I don't like ragged margins on the right, darn it!

Today is a cool, overcast day - suited to cleaning and laundry. Yes, I know it is Sunday, but women who work have to do those things on the weekend. It must make mr. kenju feel guilty for doing nothing, because he always rants at me when I feel in the mood to clean, like it's a sin or something. Pooh.

"A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease. Every hidden cell is throbbing with music and life, every fiber thrilling like harp strings, while incense is ever flowing from the balsam bells and leaves. No wonder the hills and groves were God's first temples, and the more they are cut down and hewn into cathedrals and churches, the farther off and dimmer seems the Lord himself."

John Muir, naturalist, explorer, and writer (1838-1914)

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(I had a good video to put right here, but blogger had other ideas and wouldn't let it upload. Maybe later.)

The visit of our neighborhood women's group to the new North Carolina Museum of Art, which had its grand opening this weekend, ended with a view of a 'virtual' tree, which is projected on a large wall near the cafe. The tree is in motion, with branches "in glorious enthusiasm", just like the quote above. A dancer in front of it was part of the performance art which was taking place all over the museum and the grounds outside. I took 47 photos there on Sunday, and I will be sharing them with you over the next few weeks. We in North Carolina (and especially the Triangle area) are very proud of our art museum; considered the finest between Washington, DC and Atlanta. The new building was designed to show off our art to the best advantage and it is agreed that was fully accomplished. (The painting above is not from our museum.)

Further Evidence...

A close-up of a weeping cherry tree in my daughter's
yard.

Bradford Pear trees outside my local K-Mart. These trees are in bloom all over our area now, along with flowering cherries and plums. Spring has sprung...

A branch of forsythia, reaching skyward. Is there any better harbinger of spring? Cutting a few small branches and bringing them in the house to bloom is a ritual here. Nothing brightens up a winter-weary home better than this!!

One of my three forsythia bushes. They reach peak bloom about 10 days apart, owing to their positions in the yard. This one was pruned severely last summer, so I am surprised that it has so many blooms on it now.

Leftovers

A pretty, festive bow hung on the chain of a chandelier makes a lovely addition to your Christmas decor. It is especially effective if you have high ceilings and a long chain. I hung a gold one in my dining room about six years ago, and it is still there.

Christmas Past: a swag hung over a mirror behind a love seat. The colors of the ribbon blend with the upholstery and the tassels add a festive touch.

This is the crazy gingerbread house at the Governor's Mansion this year. Made by Donna of Sweet Memories Bakery, it is a real treat to see! Click to enlarge.

One of the few trees in my yard that still has leaves on it; the red really stands out in a forest of gray trunks and branches. We thought it was going to be dusted with snow, but all we got was sleet, which knocked all those pretty red leaves off!

Another tree from Christmas Past; I did this one a few years back. It has about 1800 lights on it and approximately 350 sterling silver and cut crystal ornaments on it, including crystal icicles. The people who hired me to do this tree discovered the morning I was to arrive that their tree stand was broken. The gentleman jury-rigged it and it appeared to be sturdy. Just as I hung the last ornament on the tree, it toppled over on me. No harm was done, nothing broke and not one ornament fell off the tree! I was so very glad I had hung them all using silver chenille stems.

Odds and Ends

My daughter took this photo in Ecuador recently. I have no idea what kind of tree they are, and I'm going to try and find out. They're otherworldly, aren't they? I searched for trees native to Ecuador, but I found nothing that looked like these. Thanks to Geraldo, we have an answer!! Look in the comments. Thanks, Geraldo!

Last week when the women in my neighborhood went out to lunch, this fuzzy guy met us on the way out of the restaurant. I asked him to move so I could get a better photo, but he was having none of it - and I knew I better not touch him. I suspect those black spurs are lethal! I wonder what he turns into after he spins his cocoon?

I really miss my live baby foxes, so I got this one to remind me how sweet they were. Isn't he cute? I suspect he'll become good friends with all my froggies in no time!

Quotes of Note + Nuts Galore

"Money doesn't buy you happiness. But it buys you a big enough yacht to sail right up to it."

Johnny Depp, in the July 2009 issue of Vanity Fair Magazine. He was referring to his island in the Bahamas.

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Evil is like a shadow - it has no real substance of its own, it is simply a lack of light. You cannot cause a shadow to disappear by trying to fight it, stamp on it, by railing against it, or any other form of emotional or physical resistance. In order to cause a shadow to disappear, you must shine light on it.

Shakti Gawain, teacher and author (b. 1948)

*******

A belief which leaves no place for doubt is not a belief; it is a superstition.

Jose Bergamin, author (1895-1983)

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If you wish to be loved, show more of your faults than your virtues.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, author (1803-1873)

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Have you heard the old saying that in years when trees produce an abundance of seed pods or nuts it means we'll have a cold winter? If that is true, according to my hickory trees - we are in for it later this year!! (The variety I have is called carya glabra or pignut hickory.)

We have 2-3 hickory trees just outside the deck fence (back where the foxes used to play) and another set of them hanging over the driveway in the front of the house. Even in sparse years, such as when we were in the worst drought conditions, the nuts dropping are a problem. This year - they are a menace!! Every morning I have to go out and pick them up off the deck, scoop them out of the pool and clean them out of the skimmer. If I leave them on the deck, squirrels come and break them open and leave the shell fragments on the deck and concrete pool surround. If you ever stepped on one, you'd know why I have to pick them up. The fragments are as hard and sharp as broken glass and almost as damaging to your foot.

So far this year, I find at least 15 of them on the deck every morning and more in the skimmer. I think that bending over to pick them up and throwing them into the woods is good exercise for me - so there's that silver lining. In previous years, I'd find maybe 4-5. I don't know what to attribute the excessive amount to this year; perhaps the fact that we've come out of the drought we were in for almost five years has something to do with it. At any rate, I'll be watching the acorn crop this year, as well as the woolly bear caterpillars, to see what they predict.

My Trashy Tree

Way back when I posted about a tree just behind my deck that I couldn't identify. It's a messy one that drops trash of one sort or another on my deck all year long. Last weekend, I finally found someone who knows what it is! While in the van delivering wedding flowers, we passed a tree like mine, and I asked Mel's brother Billy what it was and he said Chinaberry. I should have known he'd know - he knows everything that grows!

I found out the type just in time to have it cut down. I asked mr. kenju to have our tree man cut it down, since half of it is dead or dying anyway. The other half drops crud (leaves, stems, blossoms, berries) all year long. I am ready to be rid of it - although I ordinarily hate to cut trees down unless they're completely dead or diseased. But I am tired of sweeping the deck nearly every day!

Once Hidden ~ Now Revealed

The hail you see here rimming the grass and sidewalk doesn't look or sound as fierce as it did when it fell. The marble-sized hail melted quickly when it hit the pavement; still very hot after our 90* day.

This tree is not in our yard, thank Heaven! These neighbors have lost 4 or 5 trees in the last few months. I couldn't believe how shallow the root bed was for this oak. The section you see here was taller than I am (5'9") and wider as well, but the footprint of it was only about 6-7" deep! The house across the street from me lost a number of trees this way during Hurricane Fran but their trees left a hole 3-4' deep. (Click to embiggen)

A little closer. I think the patterns of the roots are interesting.

The tree is more than 12" in diameter and I'd venture it's at least 60' tall. I wonder why the root bed was so shallow? I always thought that oaks (especially) and other large trees would have very deep root beds. It fell fairly close to their house (even though it doesn't look like that here). They were lucky!

Here is the top part of the fallen tree. You can see the other tree that got damaged when the oak fell. The people who live here were on their way out of town when this happened. Needless to say, they had to postpone their trip for a bit.

This is the "foot print". How on earth could that shallow hole have supported a tree that large for so many years?

Green Scenes

Driftwood in the ivy (click 'em to big 'em)

Money plant. I pulled this one out of the ground because it was growing in a place I didn't want seed to scatter when it matures. I thought you might like to see the "money - coins" at this stage.

Here I have opened a piece of the "money", so you can see the seeds developing. When mature, the seeds turn brown and the discs of the coin shed the green covering, leaving behind a seed packet formed of pearly-looking (almost iridescent) coins. Once they are dried, they open in the wind, and the seed is scattered hither and yon. Anywhere that seed lands, there will be a plant the following spring.

"Nobody home."

These three photos show you what happens when you leave poison ivy unchecked. It takes over the trees and everything in its path. Don't you think we'd be well advised to get some Roundup?

On a Very,Very Windy Day in April...

I met a lovely woman blogger from Florida, named Beverly. You can see her blog, Lacoochie Kid at:

http://beverlywhitcomb.blogspot.com/

She was driving to VA to visit her son and his family, which includes one of the cutest little baby girls you'd ever want to see, and I was lucky enough to convince her to stop off in NC long enough to have lunch. I met her at a restaurant just off Rte. 95, and we spent two hours talking. It is always interesting to meet someone new, especially when you feel as though you know them already through their writings.

We agreed that there are other bloggers we'd like very much to meet someday. She has already met Vicki (A Mark on My Wall), for which I am trying hard not to be jealous! We decided we'd one day love to meet Roxanne (Melange), Mamacita (Weekly Scheiss) and Bonnie (Babette's Feast) (all links are in my blogroll). There were a few others, of course, but I won't try to name everyone for fear I'd leave out someone important. I hate to admit this, but I forgot my camera this morning. Beverly had hers though, and a woman at the restaurant snapped a pic of the two of us. You will have to wait until Beverly posts it, to see the two of us (and my newly shortened and gray hair!)

Now, about the wind: I think nearly everyone in the east has had their fill of it in the last two days. I was on the road to meet Beverly this morning when mr. kenju called my cell phone to inform me that we were one pine tree short now, since one had just fallen in the front yard. It was already half dead, so when it fell, it conveniently broke into 4-5 long logs. The same thing happened in the back yard about 6 weeks ago; eventually saving us several hundred dollars, since we don't have to have them cut down. Mr. wind - you have done your job - now go away!!

On another note, there was tragedy and unpeakable horror in Virginia today. I hope we will all pray for the survivors, the deceased and their families. We may never know what precipitated the attacks, but we can pray that nothing like it ever happens again.

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden ~ LOL

So, you're getting mostly tulips, azaleas and dogwoods! In the top photo, I was standing on my neighbor's porch looking across the cul-de-sac to my yard. Aren't I lucky to live next door to such pretty flowers?! My neighbor was having a party for the women who live around here, to show them her flowers, so that's why there were so many cars in the street.

They have both red and yellow tulips, but for some reason, I snapped pics of the red.

This pink dogwood stands right off their porch. It is wonderful to stand under it and shoot up into the tree. I am not a fan of the color pink, but in a dogwood it is wonderful!

More pink, tempered with white and buttercream tulips. These raised beds will hold tomatoes in a few months. Maybe if I'm good, they'll share!
This water garden is hidden from the house and the rest of the area; you can barely see it until you walk behind some taller beds of azalea. It's such a peaceful spot. They also have a gazebo, which is a good spot to sit and read, but I never see anyone in it. Maybe I'll ask to borrow it this summer.

Clicking to enlarge is a really good idea!