Merry Christmas to all...

Just a few shots around the neighborhood... we had three whole inches of snow last night, so I was just itching to get out and take some pics... unfortunately, the snow was accompanied and followed by high winds, so we didn't get any pretty accumulation on the trees...

The first pic is some mistletoe growing about 20 feet above me in a neighbors mulberry tree. It's not a great shot... When I pointed the camera up, there were a whole flock of robins. They sat, gave me take time to focus, and the split second before I took the pic... they flew off.

Little boogers.


This is my rather pitiful excuse for a Christmas tree... it's really not so bad. It's an Italian Stone Pine, Pineus pinea. A juvenile tree about 3 years old. In a couple of more years, he'll start growing longer, greener needles... If he survives. They will survive here... they're hardy to zone 7 and I'm on the line between 7 & 8... and they'll do very well through our summers, being drought resistant. But they're not really the best tree to have around... they grow into an umbrella, flat topped kind of tree. And too big for my little suburban yard. The trees are the ones that produce edible pine nuts that you pay way too much money for at the store.

I'm thinking that I could bonsai it... or maybe just grow it in a larger pot until I can figure it out, or find someone with a yard big enough.

The biggest problem will be getting him through the winter until spring, when I can do something with him. They really need a whole lot of light, and they usually won't survive inside until spring. As soon as it thaws though, I'll shove him in the coldframe. I'm not gonna shock him by throwing him out there right now though...

here's a shot of a mourning dove all fluffed up in the sun...

And finally, in the sheltered alley, some show accumulation... but not a pretty picture.

And that's about the best I could do today... I thought of getting one of the cats to come out and play in the snow for some shots. They informed me that I was quite insane, refused to discuss it further and would have locked me out of the house if they could figure out how to turn that little knob...

I had planned on going to midnight mass last night, at the church I've been attending recently, and plan on actually becoming a member of in the New Year. But the snow started yesterday afternoon, and after it ended, the wind kept up. Which means the friction of the wind melted the snow on the roads, and as soon as the wind died, it froze. I was still gonna risk it, but I was hearing sirens about every 30 to 45 minutes {I live fairly close to a major street. Whenever the sirens would go by, Dad used to joke that they were playing the "Cooper Street Blues" }

I decided that Baby Jesus was a forgiving sort, and would be more than willing to overlook my absense.

Instead, I curled up next to the truly obnoxious 5 foot tall cactus lamp, with a good book (Will Self, The Book Of Dave) and cats curled up on me. I had a very nice, mellow and blessedly peaceful Christmas Eve.

Seeing as I grew up in a household with a sibling who was later formally diagnosed as bipolar (except they called it Manic-Depresive then) peaceful holidays are my preference. I don't have a huge amount of warm fuzzy childhood memories about Chirstmas, and I have a hard time faking it for everyone elses sake, so I tend to let everybody else have their fun, and I'll have mine.

And all that is probably more than you needed to know, but there we are.

The point is, and I DO have one, is that I truly hope that everybody out there is having a wonderful holiday, no matter how you choose to celebrate it...

African Violet blooms...

Well, it's hardly Christmas themed, but then that's 2 days off... I know I talk about cacti mostly, but I inherited Moms African violets. Not that I have any names for the things, Mom was violently opposed to name tags. And it's true that I tend to water on a Cacti / Succulent schedule... I grow these in a 50 gallon terrarium.

The origional purpose of the terrarium was to root cuttings of plants, which I could then take to the flea market to sell. These got stuck in there after I repotted them, and they got a little wilty. So I stuck them in the terrarium and treated them like cuttings. They promptly began blooming and they've been thriving ever since.

It breaks all the rules... They get water all over the leaves, (It's hard to water over a foot and a half tall piece of glass without splashing some) but they don't develop brown spots... I have no idea why. Maybe the higher humidity has something to do with it... someone suggested that the water on the leaves may be a problem because of it drying on the leaves, where the humidity in the case keeps it from drying. Sounds just as good as any other reason. I don't worry about it. It's working, so I ain't arguing about it.

This seems to be a semi-dwarf variety... the leaves are small, but not as small as a miniature, and it has lots of happy little grape colored flowers.

little goth bob says...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

And, I just had to include a Christmas video too...


hope you like it.





And just for the record... this is my officially post number 300.

Wee Haw! Party, Party, Party!

Applesauce Fruitcake Cupcakes...

This is starting to look more and more like a cooking blog isn't it?

The truth of the matter is that I'm testing recipes right now... I wanted some really good cupcakes to go in my fruit baskets I hand out at Christmas. These are applesauce fruitcake cupcakes... and they bear absolutely no resemblence to the gummy bricks that you get in the mail called 'fruitcakes'

This is one of my basic recipes...

1 cake mix (use dry without the water, eggs and oil from the box. Just dump the mix into the bowl, and throw the box away. Seriously. Forget the box.)

1 can (or 1 1/2 cups) of any pureed fruit

any chopped dried fruit or nuts you want...

bake at 400 for 20 to 25 minutes.

for this I used

1 yellow cake mix

1 1/2 cups applesauce

1/2 cup chopped dried pineapple

1/2 cup chopped dried cherries

1/2 cup chopped walnuts and I threw in some cinnamon too... just for the heck of it.

It probably would have tasted better with a 'spice cake' mix... and you could use those candied citron things if you want it to be more like a traditional fruit cake... they always freak people out though. No one knows what they actually are. Well I do. They are the candied rind of a relative of the watermelon called citron. If you really wanted to... you could candy watermelon rind and use that... or you could do like my Grandmother did and candy orange, lemon and grapefruit peal. But really, I'm better with any old dried fruit I can find.

These aren't as sweet as most cakes, but they're sweet enough to taste good.

You're also not adding the eggs or oil from the cake mix, so they're considered low-fat... I can't say they low sugar, because the fruit you use may have some sugar in it, especially if canned, and the mix itself has some in it also...

Anyway, have fun.

Mistletoe for Christmas...

well, it's not a rant but it's also not a prickly plant either... so I'm not sure why this ended up on my blog...

I've talked about The Tradewinds Social Club, the bar that my friends have opened recently, and where little Goth Bob's cousin lives.... They have a rather pitiful tree in the parking lot... it's been cut down repeatedly so as not to block the Billboard. So the poor bedraggled thing is stunted and twisted and not in a cool bonsai-like way either.

It is also is heavily infested with parasitic mistletoe. I parked the truck next to it last night and climbed up in the bed to pick some... so that I could make these for the flea market...

I'll probably get a couple of bucks for each of them. Not bad when I get the plants free, the cellophane, the cotton (which is watered and wrapped around the bottom of the stems) and the little glitter twist ties at the dollar store. I'm sure that if I did the math, I would find that I've got less than 10 cents invested here...

I've never been really sure why people are so fond of the stuff. It's really not that attractive a plant...

Not to mention that it's poisonous. I understand that some Native American peoples used a tea brewed from the leaves to induce miscarriage and perform abortions... but I really really don't think experimenting with it would be worth trying. I suspect it would be one of those potions that could just as easily kill the woman as well...

I may, when I find the time, do a little research on the plant to find out some other interesting stuff...

UPDATE: I was doing a little research with the purpose of possibly writing a bit of info on this plant when I came upon this article on the U. S. Geological Survey site... quite frankly, it tells you everything I wanted to tell you, and more.

nothing much at all....

I haven't been blogging much. It's not that I'm ignoring you, it's that there's absolutely nothing to say... everything has been a bit of a grind lately...

The pic is from a dart game we had at Tradewinds Social Club... I'm not much of a dart player. The fact that I was playing darts, kinda shows you how bored I was. Quite frankly, I throw the things and if they even hit the board, I've achieved a lot... but my opponent did this...


That's right, he threw a dart, and it got stuck in the end of the previous dart...

And that is the most exciting thing that has happened this week. Sad, huh?

The guys over at cactus blog gave my prickly pear cactus jelly recipe a mention. Woo Hoo! I've been watching their blog for months... they're very knowledgable.

We had our first snow of the year on Wednesday. It started out raining, then it snowed, then it rained. More a wet, cold, muddy mess than anything else. And, of course, if it's a wet cold muddy mess, then you know, I had a flat tire in the middle of it... And the guy who sold me the truck last September had replaced the jack with one that I swear was made for a tiny little Honda. And it didn't have a handle. I was not happy.

Last night, we had our first freeze. I'm sure I lost some plants outside. The worst was the Stapeliad gigantea... I was madder than all gitout, until I remembered that I had taken cuttings- well, I'd taken some branches that had fallen off and put them in a pot inside. So I didn't totally lose the thing... I think my big sanseveria is gone too.

So, I guess things have been happening. But not a lot I was really thrilled about...

And, BTW, for some reason my blasted computer won't cut and paste... I was trying to cut and paste the link for the Cactus Blog, and it won't cut and paste at all... it does give me a little blue box for Accelorators, which I've never used in my life and I don't want, so I had to type in that link by hand. Dammit.