Pear Leaves.

Well, after the last two rants... I decided I just needed to show you a pretty picture.

We don't get much fall color here, everything goes pretty much from green to brown, with an occasional forray into yellow. But the ornamental Ambassador and Emporer Pears at least look kind of interesting on the way....

These are just some leaves I found on my morning walk around the block... I spread them out on the scanner. They're kind of cool, individually, but a whole tree full of them just looks ill... Anyway, I'll take it as I find it...

RANT ALERT!

Just a quick post before I attack the house. This place hasn't been seriously cleaned in longer than I'm willing to admit. But posting for my wonderful blogging friends is a perfectly wonderful excuse to procrastinate a little.
The Blue Girl Rose is blooming in the yard... this is the bush that sombody gave to my mother, and ended up in my front yard. I posted about it before but nothing too important...

Last night, I went to some darned seminar about 'wellness' products... a network marketing thing. A friend of mine is involved in it, and they just wanted to 'share' it with me. I listened to several motivational speakers telling me all about how wonderful everything is... I don't know if you've ever been to these things... but here's the rub...

They stand up there and tell you about the miraculous effect of their products in their lives. Just to let you know, the products include magnets in your shoes, mondo expensive matresses{with magnets included in the stuffing} some machine that makes hexagonal water {?} special air filters, dietary supplements, red-wave lights, and every other silly thing you've ever dreamed of. Then a bunch of people stand up and tell you how all these wonderful products have cured their MS, diabetes, back injuries and general malaise. Then the speakers come back and tell you that they make no medical claims, even though they just did.

Then they tell you how as a GOOD AMERICAN you are almost OBLIGATED to be a successful network marketer... (even though the company itself is based in Japan, it's still evidentlyvery much AMERICAN to spend your money on things made in other countries.) Then they make some amusing plays on words, then they tell you how stress is killing us all, and how they're soooo happy to SHARE (for a price) this OUTSTANDING SUCCESS PROGRAM with you so that you can have lots of money and spend all this time with your children (family values is a big marketing tool for this bunch) etc, and so on and so forth, and would all the Special Guest please stand up so that they can give you an application and a small plastic bracelet, at which point I felt a hand on my back pushing me out of my seat, whereupon I informed someone that if they didn't remove their hand from my back they were going to draw back a bloody stump and we'll see if that magnet in your shoe cures that...

Now, I'm pretty open minded. If my next door neighbor, or my cousin, or someone I actually knew was cured by strapping a magnet to their butt... I might be impressed. But I'm sitting here in this room, invited by someone who is telling me what a wonderful, successful and healthy life they're leading, even though I know for a fact that they've been laid up fighting the flu for the past 4 weeks. And on the other side of me, is some guy I've just met, telling me what a wonderful, successful and healthy life he's had since begining these products, even though not 30 minutes ago he was talking about these awful migraines he's had for the past 2 weeks... (I'm thinking the magnet headband might be giving them to him...) and scattered throughout the room are dozens of people who keep telling everyone how this WELLNESS program has helped them sooooo much, and, quite frankly, they don't look well... I mean, maybe they are well, I certainly don't know. But what's the point of being well if you look like you've got one foot in the grave and the other foot on a banana peel? Quite frankly, given a choice, I wouldn't mind being on deaths door, as long as I looked good.

After all this, I did a truly American thing, and went to a bar to have an alcoholic beverage and a good rant to any poor soul in hearing distance.

And now, I have to clean the house...

I'm trying to be a good blogger...

but the planet doesn't seem inclined to cooperate with this endeavor.



The pictures are just things in the yard... nothing too exciting, but I finally figured out what was with the camera, so I decided to take a few shots...



But here's what's been happening... Last week, I drove all day on a rather slow Monday. Then I got an order to pick up on Tuesday and drive all the way to Austin... aproximately 200 miles. Good $$$, so 7 am Tuesday, I'm picking it up and gone, back in DFW about 3:30... (and I suppose I should mention, it rained each and every inch of the way... not a nice polite rain either... we're talking a no visibility near biblical deluge type of rain) and then straight home... (this is why couriers charge so much for longer trips... one is all they can do per day as opposed to 7 to 12 smaller ones...)



Wednesday, I drive small trips all day, and dispatch suddenly calls and says they have something that has to get 250 miles to Houston, do I want it? Well of course I want it. I'm thinking I'll pick this up, get into Houston about 7 or 8 PM, find a bar, have some fun, check into a cheap motel and drive back tomorrow....

So they send me the order. Turns out it's a round trip... extra $$$, but now I have to deliver the machine part to the factory, pick up the bad one for repair, and be back in Dallas before 5 AM. No R&R, no fun, no sleep. That's just annoying.

But, on the way back, at about 2 AM, I did stop along Hwy 45, which is rather desolate... there's not many towns directly on that Highway, and spent a few minutes stretching my legs, which is very neccesary if you're driving for a long time and late at night. It gets your blood moving and helps keep you alert. Since you're away from city lights, you can look up and see stars, and even pick out part of the milky way. Quite a sight to see actually... I saw 4 shooting stars in the space of 10 minutes.

so, I get back into Dallas about 4 am, get the part where it's going, and I miss the next days work entirely. I'd driven more than 20 hours, the only thing getting delivered was my butt into a bed. And BTW... this is my birthday. Weee Haw.

Drove Friday. All day. Till far too late...

Drove Monday. All day... for not much actually...

And today, I had to take off to go sign papers for the estate. Calling somebody else to find out why they're taking automatic withdrawals from Mom's account, even though they saw the Death Certificate over a Month ago... Not the end of it unfortunately. I'm gonna be dealing with all this stuff for the next 6 months it appears.

And it's an absolutely beautiful day outside, of the kind that we have very few of in the Dallas Ft. Worth metroplex, and I'm stuck trying to do this @#$%&*!

As I mentioned before, my birthday was last week... the 1 month aniversary of Moms death (a fact I mention because several ever-so-thoughtful-weasel-people made special phone calls to point it out to me, so evidently it's very important!) I spent the day sleeping between phone calls from afore mentioned weasel-people and the evening at a friends house having an extremely informal dinner.

Actually a wee bit too informal. It was me, a friend from High School, and the computer. Specifically, some guy that she'd met online who lives in Cairo, Egypt, and who's face kept popping up in a chat window on her computer screen...

"Isn't he cuuuuuute?" she asked.

"If you're into sasquatch." I answered.

and I went out last weekend to see some people.

No one I knew,

just people.

Any people.

I didn't care.

and that's how I've been spending my time....

And that's all for my rants today... I interspersed it with some decent pics, so it shouldn't be too depressing....

later.

I'm a bad bad blogger...

I haven't posted in seemingly forever. But it's not entirely my fault...

1) it's been raining. For over a week now. Seemingly incessantly. Very annoying. I hate taking pictures in the rain.

2) even if I liked taking pics in the rain, my camera seems to be messing up.

3) And I haven't really had anything to say. The rain has drowned out even my ranting ability. Just a big damp blah.

But, I have been reading all of your blogs, so I'm not ignoring anyone.

I'm just here.

Thought I'd let you know I'm still kicking.

Hildy's done it again...

The Cereus hildmannianus has bloomed again tonight...

Just thought I'd show it off a little...

Stapelia gigantea in bloom...

Well, just to prove how distracted I've been lately, the first bloom on this plant, a couple of days ago, I didn't even notice until after it had faded... but I dutifully watched this bud and this morning it was obviously going to open today...

The blooms open in the afternoon, and stay pretty much until noon the next day... and yes they do smell like hamburger that's been left outside for some unknown reason, but the smell isn't unbearable as long as they're outside and you're more than 3 feet away. If you look closely, you will notice a carrion fly on the bloom... these are the plants pollinators.

Not that there's any pollination going on here... either they require a specific carrion fly polinator from their native land, or they require cross pollination and this is the only one within a mile, because for the last three years I've had plenty of blooms and not one ever even tried to produce a seed pod. I'm not that concerned... they're so easy from cuttings I can't imagine the neccesity of a seed.

As mentioned this is the second bloom this year. There are quite a few more buds beginning to pop out on the other side of the plant, but we're looking at a couple of weeks before they're likely to produce.


And now, I feel I should respond to the many people who expressed their condolences on my last post... Thank you all very much. I truly appreciate the kind thoughts and the concern expressed...

Rain Lily

I must apologize for my absense on the blog, but this has not been a good week for me.

At 11.30 pm Tuesday, my Mother passed away, and I was, understandably, terribly upset.

I won't go into the details here, but the last year of her life hasn't been the best, she was getting progresively weaker. This is in many ways a release.

But I wasn't able to get on the blog much. The week has proceeded in a surreal kind of clarity. Today, the sun came out, after a solid week of rain, and I was able to finally come back to reality.

These helped... The Zephyrantes candida, also know as Fairy lily, Toad lily or Rain lily have burst into bloom, just as they do every late summer and autumn after every heavy rain.

They spend much of their existence looking much like a row of Monkey Grass, but thier white, crocus-like blooms explode almost overnight.

These were blooming when my father died 5 years ago. September isn't the best of months for our family.

I was sitting outside under the willow tree today and I looked over to these blooms, and I remembered that after he'd passed, Mother and I were sitting in almost the exact same spot, looking at these flowers when she told me, "Life is for the living. It's time we got on with it."

Mother was a little on the blunt side. Not as blunt as my Grandmother, who once told one of my aunts, "You can't crawl into the grave with him, so keep going and your turn will come soon enough," but these flowers, the late summer sunshine and that memory have worked together to remind me that I was still alive. In many ways it doesn't seem fair, but life isn't. Yes I will mourn, and yes I will miss my Mother, but she gave me a lot of love and caring when she was here, and did everything she could to make me a strong person, and it will not honor her if I don't keep going, and hopefully pass that love, caring and strength on to someone else.

Not the most cheerful of posts.

cactus in the rain...

First, just so I won't be accused of Prickly Pear abuse, I would like to point out that the neglected Optunia humifusa from the previous post has been potted up in his own 5 inch clay pot, and will soon, no doubt, be happily growing along... the dead looking pad in the middle is typical of the species. Old pads die off as the new ones grow and root... the miniaturized pad that's lying on the soil surface already has new roots going into the ground at least an inch. The new pad that's growing up from the old roots will probably end up regular sized for the plant, what with new soil and the right amount of light, so it'll grow out at least 4 inches... we'll see.

It's been raining for 5 days straight! All my neighbors keep gushing about how we need it... I keep reminding them that I grow cactus, and I don't need it! The Pavonia keeps opening up it's blooms though, even if they do end up looking a little droopy from the water...

And Charcoal Briquette Kitty does not like this one little bit...

But the lower temps and extra water have prompted Hildy (Cereus hildmannianus) to put out some new buds. 15 that I've counted, although they're low on the plant and hard to find among the Prickly Pear pads that surround the pot. There may be more. And more buds may yet form higher on the plant... we'll see.

I will be picking up a new (used) truck tomorrow. Sorely needed, I assure you. My little Isuzu in about on it's last legs, but I'll probably keep it until I'm sure the new one isn't spending too much time in the shop.

I don't like spending money. I'm not particularly good at it, and it's kept me in a tempermental, worried fit over the last few days. Silly of me, but there we are. But I've bit the bullet... and now it's done.

negelected prickly pear

Most of us have one of THOSE spots in the yard. It's that spot between the fence and the shed, or behind the garage. That place where you shove things until you can deal with them later, and then the classic adage, "Out of Sight, Out of Mind," kicks in and you just plain forget about it.

Or maybe you remember it, when you're shoving something else out there, and you think, "Oh, that's right, I wanted to do something with that..." then you walk away and forget it all over again.

This is what happened here... This started out as a small seedling of Optunia humifusa that someone gave me, and I shoved in this pot and shoved it in a location out of sight, between the house and the pillar that holds up the 4 foot wide eave of the house....

Now, somebody gave me this little seedling 4 years ago. And it's been sitting there, on top of 1 inch of dirt, in the shade of the eaves without any water and totally negelgted. Not bad, huh?

Of course, the pads have stunted to about 1 inch wide, and it's fading to yellow... but it is surviving and I'll probably do something with it eventually... Which is pretty much what I said 4 years ago.

Optunia humifusa is a prostrate cactus that spreads through fields, never getting more than one pad high. The newer pads root where they touch the ground, and the old pads usually die off... It does have very pretty sulfer yellow blooms, and light pink fruits that birds like but aren't really edible for people. Varieties of this species grow throughout the US and into Canada.

I've seen fairly nice displays where they're used as a ground cover, but the habit of the old pads to turn brown and die off, means that it requires maintenance, and the spines and rather viscious glochids on this species make maintenance a painful proposition... which is probably why I stuck it in the corner and tried to forget it.

But, this guy has proven himself very resilient, and I'll probably reward him with a real pot and real dirt and hopefully, he'll end up looking decent.

I'm still here!

Yeah, yeah, yeah...

I haven't posted lately.

life has been a little overwhelming and quick paced lately, I'm afraid that any spare time is spent doing an impersonation of a gelatanous mass.

So, no pics... no amusing annecdotes... I ain't got nothing.

But, I had to post something, so here's a song from Australian singer/songwriter Kate Miller-Heidke.



Currently, she's one of my faves... hope you enjoy it!