Coffee Poem

Would that a man love
A woman like his coffee
Cup to lips, a few hot sips
The fair aroma enjoyed
And then
The whole taken in-
Until their thirsts slacken.

End of Growing Season!

Today I awoke to a sleety, snowing mess. I must confess I had never expected it to snow this early in Philly.

So, the first freeze and the first snow are contemporaneous this year, both today on October 29.

Fortunately the Plumeria was brought in yesterday, so it'll have another year to flower.

Sweet Pea finally bloomed

Late Spring Update

Unexpectedly, I wound up with five days off in a row from work, and even tomorrow I could saunter out early to get a jump on the Memorial Day weekend. So, since I got to stay at home and blog for money as best I can, I managed to exercise fairly regularly on the elliptical machine I bought back in 2007. Despite the light duty I normally subject it to (ignoring it altogether is light, right?) it's started to get a weird little bump as I run on it. This makes working out a little louder, but that's why the volume on the radio goes up. And, in addition to a slowly improving waistband situation, this has given me the opportunity to listen to the radio again I've enjoyed listening to 104.5. They play the latest Cake songs, so that's at a minimum a good reason to tune in.

But the other thing I worked on was the garden. So far, the Sweet Peas have grown quite nicely, but nary a flower. The Sweet Alyssum is blooming well with both white and purple flowers.

I did have a surprising failure: no action from my nasturtium seeds. But I suppose it's not really fair to call it a failure. They were two season old seeds. Just not viable anymore. For that pot I've planted marigold seeds instead, and hopefully they'll come up. Unfortunately, since we're already in late May it could be a while before the flowers pop up. If a few weeks go by and there's no action, I'll probably go ahead and just buy some ready grown ones. More expensive, but that's what I get for waiting.

That's also what I had to do for the lavender plant. About $4 for two plants. Unfortunately last years lavender did not come back on its own, and the seeds would have been too slow to start. So, again, I opted for the shortcut. Hopefully they'll fill in the window-box.

Also planted were zinnias and sunflowers. Both are big favorites, and should come up reliably now that we have warmer weather. And later in the season I'll put the Kauai Honeymoon Plumeria back outside.

As for the reliable standards: beautiful dwarf snapdragons and the big Sedum Matrona are still going strong. I also noticed while futzing with the pots that cute little mantises were guarding against invading insects, so the egg cases left last year must have made it safely through the winter.

Sweet Alyssum in Spring

First Snapdragon of 2011

Yesterday was Easter Sunday, and it was a gorgeous day. Today's not too shabby, either.

On the way to work I shot this photo of my first flower of 2011: A snapdragon

As an aside, the camera here is a Motorola Defy smartphone. Sadly, my prior phone's long service came to an end on March 21 after an unpleasantly wet day.

AeroGarden as a Late Winter Pick-Me-Up

For Christmas, I was happy to receive an AeroGarden. It took me awhile to set it up, but now it's ready to go. After only 4 days, it's already showing tiny little buds which my camera's macro mode got to record.