New approach to recipes...

This is an amazing artist, Mel Robson, that my sister told me about. I love her work. Enjoy!

This is my floral happiness for the day. I love the internet, so many places to find amazing ideas. I spent today on the usual, laundry, dishes, and then to the gardens. Much tending to do in the greenhouse, moss to water, plants to water and weed, potting up hostas, and sweeping up in bay 7, there was soil everywhere. Off to Soil Science, listened to presentations, did an experiment. Came home to discover that Eileen was coming over. Woohooo! I miss that girl. I created an amazing salad and broiled asparagus. That was my day, crazy but wonderful.

Spring inspiration and commercials the Rapplings love...

This is what I would call inspiration. Love these images. Martha Stewart has an amazingly talented staff, great funding, and fabulous photographers. Really go look for moss today you might be surprised where you can find it.
Here are our picks for best commercial according to the Rapplings. Something's wrong with Scooter. Love my girls and love that they love to laugh.
Kate, Sydney and I love this Old Spice commercial... Kate can repeat it to you verbatim. Ask her to do it, I promise you'll laugh. Watched an interview with the former football player, Isaiah Mustafa on Ellen. He was too funny and to think he got paid for this!

Mythbusters Killer Quicksand

Mythbusters_Killer_Quicksand
This was part of my sick day entertainment for Sunday. Love the quicksand. Why can't we try this experiment in soil science? Okay back to the practical study of water in the soil.

What you want?....

Mary at Bensell's Greenhouse on Dorr ROCKS!!!! She helped Jennifer and I pot up some horticultural happiness to take to Miss Melly today. Mary is a fountain of knowledge and willing to go the extra mile to help her customers.
Purple Passion Vine Gynura Aurantiaca Cv. 'Purple Passion', Lavender cultivar ?, and a quirky Geranium "Indian Dunes" with lime and red leaves. Oh and did you see it's even planted in a hand made hypertuffa container which you can purchase at Bensell's!!!
Mary needs to start answering the phone with my favorite line, "What you want? Baby I got it!"

Greens things and one sick Paige...

Paige is down. Okay really she runs like a crazy person, then coughs, runs, coughs some more and then crashes for an hour in "her" chair. We did sneak outside this morning to play in the "dirt". Really I want to say soil, apparently changing a lifetime of inappropriate word usage is more difficult than I realized. We both do better after some sun and fresh air. Paige and I worked on weeding her new moss garden.
Then we were off to pick up "the Beast", one of our two ailing cars. The beast, our van, was ressurectable, not so for John's Elentra which needs a new engine. Triage occurred, I chose to make the repairs that were most affordable. After a two and a half hour visit with our favorite mechanic, Mr. Mike at Smitty's... it's a long, long story. One partially eaten baby ice cream cone with a smiley face thanks to Handel's and the littlest Rappling and I were off to the doctor's. Diagnosis, pneumonia. Really? My head aches and not just from chasing Paige. Why does she have this much energy when she's this sick? Walking pneumonia, HA!!! Around here we're calling it running pneumonia. If only I had enough energy to keep up with her.
Here is my happiness for the day.....
Link to the Container Gardening handout by M. Ross at TBG
Link to St. Patrick's day craftiness
a fun article on Miner's Lettuce.
A special thanks to my sister Karen for sending these to me! I love purslane.... Olga introduced me to this tasty "weed" this summer. I love her! Really, who knew, this is edible. I never know what she'll start eating when we're working in the garden. Quite tasty, really, I promise it is.

Mom come HERE!!!!!

This little treasure was found in our front yard by Miss Sydney. They have never noticed moss until this year and now are discovering it everywhere. My yard has always had quite the great supply hidden here and there. This moss will quickly be shaded over by the grass growing in around it. Check out the very tiny ice crystals in the grass, cameras are amazing.

Peeking through....

The gardens are showing many signs of life this week. The greenhouse is full of volunteers, plants and seedlings. My favorite the thousands of bulbs that were planted with much hope last fall are finally beginning to brave the weather. Spring it's almost here!
My walk through the shade garden with the Rapplings included a snowball fight and lots of wet socks. We go through way to many socks in this house.
We met a new friend on our walk. She was enjoying the antics of the girlies. She had many questions which I was actually able to answer. I also told her she was welcome to come and volunteer at TBG. Me and my shameless promotion of the gardens. She mentioned what a blessing it had been to run into all of us. So sweet. I'm just glad my children didn't scare her out of the garden.Snow drops the first beauties to bloom this spring.

Paige's tuffa....

Very exciting stuff to get the pot you made back. Paige is one very happy little girl. I was given permission to carve her pot so I did. Paige's very tiny pot had less room to work with, hence the arc design. Miss Sophia on the other hand created an ark size container that gave me lots of room to play with. The regular hypertuffa finishing treatment, at TBG, involves knocking off the edges and making the top surface more pock marked and naturally formed. This is very fun, in a destructive sort of way. Demostrated by Mr. Matt and Josh a volunteer/Owens Landscape and Turf Grass Management student. As a quick side note, normally you take the plastic form out of the center of your hypertuffa pot but Paige insisted it stay.
This is paige's baby plant material... small blue succulent, sorry I don't know the genus and species yet. I love that she says baby plant and then adds material as an afterthought. Can't tell she spends a lot of time in the greenhouse can you?
It's nice to be able to start a new tradition to replace one I loved so much. I remember creating my own ceramic bowl with my grandmother in her ceramics "studio". I hand formed with supervision and painstakingly wrote my name in then glazed with two different colors of blue. I must find that bowl... I put it away to avoid small children who break things. One crack straight through the center was enough. I see a lot of hypertuffa pot creation in the Rapplings future.