Gooseberry

I am planting a gooseberry soon. I love all sorts of fruit but gooseberries are hard to find and when they already have them in a store they are terribly expensive. We used to have them in my parents' garden. They are so easy to grow, but I guess there is no demand hence the high price.

I got this tiny plant of Pixwell Gooseberry the other day, and can't wait to plant it, just waiting for a bit more suitable weather.

What if ...6

"WHAT IF Mother Nature could perform for an audience?

    Does anyone really believe that she doesn't? We certainly see her expressing herself with storms, earthquakes, tornadoes, drought, and global warming. Is she, as the Hopi shaman said, "a mother dog shaking off fleas? "

    I would like to hear the specifics of what she teaches us with her magnificent "spectaculars." For example, are the colors of flowers vibrating at the same frequencies as the musical notes in the scale? Does all sound have color? I knew a woman who loved to attend symphony concerts just to "see" the colors the instruments were making.

    What if drought is Mother Nature's way of teaching us that we need to drink more water and yet we are polluting it everywhere?

    What if falling snow is to remind us of the protection of white lights?

    What if flooding occurs because it is time for us to wash our environments clean?
   
    What if mud sticks to us because that is what we have become?

    Maybe our unquenchable interest in dinosaurs is equal to our unquenchable thirst for oil? In their first time around, they were destroyed. In this second time around, they will destroy us.
    What if the speed of Nature's show is accelerating in a way that is meant to beckon us humans to accelerate our consciousness? What if we are holding her back and that is why she is shaking us off?
    What if the "violence" of Nature is simply her way of saying "hurry up" or you'll be left behind? Nature's violence is probably the most devastatingly dramatic and disturbing thriller to grace the screens of life - and we haven't even assigned it and X rating."


                                                                                              * reference Shirley MacLaine's book



   

Housing situation once again

Yes, it is time to get another house, a birdhouse :-) We already have some bird feeders but decided to put also some birdhouses in our garden to attract even more birds. Not only because we love to watch them but because they are important for our trees as they liquidate all the possible unwanted insects that attack trees.

Here is our first one. I purchased this one, but will make more myself, or will assign a project to my husband ;-), based on this design later.

In two pieces

This was one of my favourite decorative items - part of my African scheme which I love. It was on a sideboard and a picture was behind it, only leaning against the wall because I am not finished with painting, so I didn't hang it yet. I was airing the house out, and the draft knocked the picture on my plate which didn't survive the impact :-(
I will try to glue it together and see what happens.

Walking in Batavia

I can't remember if it was last year or already the year before (past two years were very hectic), but it was spring and we went to Batavia again for a walk.

Batavia is a suburb of Chicago, and the oldest city in Kane County. I like that area because of it's river walk. No sign of spring flowers in my neighbourhood yet, so I guess there is still time before I can enjoy the carpet of blue flowers again.

 

 

 

First day of spring

Yes! The spring is officially here. Finally!

What a horrible winter we had. It took toll on our Giant Arbovitae trees which were frostbitten due to the unusually low temperatures this year. I hope they recover from it. We only planted them last year and I should have known better and burlap them. I will definitely do it this year, just in case.

In the meantime I have pulled the book I bought last year off the shelf. It is American Horticultural Society Encyclopedia of Plants & Flowers. I decided to get it because there are quite differences and less choice in what I can plant in my garden here in Midwest to what I am used to from Europe, but I am not giving up. Gardening is one of my passions.

I am back...

I have been dealing with some difficult issues particularly past few weeks, and quite frankly wasn't capable of posting on regular basis. The things are getting better, so here I am again, and let's just say I am going to try the famous:

Cheating Cheetahs ?!?!

Are these cheetahs trying to cheat the nature?! That is the only explanation I have to the story I received today in the email from my mother-in-law who lives in South Africa.

Have you ever seen anything like this???

Here is the story:

 
"The Law Of The Wild says kill ONLY when you are hungry.
     
Photographer  Michel Denis-Huot, who captured these amazing pictures on safari in Kenya 's Masai Mara  in October last year, said he was astounded by what he saw:

"These three brothers (cheetahs) have been living together since they left their mother at  bout 18 months old,' he said.
'On the morning we saw them, they seemed not to be hungry, walking quickly but stopping sometimes to play  together.
'At one point, they met a group of impala who ran away. But one youngster was not quick enough and the brothers caught it easily'."

These  extraordinary scenes followed.

 

 

 

 

 

and  then they just walked away without hurting  him.........."