Home
About
Archives
MySpace
My Etsy Shop

Artistic Muses

I've MOVED!!! Please update any links to http://www.oceanicwilderness.com! Oceanic Wilderness Thanks for reading! :) Why you shouldn't be a slacker orchid hunter
July 11, 2007
One shouldn't be a slacker orchid hunter because one then forego's being on the front page of Yahoo! News. Ghost Orchid in Corkscrew Swamp. Chris called me yesterday to say that Mike Owen had forwarded him an email about a super huge ghost with 9 flowers that was 8 feet in length, top to bottom, on a cypress 60 feet in the air. Chris forwarded me the email and I about had a cow in the computer chair. I can't help but feel slightly jealous. Doesn't finding 545 (Plus ~50 more) make up for finding a super ginormous, badass ghost orchid??? And here I was pussyfooting around about an article. *tsk tsk*. Naples News article with a photo of the flowers. I really wanted to send the photo's out last night but it wasn't my photo's to do that with. So, maybe in a month when we're finished documenting you'll see my name in lights on Broadway. ;) HA! Come on, doubling the ghost orchid population counts for something, right?

It's a beautiful flower, the one they found, isn't it? Wowzers!



The Good Thing About Texas is...
July 8, 2007

Really cute puppies.

Meet Daisy Lou (Daisy Mae, Daisy Duke...) 12 weeks old. And a really cute little thing

Mexican food on every corner.

Concerts in the Garden to the music of Pink Floyd.

This

This

And This, all at the Ft. Worth Botanic Garden...(and so much more!)

My brother and sister in law laughing it up...

Mom

Dad and Bro.

Trying really hard to stay awake (getting to the airport at 6am is hard.

Fireworks

And more fireworks.

And cuddling with a very snorty Boston Terrier named Isabelle who kept me company in bed all night. And then proceeded to sneak under the covers sometime late in the night.
And Christopher, I found you a variegated plant when we went to dinner. :) Miss you!!! Give the Sam and Leo a kiss for me.



It's Raining, It's Pouring...
July 5, 2007
It has been raining a lot lately. Yesterday we were run off from Little Slough because the thunder was getting too loud. Soon enough it started raining. And it rained most of the afternoon. Loud claps of thunder were following the bright lightning. I took a nice two hour nap and then the neighborhood fireworks sessions started and proceeded to spook the cats too much. We didn't make it to a firework show either, which is dissapointing. Though come to think of it I don't think we've gone the past two years. Oh well.

I want to share with you HipCity Cruz. It's a band that my friend Rosemarie is in in Santa Cruz, California. She had told me a few weeks ago that they were getting ready to put up a MySpace page and now it's up. She's the one singing Long Stretches of Sunshine. I'm so excited for her!!! So, take a listen. It's a very indie, jazzy feeling.

Christine, unfortunately your purse isn't going to be ready yet. I tried the sewing machine tonight and was having a horrid time with the ribbon edging that I planned on for the strap. Anyhow, you can see the finished purse part. And if you think it's ugly you can just tell me tomorrow on Gmail. ;) Honestly though, I am liking the purple and green combo better than the other. I think the other part should have been a smaller purse. We'll see once we get the handle on. I think it'll come together well, but I need my mom to help me with it. My sewing skills are on the below average scale. So, here it is:

Eh? Good? Meh??? YIPPIEE???

Me likey this side. :)

Samson likes you too.

I wanted to share a funky fungus I took the other day. How about let's call freaky funky fungus and say it five times fast!

Quite a few popping up in Little Slough.

Last weekend we went to Snyder Park in Ft. Lauderdale for a bbq thing for Chris' aquarium club. Not many people showed up but I did get some good photo's.

Surinam cherry. Easy to grow from seed. They are common hedges here but they grow into nice little trees. I think you can technically eat the fruit but it doesn't taste too good.

Kalanchloe flowers. One thing about Snyder Park is that it is probably the host to the most invasive plant species I've ever seen. Whatever's on Florida's invasive list, this park has it. In abundance. It is a fun park though. They have a bark park and a doggie swimming pond. Very fun!

Oh and invasive critters. There are about four of them and they found their way over to the picnic site looking for handouts.

Easy to photograph despite a few hissing moments.

And an oopsie daisy where a turtle got stuck in a fishing line. Chris go the hook out (he didn't catch it, but he has experience with sea turtles on the line) and then the turtle was so freaked out he took off and got his flipper stuck in the line so we had to untangle him then. And then after that he almost stabbed himself with a knife they used to cut the line! Silly wertle. :)

Do you spot the other invasive animal??? You may remember, or you may not, but last July when we moved into the house I spotted a bright yellow bird in the backyard. Bright colored birds aren't all that common around here unless they are finches or bluejay's. Well, it was a spot breasted oriole. Yesterday after the rain and after my nap Chris called me onto the porch to show me a bright yellow bird. My oriole is back! Well, who knows if it is the same one, but that's pretty cool. They must come through here in July I'm guessing on their way back north. Totally cool! And yesterday morning Chris called me out to tell me there was a baby iguana on our cypress tree. I went out looking for a 2' lizard when it was this little bitty lizard the size of a gecko approximately. But it was definitely a baby iguana. Kinda cool! Just sitting on the limbs of the cypress! If we see it again we'll get a photo.

Well, tomorrow I'll be packing and doing last minute things so I won't blog again until this weekend probably. The Sammy boy says "Meow" and "mmm, can I share some water?", or really he means "goodnight!".



Rainbow
July 3, 2007

I snapped this on the way home today from the backseat of my carpool. We had been chased by a very nasty thunderstorm, lightning dancing around us and even probably striking just a smidge from the car because you could feel the vibration in the car. Very spooky and fun. I do believe the rainy season has officially begun. Anyway, the photo is from my camera phone and doesn't do the justice of the colors. It was a very beautiful full rainbow. ROYGBIV.



Musings
July 2nd, 2007
Tonight we had a lot of thunder and lightning. The boys were totally scared and took off running for the bed when the claps of thunder were really loud. We need the rain. Even so, Lake Okeechobee reached a new record low the other day. It's so low that it is revealing artifacts previously unknown! Ok, I was just searching for a panther article, which I'll post in a minute, but I found this about a lady who was lost in Fakahatchee Strand early in June. Woman vs. Swamp. Really now. You're supposed to stop at the board when you enter and get a map. All the tram roads are mostly east-west and if you go off a trail head or or south and you'll hit one. And what are you doing without water? And a compass? Ack!!!! For heaven's sake stay on the trail if you don't know where you are. And flip-flops?? We've come across rattlesnakes on the trail's before!!! Do people not have common sense?

Now, on the panther's. There were three killed within a week of each other two week's ago. One of them was 1 mile west of Krome Avenue on SW 8th Street in Miami. Approximately 1/2 mile from houses! Now, I know most of you have no clue where that's at, but this isn't in the wilderness. It's on the edge, the Everglades Start a few miles west, and with civilization building up the edge, it's bound to happen, along with a burgeoning population of Florida panther/hybrid Texas cougar's running around and fighting for territory. Carrying capacity seems to be starting to reach the upper limits and unless another is established elsewhere in the state, like Ocala Nat'l Forest area, I'm not sure how long a population here will last.

I'm not sure, but what do you all think. Chris thinks it would be cool to do a press release and send to the local papers about the ghost orchid's we found. I'm leery on the idea. We wouldn't take anyone out there, but just the thought of the possibility that someone finds them, it's scary to me. I also am unsure of the press, or the attention regarding it. I know I blog about it here, but my audience seems to be a handful and I'd say half aren't that interested. We're also thinking, though I've been thinking for awhile anyway, about setting up a website. I want a more permeneant website for my blog and eventually art and stuff and we're thinking of having a section for Little Slough. A kind of story about it, maybe updates on how things are going with the research sort of deal. To me, that's enough. An article would be fun, but I guess I always viewed articles as they come to you, not you to them. And, I also am not sure if I feel authoratative enough to speak on it. In a way, I feel like I am stepping on someone else's toes.

Enough of that. I am almost done with the next purse. It's more like a tote, but I hope it'll turn out cute. I went to Walmart tonight to try to find fabric to line it and to make the handle but it took awhile to find something. It's the incredible shrinking notions department. I ended up with an unbleached cotton for the lining and another cotton, but bleached, for the handle. I am hoping it turns out cute. If it's ugly, I'll keep it for myself. ;)

I'm still trying to resolve issues with Feedburner. I have no clue what the heck is wrong. The feed I sent out yesterday didn't get sent for some reason and email's are still not working. I subscribed to it again today and tried with my yahoo email but it said I was subscribed. I validated the feed, it's good, and I just can't figure it out. Maybe I'll start sending brainwaves when I post a new entry.

Almost a week until the Harry Potter movie and almost two week's until the book. I can't wait!



Wow, Just Wow!
July 1, 2007

I was browsing Google the other night, typing in various combinations of ghost orchid, Everglades and giant sphinx moth and I came across this photo from the The Everglades Digital Library which has records of photo's, journal's, articles and other items that you can browse. I came upon the ghost orchid photo above from 1929. Could it possibly be the oldest known photo of one? I'm trying to determine what is in the background. It appears to be a dock or perhaps a hopper dredge when they were building Tamiami Trail? It's kinda odd, though.

This is the Sunny Isles area near N. Miami Beach. What's there now are roads, condo's and no Everglades that's for certain. This is the early 20's too.

Yesterday was a pretty cool day. Chris has been talking off and on for the past two month's to Mike Owen, the biologist at Fakahatchee Strand. It finally worked out that he could come out with us to Little Slough. We took him out and spent a good five hours out there showing him all of the orchid's. It was fun taking him to the ones we knew were blooming, the ones we've been watching. Here in a few weeks there should be a quite a bit getting ready to bloom. Mike knows a lot! Wow, and he will talk and talk about ghost's, orchid's, plants anything! It's just really cool! I think all three of us (our friend J.C. went) were sponges, soaking up the information. And then we started thinking about all of the different questions like, does the giant sphinx moth smell the orchid's? Why are some blooming and other's don't? I mean, we can go on and on and so I tried to find more information on the sphinx moth but I really couldn't find too much in the internet. Apparently there isn't much research on it at this time. In talking with Mike about the moth's he said that they were quite loud and he had seen them on moonflower's and crinum's before, but not the ghost's. Last weekend while I was writing down the data I heard two very loud bug/animal/bird things and saw them probably 30 yards away in some popash. Very loud, hummingbird sized. I was thinking either the moth or hummingbirds. I tried to get Chris to look but they had flown away by then. A few minutes later one tore through the area and then went off in the oppoisite direction. Chris surmised perhaps they were locusts, because the locusts are humming along quite well right now out there. But then when we found out how loud they were we got to thinking maybe that is what we saw/heard. Hrmmmm!?!?!?!

Here we all are out there. Not sure why Chris is leaning, he looks like he's going to fall on Mike!

Oh and while searching for sphinx moth info I found this video from a link on a forum. About 2 minutes in you'll see a night cam video of a moth pollinating another orchid. We had already thought about buying a night came video and hook it up to a laptop and sleep out by a ghost. Video link.

Found this fella, and several of its brothers and sisters on an alligator flag.

If you look you can see the nectar!

This is an orchid (if you remember the first time we saw a flower there was the four of us in the photo, this is the same plant, new flowers), that last week had two blooms on the spike and it appears that at least one of them was probably pollinated. We'll know for sure on Wednesday when we go back to and see if there is a swelling for a seed pod to form. It'll be the first this season.

These guys are a bigger pain in the butt than the mosquito's. They HURT!
Mike also talked a little bit about John Laroche, of The Orchid Thief fame. Mike had only been working about two months when they were stolen and he said he tried to put them back and the ones that he remember where he put them back only one of them made it. That was 1/15 that he knew of and there were around 90 something that were taken. So, the success rate was not good. He also spoke of taking people on the tours and going back the next week or so and finding a plant gone. Even from groups that you would expect to be ethical, like orchid societies and botany classes. Just goes to show that even if you can trust the person you take out, you can't trust them not to tell someone else and have them come out and shred your place.

Alright, enough orchid talk. I'm boring someone out there, I'm sure. So, here's cat talk. Leo officially whined his way into our life 3 years ago today. (It was 2004, Dad!!! I promise!) Leo is also proving himself to be very smart and cunning. He can now pry open the cabinet doors under the sink. This morning Chris heard him in the spare bath and I sat up in bed just as he poked his head in our bedroom door with a mouth full of cleaning sponge. I dashed out of bed to chase him to the living room where he trotted to the barstools, promptly dropped the sponge and then hid under the stool. Rat. This isn't the first time. I left one on the cabinet once and I came home to bits of blue and white all over the floor. I also found a whole roll of toilet paper in their litter box the other morning. The roll happens to be right above the box and the roll was left on from I think my dad and his dad's visit's a month ago. It wasn't touched for a month and then he rat got the idea to destroy it one day. If only I could train him to use it properly. Hrm.

Happy 24th Birthday bro. Almost a quarter century of having a goofy brother. :) Love ya!



On the Hook, Blooms and a Sucktastic Aquarium
June 27, 2007

This fella was probably the most entertaining thing at the Miami Seaquarium. I was throughly dissapointed. I mean, I've heard that the place was bad. There's even an anti-Seaquarium website. If you've seen Free Willy or any documentaries of the early aquarium's of the 50's and 60's, this is exactly that. Aside from a new pool for the swim with dolphins thing, the park is something out of 50 years ago. In fact...

this big girl has been around since 1958. She's around 55+ years old and a hefty 2,000 lbs. Honestly, the biggest manatee I've seen in my life. The ones we used to see in the Indian River Lagoon were little ones, 500 lbs. The reason we were at the sorry little aquarium was for Chris' aquarium club. They do a behind the scene's every year and apparently this was the worst year. A quick tour of their "reef" (what coral? what fish? this is pea soup green...what the hell?) tank and then the manatee tour, that was it. No Shamu (Lolita their version) jumping in the air, no dolphins doing fun little trick's to their trainer's whistle, nada.

I've been to my fair share of aquarium's, even to a little one in D.C. That was better than this. This is beyond the bottom. So, if you come to Miami, don't go.

At least it was nice outside....

Lessee, I think I'll save the garden tour for tomorrow. Today I'll show you what's on the hook for crochet.

This is the new purse. I started it today and will work on it feverishly for the next few days in hopes of getting it on Etsy next week. I took new photo's of two of the kerchief's and will be replacing them soon. The other's were sucktastic.

Ok, here's a happy variegated sunflower. I'll put it in while I'm waiting for the next photo to upload. :)

Ok, this is my rose painting I've been working on, neglecting, working on some more, neglecting to collect cat hair, and then now finally trying to finish it. It needs a few more layer's in the green and I need to double check some of the pink's and then I'll work on putting the anther's in. I hope I don't royally screw that up. We'll see.

I'm loving some new musician's lately, Regina Spektor and Terra Naomi. I'm also in love with Coldplay's Fix You. I'm despising the Reba/Kelly mix of Because of you. Ugh. I like Reba but she ruined that song. Oh and I want to pass this on Nothing but Red and the story of Du'a Khalil. I'm contemplating submitting a mixed media work for this project. My friend Jasmine on the Ingleside forum is an editor on the project.



Peaches, elderberry and coffee
June 24, 2007
Good morning! Happy Sunday! I love Sunday's. I like them because I like to keep them low key. Wake up, eat breakfast, do things around the house. Just quiet before the week begins. I'm eating an English muffin with elderberry jelly I bought in Cherokee, NC a few months ago, a fresh peach, coffee and my staple drink of choice, water. YUM! Samson is sitting here on the desk next to me just keeping me company and ooh, here he comes trying to steal something to eat or drink. Sniffed the coffee and now he's moved on to the water, which he's now buried his head into the glass and is drinking water out of it. Silly Sam!

Last night I worked on my archives and I arranged them by year. So, if you want to read anything old it is more organized now. I'm such a dork. Whoa...yeah.

I was hoping I could report to you the number of ghost orchid's we had finally counted. But I can't. We still aren't done. We're almost there. If we had brought bug spray last weekend like we should have we'd be done. But no. We're going to break 500. That's for sure. How much over, we're not for certain yet. We found two yesterday extremely high up. One was about 18 feet and the other 16 feet. We hadn't even seen them before!

Oh, we found an interesting fruit at Publix yesterday. Actually, earlier in the week Kal Barteski, a blog I read, noted she had found one as well and painted it. She was calling it a horned melon and I'm going, what on earth is that? I know! I've seen it somewhere. It looks a bit like a balsam apple, an invasive cucumber thing that grows here, and so when we found it at the store yesterday Chris I had to get it because we like growing weird things. I got online and found the real name is Kiwano and the taste varies. Some say it's horrible, some say it is a sweet banana like cucumber taste. Well, I know for sure we'll be keeping seeds to grow it! Speaking of seeds, we have a passionvine we grew from seed from a fruit at the store. It flowered last week and Chris said it was pollinated and is now setting fruit! COOL! My very own passionfruit! I'm so excited! Now, as long as I can keep the gulf frittilary caterpillar's off it maybe we'll have several fruit's this year.

I'm planning to do some yard work today so there are a few cool things I want to blog about later, tomorrow most likely. Oh, I also am going to add the dimensions to the purse on Etsy so if you want to check that out later and maybe it'll be big enough for someone here. I've got three more in the brain, processing design idea's. Maybe today I'll get started on another. Or not. I've got a lot of picking up and organizing here to do. The spare room has finally hit the annoy Misti to death level and it's time for some organizing, listing computer stuff on Craig's List and just chunking a few things. Eh, who knows.



Let's go for a walk!
June 21, 2007
I love summer evenings! And so to celebrate Summer Solstice today, tie on your shoes and let's go for a walk in the neighborhood!

Before we get too far, let's stop at the front flower bed and see what's going on out there.

Lots of nasturtiums, dahlberg daisy, butterfly weed seeds, and some variegated lantana in bloom. YAY for summer rains!
Around the first corner we come upon a very nice plumeria tree!

Sometimes they have an aroma, sometimes they don't. It sure does look purty doesn't it?

Ooh, here's a house with a yard I kinda like. Lots of orchid's hanging on their walkway.

I spy a kittie!

And another one!!

I also spy a house with a yard that needs some serious help! I like the "cottage" look but this is beyond that. This is, "Please trim my shrubs back and get rid of all the weeds!", kind of help.

Ooh, celosia! I love it! And the cowgirl is cute too! Hrm, I hear quacking noises....

Just hanging out in the yard. Grass must feel really good!

Ooh a Traveler's Palm! I first encountered this when I worked at Moody Gardens and we were told, though I'm not sure how true it is, that when you plant it the tree will align itself north to south and so a traveler would always know which direction to go. I just learned that it is endemic to Madagascar! COOL!

Let's walk through some more palms and be sure to try and keep me from ripping out all of those croton's! They are one of the most overplanted, ugliest plants in south Florida. (the variegated ones) UGH UGH UGH!

Watch out for this fella!

Here's another quacker!

Poor homeowner! They live right next to the sidewalk. It's a sad day when you have to put a sign up to tell people to use common sense.

Let's get tropical! Hibiscus it is...

You know we're getting some rain here if the rain lillies are making their apperances. I've got some in the front bed but nothing has bloomed yet.

This kitty looks very comfortable, almost Samson-esque. I surmise that if Samson was let outside he'd be finding a patch of grass to just soak up the evening sights and scents.

Someone made a cute little creek bed!....Alright cat lovers, let's meet some of our other furry friends...

Nice dog #1 and

Nice dog #2! These two are always in the same spot when I rollerblade or run by. They never bark, just silently watch as I jam by. Awww, lemme pet you cute little furry thing (said in my best doggie lover's voice)

Hrm, what color can I wear today?

Three very large staghorn ferns on one tree! Well, one fell down if you look behind the tree.

Uh, oh! Another cat! We're being over run by feline's here! This one watched in stalker mode as we walked past the house, moving silently behind each of the trash can's, to get a better view.

Better keep your hands to your self! I know this mango looks nice and juicy and ready for eating! Mmmmmm, fresh fruit!

Now, that was a nice ending to this evening's walk, wasn't it? Some nice thunderstorms off to the west, over the Everglade's.

Well, did you enjoy the walk? Hope you did! I've come up with two possible names for my next purse, and it isn't even made. And I think you can guess the color....Sunflower or Sunshine. :) This weekend I want to get some art stuff done. Finish a painting. Do a little art journal thing. And scrapbook. And Samson wants me to finish his blanket so I'll do that too. Ooh and I got my haircut, so maybe I'll show you that. Nothing special, just a little trim and undercut. Until whenever....



I made a purse!
June 18, 2007
My slow poke self has finally finished the purse! My task for all of you is to name it. It is currently named something very boring at Etsy, but I need something cute! So, here is my first purse. Hopefully no one thinks it is butt ugly. It caused me many headaches but when I finally got it to work I was thrilled! WOO! Obviously time will let me get better, and with some ideas from Chris it came out pretty well! And now, I debut my first purse!.....

I learned how to line it via the 'net. Love the 'net! LOL, you can find anything! Just need to figure out how to get the sewing machine stringed (someone find me the 1906 Singer handbook, please!).

We've been getting a lot of rain lately. Finally making up for the lack of rain the past few months. And so, the grass is really green, growing rapdily as well as so many things in the garden. However, now I can't really get out there and work because it is raining when I get home. The pumpkins are growing so rapidly they'll be taking over before I can move them!

This is some of the variegated plants at the moment. One day I'm going to take a photo of every single variegated item and post it. T'would be cool! Lessee here...elephant ear, thumbergia, morning glory (came up naturally!), and sunflowers.

Some raindrops from this afternoon: elephant ear, passionvine, plumeria.

These two birds are bluejay's. While I was out scoping the garden the one flapping its wings was having a hollerin' contest and trying to get the other one to leave it alone. Feather's were ruffled and finally the other one scooted down the line a bit. Reminded me of two certain cats of mine....

I thought this was fun! The banana flower petals had captured some of the rainwater. And the orange with the overcast day made it a nice photo op!

And a general grouping of some of the neat blooms right now. Japanese morning glory (has different color blooms on the same vine!), close up of the morning glory about to open, the bur oak we planted in the ground, grape leaves and a passionvine flower, purple basil in flower, African iris, daylily about to open, passionvine flower that I grew from a passionfruit at the store, beautyberry (my favorite native), some kind of hoya, the pumpkins!!, the the ominious clouds of today.

You have to see this video. It's amazing and inspiring! Simon Cowell actually likes someone! If you've watched America's Got Talent any, usually you see people with silly talent's, and this is Britain's version. Very cool! Gives you chill's.

More tomorrow...:)



Studio Friday
June 15, 2007
I haven't participated in a Studio Friday in awhile. I thought I'd take a break from all the photo mania of the past, oh well, long while, and do a thinking post. Today's Studio Friday is about Wabi Sabi. Tine asked, "What imperfection are you struggling with in either your art or studio space? Is your ideal set too high? Do you put too much pressure on yourself? Try to see the beauty in its imperfection and celebrate it!!". Here we go!....

Imperfections, or rather my perfectionism. Trying to cope with whatever I'm painting not looking right, dealing with my perfectionist thoughts about having to do so much and then my procrastination side of not doing what I really want to be doing. It's almost like exercising, once you're doing it and get in a zone everything flows. It works. It feels good. Not doing it, well, not so good. Of course my ideal's are set too high. I am always putting the proverbial cart before the horse. Wanting to sell things before I even get started. Do I even have a portfolio? So, I dream about what I want to be doing versus actually doing. It's time to step up and get some productivity. The bad thing is while I'm at work I'm dreaming of all the things I want to do. I make lists, usually of the same things over and over, of what I want to do, the creative things I want to make. Perhaps it is so I keep it fresh in my mind so that I eventually do it. It's unfortunate that the time I have to do these creative things is when I am most tired, have chores to do, errands to run and want to spend time with Chris and the kitties. It's not like I'm a writer where I can write chapters on my lunch break. I can't break out the oil paints or the pastels on my desk. I can crochet and I do sometimes. Usually I bring it along on longer car rides that I know we'll be doing. I guess the beauty in all of this crazy, imperfect creative time/productivity/management is that at least I am doing something, I have goals and aspirations. And if I just work a little harder it'll eventually pay off. *hopefully*.

Sorry for my rambling. It's just a Misti Needs to Get This Off Her Chest Day. More of a talking to the air sort of thing. Sunday is doing to be my day of getting some things done. I am going to get five scrapbook pages done, paint some, and finish up my crochet purse and get it on Etsy. Not too bad. Just one by one I'll get projects done and completed.

I was thinking the other day about how much Chris and I are becoming more of naturalists. We don't know every plant name or animal name, but it's so much more of a fun and learning experience now when we're out hiking, or on the beach, or just driving to a natural area. If I travel to a new area I always want to scope out the natural area's and figure out what plants are what. Sometimes I wonder how much people really see of their day to day life, what they drive by. I notice the little sidewalk area on the main road around the house. The irises are past peak and done blooming and now the canna's are blooming. It's just noticing these little changes in the day to day activities of my life that are so fun.

Ok, so you could call us Big Dorks. Nerds. But, I think it beats some hobbies.



Five Years
June 14, 2007

Five years ago today we were married. It seems like so much longer and yet such a short time.

I don't remember the ceremony or the words I said. I remember going down the aisle until the point I got to Chris, and then bits and pieces from there on out until we walked away at the end.

We filled up our Blazer and moved to Florida two days later, though Chris had technically been living here for four months already.

That is the only taste of wedding cake I had the entire night. A year later we at the entire top. My mom alternately wrapped it in foil and plastic wrap and it tasted great.

We stayed a nice bed and breakfast on the SW side of Ft. Worth for the night. I am still deciding what to do with my bouquet. It isn't looking too hot these days.

If things had been different, there'd be another person in this photo. My Michelle was going through personal issues and wasn't there. I wish she had been. These girls keep me going and I miss them so much. Two are now married and one is engaged. And one of the married's has a toddler. I wish I had a photo of the guys, but it was too difficult to take out of the "nice" album. Unfortunately one of them is no longer with us. :(

I always liked this shot of my parents.

I love you Christopher. :)
Happy Flag Day as well.


Possum Kingdom
June 12, 2007
A few months ago Chris and I worked for a few weeks to get the camera cd's we had and chronicle all of the photo's on the computer. Our last camera burned the images on a itty bitty cd and it started becoming a pain in the butt. Not only trying to locate the cd's (K-Mart or Fox Photo only) and then the camera started being super fussy. Like a Samson when he's really, really grouchy. Anyway, I found some of the first photo's we took with it, the weekend or so before we got married. We went to Possum Kingdom State Park to camp for two nights. Or, I think it was two nights, I can't quite remember. Alas, we were one of the few people there and it was such a fun time. Certainly not our first camping trip together. We stole away one night to the Galveston Island State Park our freshmen year of college and then one spring break we went to Lake Forth Smith in Arkansas. Sadly, we probably saw the park in its last glory as you can see from the website they were going to be flooding more land for a larger reservoir. It is a bit sad considering the buildings were old Civilian Conservation Corps projects from the '30s.

So, I thought that I'd reflect a bit and post some things about Texas. Everyone is used to my tropical Florida photo's so maybe a little bit of High Plains and Hill Country from Texas should wedge its way in here.


Here's Chris, with a pole in his hand. He was born that way. Came out completely like that. The rod grows as he gets older. So do the fish stories. ;)

Awww, isn't he cute???

My first attempts at macro photography. This is pre me knowing what the macro button was!

Here's me.

Some cool dragon flies hanging out on the water

Prickley Pear cactus

Some kind of cool stacking cactus

A few from the top of a hiking trail. At one time I thought Texas was pretty flat. Then I lived in Florida for six months, came home and realized that Florida was the flattest place on the planet!!! LOL

We did have a cool sepia setting on that camera. This is the campsite, but you can't see much of it. It was nice and secluded and since there wasn't a lot of people there we had it quiet. The only bad thing was that once nightfall came the daddy long legs came out. EWWWWWWW! And some made it in the tent. SCARY!

Whaddya know? The fisherman caught something! I have no clue what kind of fish that is. I'm not a freshwater fish expert. I can name some of the saltwater ones though.

A flutterby

Another flutterby

I miss seeing streams and creeks like this. You don't get this kind of thing in Florida, especially South Florida.

A nice field of Asters

Rudebekia perhaps? Not quite sure!

Here we go, the obligatory camp shot.

A view of the dam

And Chris at the top

That was fun! I wanna go back, now! Maybe later in the month or so I'll scan some photo's and I'll take y'all camping at Big Bend Nat'l Park, tubing on the Guadalupe River, and maybe go to a bonfire. ;)

Ooh and lastly, I sooo want to subscribe and then be in Artful Blogging. COOL!

And a second lastly...I am going to start making it so that you can link to a topic here. You will just right click on the link subject and click copy link address and then when you post it in your blog you can automatically jump straight to that post. That is if something here is interesting enough to talk about in your blog!

PPPPPS: Heather, you were correctamundo on the complimentary colors.
PPPPPPPS: I am going to set it up so comments are emailed to me. I keep missing so many comments in previous posts!!!


Creating and Thinking
June 11, 2007
I finally started working on crocheting a cute sleeveless shirt. It was in Family Circle's Easy Crochet magazine a few months ago, and I decided I had to try it. It is very girly, "lacy", and I just knew I needed to try something else besides afghan's. I am using Bernat's Cool Crochet in white and so far I am loving it! I need to get more yarn because I started using half of a ball of leftover's from the kerchief's.

This is the torso part and I still have a good 12 more sections of patterns left before I'll fold it over and sew up the seam and then continue building the rest of it. I don't expect it to be done for several more weeks though.


And I am still working on the purse. It's been frogged many times. I am finally mostly happy with it and am adding buttons on the side now and then hopefully the handle later this week.

And I've gotta tell you, frogging that yarn is a pain in the butt. Eyelash yarn stinks when you've gotta rip.

Yesterday I did end up working in the yard. I mowed, repotted a few things, removed some tomatoes that were at the end of their prime. I need to do more things, some of which I had thought about doing tonight but ended up not. I love summer evenings. When I went out to shoot the crochet photo's I grabbed these while I was at it:

Hydrangea. I had been waiting patiently for it to bloom and it finally made its show. The veggie garden now, about three week's after planting, maybe four. The amaranth is doing good, corn is up, everything is doing good except the onions which sprouted and died and not sure what happened to the pepper seeds. The pumpkins are going to be transplanted to the fence because they are doing to take over and I'll replace it with cauliflower. Then that is a grapevine with grapes forming and the final is a passionflower.

This post by Ali Edwards made me think today. It's about choices and how you get to create your life every day and the way you approach affects the outcome. Something I need, I think.

Which reminds me, I've been meaning to head to the library. Something I think I'll do tomorrow evening.

Oh and lastly, the Lemon Square recipe. I've gotta stop this baking. I'm getting fluffy. I haven't worked out in a month!!!!!! *gasp* *faint*

1/2 cup of butter
1 c of flour
1/4 c powdered sugar
Mix and press into a 8" x 8" pan or pyrex and press up the sides. Bake this for 20 minutes at 350.
For the filling:
1 c sugar
2 TBLSP flour
1/2 tsp baking powder

3 TBLSP lemon juice (I used a whole lemon and then tossed some juice from the little plastic lemon in too) 2 eggs
Beat together and pour on baked crust. Bake for 25 minutes at 350. Sprinkle with powdered sugar. Best left to cool so it forms well.
YUMMMMMM!!!



Tour of Little Slough
June 10, 2007
Are you ready for another tour of the swamp? Put on your mud boots and slap on the bug spray because here we go! (by the way, don't laugh, I am a big dork ).






There, that wasn't to bad was it? ;) Did you have fun?


Sometimes it isn't easy being a turtle...even in the wild, wild wilderness. This cute fella wasn't too scared but he poked out for some photo's...

Wild flowers...top to bottom and then right, a: some kind of heliotrope, beggar's tick, opening up of a coreopsis, and a fully open coreopsis.

Almost positive these are panther tracks!!!! Taken yesterday they were probably made the day before. COOL!

Encyclia tampensis in bloom.

I zoomed in on Adobe to get this one a little bit bigger, but it is a cool looking spider. I have no clue what it is but it's hanging out on a strap leaf fern.

I hope you enjoyed the tour! :) I don't think I'll be posting too much more about the ghost orchid's due to the fact that I just don't want too many people emailing me about it. I understand the fascination and the total want to get out there, but we are very concerned with people finding the area and screwing it up. I would literally cry. And be very, very depressed. It is such a beautiful area that it feels like home when we are there. In this day and age it only takes one wrong person finding out and then the whole place is wrecked. I'll apologise in advance to anyone who wishes to go out there, but I'll go ahead and tell you that your best bet will be Fakahatchee Strand and doing a swamp walk with Mike Owen.

Tomorrow will be a garden update and craft update. And maybe a rant about something if I feel like it. Or maybe just a post about cute my cats are. ;)



When life hands you lemons...
June 9, 2007
When life hands you lemons, you make lemon squares. I pilfered a recipe via a craft blog, which I now can't even remember whose it was. I saw it, copied and pasted into Notepad and hit print. Then it sat on my recipe books for about a week before I felt like making them. And ohhhhhh yeah...they were good!

Oh yeah, they were good! I took them to work yesterday where it was a sugar fest anyway Pastelito's and a birthday cake for someone) and the squares went quickly! I had a few pieces left and I packed them into my lunch for today's trip to Little Slough. That was a welcome treat to the humidity. :)

I am totally bummed because I'm having problem's uploading some video's we took in swamp today but I did get one to work. It isn't my favorite one but it's funny anyway because I'm a dork! So, here is the first video of hopefully four more.


Tomorrow I will hopefully have a garden update, crochet and painting update and some more tours of the swamp.



Fairchild Garden Tour Part III
June 6, D-Day, 2007
I think it is time to wrap up our little tour at Fairchild. It's raining outside and we need a little garden cheer.

Wouldn't you like some gazing ball's in your pond?

I love the colors of this bromeliad flower!

Another fabulous picnic spot! Mmm and a royal palm in the background.
Jacaranda cuspidifolia I LOVE this tree! I so want seeds!

My friend the softshell came swimming by. He looked like he might come on shore but never did.

Ever been so crabby you wanted to pinch someone? This is a Heliconia.

This is a very fun moss and fern covered old amphitheatre

This is the flower an a palm. I just loved the texture and thought it looked like a loofa!

These are quickly becoming a favorite palm, Bailey's palm Copernicia baileyana

Dinosaur!!! Nah, just an iguana! One of the MANY I saw in the lowlands

Really, your going to interrupt my nap, er, nesting? Chris stopped and went "Look". I was like, "What?" and the said, "There's a turtle nesting". I'm looking at the water's edge, "Where?". "Right here". WHAT??? LOL, what was it doing up there? Nesting I suppose?

Zebra longwing butterfly on some wild coffee

Posing pretty...*snap* got your leg!

I just loved the way the trees were dipping into the water.

Don't forget to smell the roses on your way back

Giant elephant ears, bromeliad's, cat's whiskers....hmmm yeah!

Fungus? Cabbage? Nah, Amorphophallus flower
And now...drumroll please.......it's rainbow eucalyptus time!


Wayyyyyyyyyyy up there....that's how tall it grows....

Don't you love the pedestal affect?

Sunshine Day! Tithonia, or Mexican sunflower
And currently my favorites on Flickr, Cottage gardens


And before I got, two You Tube video's to share. First is Chantal Kreviazuk. I'm spreading the word on her musicial greatness. I need her fourth album which was recently released in the U.S. If you like artists who write and play their own music, you'll like her. She's married to Raine Maida of Our Lady Peace.

The second is a live version of Eric Clapton singing Layla. Awesome!.

Enjoy!


Bzzzzz
June 4, 2007
This weekend I felt like I needed a real recharge. I really didn't get it though. Friday I came home and I felt ok. Somehow about an hour into being home and Chris calling me for dinner everything changed. I was a true Cancer crab. Chris had made fish for dinner and then paired black eyed peas (or field peas as he said and then pointed to the can when I mimiced him) which really made me want to barf. Fish and "field peas". Gross. I was thinking fish and rice, fish and potato, fish and green beans...but not that. Then well, everything just went to grouch-central. I was supposed to make cupcakes for a geocaching event and really had no energy and no want for going. That was it. I wasn't going and I sure as hell wasn't making cupcakes. Really and truly, I wanted to sleep. It was raining outside from Tropical Storm Barry and I felt that Saturday should be a stay in bed rainy day. I was also still perturbed about finding out that Chris'd volunteered us for the event mid-week, and to boot I didn't even really think about it. Truth is, we don't cache much. And honestly, I am not that interested in it anymore. I love the people, but caching itself is wearing me thin. I like going for the ones when I am traveling because I see new things, but other than that unless it is a long hike or a kayak one, I'm not interested.

And so here I was on Saturday morning wanting to sleep in, which we did until about 10am, but the rain had stopped mostly. I made pancakes, did some dishes and then proceeded to lay in bed until 1, dozing and vegging. We needed groceries and so I finally got up and Chris went to the store with me around 2. I'm not sure what I did the rest of the day. Oh yeah, we took another nap when we got home and then I made lasagna. It was a nice day but I was looking for those really nice rainy afternoon's that would be refreshing. It was marred by my guilty conscience for not doing the geo event and that I was sort of restless as well.

Yesterday we were out at the swamp and spent the entire day. Chris almost stepped on another cottonmouth, we saw a cool inchworm and other neat things. At one point I was sitting down at the base of a pop ash and Chris was standing up and I heard a "bzzzzzz" sound. It was loud and coming our way, slowly accelerating in volume. Plane? No. I knew it was bees, and when it got closer I did ask Chris what it was. Then it got really loud, like I was sitting under a beehive. I got up and started to dart away because I was worried I was under a beehive when he realized it was a huge swarm of bees that were flying over the treetop. Then soon enough they were gone. Weirdest thing ever! Then flashes of "My Girl" came before me when Macaulay Culkin gets stung by the bees and dies. Hrm.

So, we left the swamp and my head was pounding so I slept onthe way home. I ate leftover lasagna and took a shower and tried to do some internet stuff when my head just started pounding all over. It was horrible. So, I hit the bed at 6-ish and tried to watch tv. I ended up asleep at 7:30 and slept mostly until this morning at 6:30. I was woken up by Chris at 10:30 when he told me water had spilled out of the tank and he had to clean it up. Normally I would have gotten out of bed and freaked out, but I was totally too tired. Alas, no ponds in the house this morning, but I suppose there are lots of towels to wash tonight.

So, my dear husband, who really is a sweetie, stuck through my crankyness and stayed home with me on Saturday. I tried to get him to go to the event without me but he wouldn't. Awwwww. :) He's also helpful at the grocery store so I am going to be conning him into going more often. In other news I randomly emailed someone on Etsy that I saw was from Miami and crocheted. I had hearted her and then a few days later saw she hearted me and so I went to ask if she knew of any crochet groups in So.Flo. She was so excited that I had emailed and to say she was wondering the same thing. So, we're thinking of putting together some sort of S. Flo crochet and knitting group.

Lastly, before a few photo's, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to my parents. 31 years today! :) Y'all will make 50!!!!!
Yes, yes, Mom is holding a ginormous margarita. That's how they do it in Texas. ;) She's going to shoot me for showing that probably. lol!

And now for some laundry monster...

Mom!! I'm wearing dad's shorts!!

Ahh, might fall off if I'm not careful!

And a little inchworm action up close....

And finally, something to rock out to:



HAPPY BLOGIVERSARY TO ME!!!
June 2/3, 2007

It's been 5 Years! since I started this blog. Or rather, started blogging. I started June 3, 2002 way-back-when...before blogs were what they are today. Blogger was fairly new I believe and I started there at Sealion.blogspot.com. Some people on the Anne 3 forum had started blogging and blogging was different than it is now. I started off more of a ranting for the forum, it turned into a political sort of thing and well, now it is more of a nature/creative blog. I was at Blogspot for awhile until I decided I wanted to learn to code and so I took an online HTML course for free at Budding HTML Guru's, which I highly recommend if you are interested in learning HTML. I'm no code guru, but I'm ok and with a little bit of panicky AIM conversations to my brother-in-law, a computer whiz, I've been able to get out of some sticky situations. I must also give props to my brother who is good at doing computer things as well for starting off at Blogger and helping me with some of my setup back then. He also hosted me for awhile when he was blogging and then I ended up on a few other geocities pages until I settled on this one and I've been at this site about three years now I believe.

Originally I wanted it to be more focused on the ocean and marine biology and well, while the title is, it isn't always focused on that. It's hard to believe that five years ago I was still in Texas, two weeks away from being married and had no clue what was in store for me in the next five years. Pretty crazy! I just want to thank everyone who reads and comments and even all of you lurkers. It is nice to know I am not insane (mostly) and that there are others out there willing to listen to what I have to say. I am certainly not the most eloquent person on the internet and horrible at posting frequency and have a tendency to break down and shut the place down when I get angry at myself or in a depressive episode. Alas, most of you tolerate me! ;)

And so, with that I suppose we shall return to our Tour of Fairchild Gardens! And Christine, we're inching closer to the rainbow eucalyptus. ;)


This is a mangosteen fruit. They are a super cold sensitive plant and actually aren't that tolerable of zone 10B. But here in the cozy tropical fruit conversatory at Fairchild they'll remain safe from the cool weather. Chris loves these and we ordered seeds from Thailand I believe and then he tried to germinate them and well, they ended up drowning from too much water.

The mangosteen flower

An unknown pink flower

Orchid of some sort.

Check out this cactus!

Bromeliad flowers

I forgot to get the name off this one, but it is pretty cool!

Alright, tomorrow we'll finish off the tour! And before we go, I've gotta share this...

That was the radar last night! WOO! Tropical Storm Barry was friendly and gave us a nice rain from 1pm yesterday (with sprinkles earlier on) until early this morning with sprinkles until mid afternoon. YIPPIEEE! The garden should take that nicely!



Tour of Fairchild, Part II
May 30, 2007
Before we head back out to the garden for more of the tour I have some rants.

What on earth is up with the USPS? The one around the corner is actually open until 7pm and it never fails, if I arrive after 6pm there is two or worse, one person working. This is one of the few in the region open that late so of course there is a line!!! Hello, why aren't there more workers? Why aren't all five booths filled with workers anyway around 5pm? And what on earth is up with the price of shipping now?? Similarily, what is up with the price of milk? $5.69 at Publix yesterday. We bought milk and cookie dough and the total was $8 something and I looked at the screen and had a conniption at the price of milk.

I slammed my right thumb in the sliding glass door. I almost passed out it hurt that bad. Which I've been wondering lately if my low bp needs to be checked out. I've noticed it has been worse lately that when I stand up from sitting or squatting I get light headed and well, even just other issues. I can't even take my asthma medicine without coughing or gagging sometimes. That can't be good, right?

I am getting fed up with Feedburner, the program that sends you all the email's and subscription notices. It isn't working with Opera and updating and it isn't sending email's out, even though I have been manually pinging as well as validating my feed. I did subscribe on Google Reader and it picked up all of them. So, if you haven't been getting anything I guess re-subscribe. Which brings me to the odd thing off how some days I have like 20 something subscribers and the next it is like 14. Weird.

I suppose that is all the rantage for today. Oh, I plan on putting some plants and two more kerchief's on Etsy tonight. And I've decided to list the baby blanket anyway for $85 plus shipping because it is ridiculous the pricing of some of the crochet items. WAY too low. I couldn't even cover the cost of the yarn, let alone my time, for some of the prices I've seen. And I think that is fair. If someone really wants to order it they will. If not then they can go make their own blanket. And fly a kite while they are at it.

We left off yesterday gazing at the Chihuly glass sculpture at the end of the lane. Today...

Complimentary colors on the color wheel. Purple and orange. Wandering Jew plant and a bromeliad.
mmm, banana!

Wayyyy up there in the live oak is a nice orchid in bloom.

ooh, check out what else is up there in the tree! Nice sized bromeliads!
Alright, now it is time to enter into the shadehouse. There is where Mr. Stinky blooms and the public stares in awe. But no Mr. Stinky today.

A beautiful Vanda. One of my favorite orchid's.

A really nice fern. Birdsnest I think.

This looks like an orchid, but it is actually a bromeliad flower!

Exotic leopard looking Vanda.

Mmm, more Vanda's! Lovely little red beauty.

The frond's to the fern that gets the largest in the world.

How art imitates life. Chihuly scupture amongst the frond's of the fern

I have no idea what this is, but it rocks!
And that is is for the Conservatory. Tomorrow we'll take a tour of the rare and exotic fruit shadehouse and then off to the swamp area of the garden. Friday will be the lowlands area and Florida native section with some wildlife!



Tour of Fairchild, Part I
May 29, 2007
Before we go on our little tour of Fairchild I have some miscellaneous photo's to share:

Encyclia cochleata, Clamshell orchid, native of Florida.

Harrisella porrecta, one of the three Florida leafless orchid's. Now I've seen all three!

A really fun green snake!

I think this is a woolly bear caterpillar. Someone correct me if I am wrong. The reddish tint of some of the bristles make me lean towards that.
<;;br> Pipevine swallowtail caterpillar.

Alrighty, get your camera's ready for lots of good shots...
First up, some nifty bromeliads shining in the sun.

Be sure to stop by the Ylang Ylang odorata and inhale the essence

Not sure what it smells like? Next time you are at the mall, take a whiff of Chanel No. 5 at the perfume counter. This is what they make it out of.

The cat's whiskers and giant elephant ears make a nice backdrop

Mmm, dwarf plumeria. Yummy!

A sweeping landscape reminds me that I should have a picnic lunch more often. If only it wasn't so humid and the mosquito's weren't out to get me. I could pretend this is in Connecticut or somewhere non-humid...

Feeling tropical??? How about a little jade vine?

What an interesting shade of greenish blue!

This pond will make you feel like getting in or putting your toes in while you read a book or perhaps sketch the pond.

What's that? A plastic plant???

Nah, it's a torch ginger! Etlingera elatior

We're going to stop and rest our legs here in this pretty little lane while we gaze upon the Chihuly exhibit at the end. Until tomorrow....bring your hat for more fun in the sun!



Rolly Polly Olly
May 27, 2007

Marpesia petreus caterpillar. It's chopping on a strangler fig leaf out in Little Slough.

Join
Tomorrow and the rest of the week stay tuned for a trip to Fairchild Gardens. We went today and got a lot of photos!

Well, the past week has been a busy and crazy time. Chris has a new job now, which he starts on Thursday and leaves for Sacremento next week for training. I think it will be exciting and hopefully he'll enjoy a new challenge. It is paying more money and I totally think he deserves it. Someone with a Master's degree deserves more than what he was getting. To me, he was undervalued at his last job. Anyway, onward and upward!

The garden is doing semi-well despite the lack of water and rain. The front flower bed has been doing well and only the past day or so have things started looking stressed. The new plantings are springing forth and the only things that don't look great are the transplanted amaranth and the herbs.

I finished the baby blanket. I took a quick snap but the colors don't look great. I'm going to redo it tomorrow in the sun so you can see it better.

I *really, really, really* love it. It actually works great as a lapghan, something for the car or while you watch tv. It is cotton and I am starting to want to work with that a lot! If it wasn't going to a good person I would be keeping it for myself! I was also thinking of putting it up on Etsy as an order basis, where you pick two of the colors from the link I select for you, in addition to the white and it would be exactly what you see in the photo there, but your colors. I'm working out the pricing in my head but at the moment I would guess $65-$75 for it. I'm in love with the granny squares and am thinking of making a purse out of it. Speaking of purses, going to finish the purse up in the next few days. It's coming along well!

Now for some numbered ramblings...

1. Libba Bray, an author, wrote an essay that regarding feminmism and the honor killing of Du'a Khalil Aswad in Iraq. Essay here. I agree with just about everything except this, "Maybe the bullies think we'll be so beaten down we'll slink back to the cave and sew up some window treatments". Seriously, nothing wrong with making window treatments! Sewing is in vogue now!
2. Lucky Charms. Totally in love with them at the moment. mmmmm yeah!
3. I want a house in Coral Gables or Pinecrest, somewhere between U.S. 1 and Cutler Ridge Road. Totally lovely, goregous! It doesn't have to be the nicest one, I'll fix it up. Why, why, why is the housing market crappy??? :(
4. I want the new Chantal Kreviazuk c.d.
5. Regarding photo's and camera's. I don't have an expensive camera. It was under $200 and it is six megpixels. It is Fuji Finepix F20. The main things I can tell you are to read your camera manual and learn to use different settings. To get macro's click on the flower button. Usually you push halfway down and let it focus and then finish taking the photo. Take from different angles. Play! Use the manual settings if it has that. Play around with that. See what it can do. Learn to move in and get close so you can crop out unwanted backgrounds. That's all I can tell you to do. I didn't know much of this until three years ago when the flower button was accidentally on and all of a sudden the orchid photo I took was marvelous! WOO! From then on I've been obbsessed with macro's and getting different angles. I want to see the pollen on the anther of that flower. Show me that bee nestled in the flower. Let me see that moss on the tree and the unfurling of the fern. I want to see the things people walk by and never notice. Sure, I have a zillion photos of a lot of these, but it always fascinates me. That's all I can tell you to do. Look at what other people have done and mimic it. Usually that is the way you get better. That's what artists do in school, copy the Old Masters.

So, tomorrow, Fairchild tour...be ready! :)



My first sale!
May 23, 2007
Imagine my surprise and excitement when I opened my email this morning and saw my first sale on Etsy. I was hoping that it would be one of my kerchief's, but alas, it was the cylindrical sansevieria. The downside to all of this was I ended up losing money. Bummer. I set the shipping price at $8 and the plant was $10. We ended up having to go buy a box because the normal longer priority box wouldn't work. So, that's $4. Then shipping was like $11 or something, so I lost out. Lesson learned. It won't be bad on other things, but the bigger plants will have to deal with that. But I think it helps that I have a one item sold listed to my name now! YAY!!! So, go buy a kercheif from me. ;) I am planning three more, same sort of colors but will be putting some fringe around it to make them more funky. Perhaps I'll also do the one I made for Robin as well.

I am coming along well on the granny squares. I think I'll have that blanket finished this weekend as well as a purse. Hopefully I'll get my sewing machine up and running because I have some small quilt/blankets I want to make with some scrap material. I am now contemplating making a tshirt quilt with my Aggie shirts. I was digging through my many drawers of tshirts and saw an Old Navy 2002 July 4th shirt. I probably haven't worn that in four years. It made me want to wear it, but it also made me realize that (hey, it's raining...WOO), I need to clean out and do something with those shirts.

I have also been in a clean out spree. I pulled shirts out of the closet that I don't wear, finally gave up on my skinny jeans (kept one just in case!) and decided it is time to head to Goodwill. I still need to go through (WOO, really raining now! Party on!), the excess computer junk and the garage. The garage...eh, it's a ticking time bomb.

I have a little blog linky to share with you all. My "friend" Amber, she's one of the Anne friends (ie: Anne of Green Gables, originating from Anne3.com in '00....) anyway, she owns a shop in Michigan. She had blogged a long time ago, before blogging was "cool" (actually, I've been blogging almost that long...five years in a few days!) and then dropped her blog, but now she's back! Frivolities Blog. Very cool! And then I found a really neat blog the other day Kal Barteski. That is how I want to be! I want to be inspiring to others, so full of creativity, and hey, making money while I'm at it. Again...gotta get to work on all of this. ;)

And now the rain has stopped. It is time for me to get another peanut butter cookie cupcake (I'm in heaven!) and do some chores and then do some crocheting. FUN! :)



Baking and Gardening
May 21, 2007
Yesterday was spent in the yard and baking. Sometimes when I get a little bored or craving inspiration I drop by Martha Stewart's website. It is chock full of goodies and the other day I printed out Peanut Butter Cupcakes. Chris had finally had enough temptation and I sent out to Publix to get the needed ingredients.

They turned out good! The icing is faboo, mostly because it has cream cheese in it. I *heart* cream cheese frostings. I wish I could have found it for my wedding cake! So, I had fun with that...

Like I said, the morning we worked in the yard. I ripped out the kale and collard greens and we ammended the little "garden" in the corner so we could plant a summer crop. We're crossing our fingers on that one, but we'll see. After we leveled the ground so that we could retain more water we went inside and settled on what we were going to plant. The back along the fences would be pole beans, followed by a row of okra. Starting along right to left would be corn, peppers, onions (more like for chives because we planted too late), herbs, pumpkins, amaranth, and then I put some carrots in the ground that weren't doing so hot in the pot. Figured I'd at least let them try even if it is past their prime.


This is what it looked like when we finished. I'd picked two peppers up at Walmart and then the variegated pepper we put in the ground as well. Some of the corn had sprouted in the front flower bed because of Chris' variegation nuttiness, but wasn't going to get enough sunlight.

Here is the harvest, collards, scarlet nantes carrots, Everglades tomatoes and sungold tomatoes. Those two are really the only tomatoes still producing, though my Arkansas traveler is hanging in, the variegated ones have a few and the Galapagos tomatoes have produced some. Next year, I think I'll only do a few plants and choose heavier producers.

The collards later turned into this. Mmmm yeah!
So, I puttered around some more and found a Gulf Frittillary...

And a lizard

One of the prettier ones in the yard.
Asked the pretty Miss Charlotte/Mr. Charles to pose for me...

And oohed and ahhed at my plumeria! :) I have two more that I hope to bloom as well. Well, besides the other two white ones I have.

Alas, that is it for photos. Lessee here, oh I read The Locket and I highly recommend it. It's a tear jerker. And Ransom by Julie Garwood is a nice fluffy little romance that you'll enjoy. And I think I told you about When I fall in love. So, books you should read. Now, I am going to pick up Lord John and the Private Matter again. Diana Gabaldon never fails, but I was a bit distracted the last time I tried to read this one. I shall let you know!



My Meeting with a Ghost
May 20, 2007

Four of us went out yesterday morning. It was foggy early on and a bit cool. There was an air of anticipation in the car on the way to the area. When we finally arrived near the slough and into the area they reside we all sort of went "Ok, Chris, you're insane. Where are these ghost's?". Soon enough we found a small one with a spike and bud. It was craziness! The amazing thing is you see one you see 10, 20, 30, all on surrounding pop ash and pond apple trees. The whole area is amazing. I love this area. I want to tie up a hammock and wait for a panther to come out of the ferns that stop where you can tell the water level gets too high.

We were focused on the one about to open, trying to get the camera to focus on it and cursing it when it wouldn't. Then Chris went over to the area where he'd seen two about to open a few weeks ago. And there it was. About 10 feet up in a tree and you had to sort of straddle between a downed tree that was up a little and one that was leaning to the west in order to reach it. One of the trees had about five ghost orchids on the side of it as well, so we were careful not to touch them.

This is the first one. It was mayhem, the four of us, trying to get a photo. Trying to capture the light, get the right angle, find that money shot. It is an interesting flower, too. It sort of floats and you could probably easily miss it if you weren't paying attention. You'd think that white would stand out in a forest of green's and brown's, but it doesn't. After we all spent time at this one we looked around at the others growing nearby, searching for perhaps another one in bloom.

To get an idea of how deep the deepest area gets look here:

If you look at my bottom belt and onto the tree you can see the water line. Pretty much where the ferns and moss start growing on the tree is where the water line will get during the rainy season. It was dry this time with a bit of mud near a few areas.

So, we're wondering around taking photos and Chris yells out he found another. This one is on its way out, another bud about to open behind it. It'd been beaten up a bit by the wind, rain and probably by the moth that pollinates it, with some brown around the edges.

We figured this was probably the last one and we took a group photo. Oohed and ahhed some more at the beauty of it. I mean, again, spectacular. A ball of roots on a tree can produce such a flower! I think it is pretty damn cool! So, we're about to probably call it a day and we're walking around again and Chris calls out again that he sees another one. This one is in perfect condition!

Cool! Just so excited again!


These are the three together. I found the black and white setting and woohoo for that!
It was an awesome day. I can't wait to go out again! It would probably even be cool when the water is up. There are some nice sized cypress out there as well. You can see them and the rest of the photos on my Flickr page.

Green Thumb Sunday

Join



Grannies
May 19, 2007
The other night I finally taught myself how to do a granny square. My grandmother has raved about them for years and after seeing a few other crochet bloggers and their grannies I decided I should give it a whirl. I was looking for a new pattern to do for a baby blanket and this was perfect. I am *so* in love.


Aren't the colors pretty?

Samson has been cute all day. He was laying here about an hour ago and I couldn't resist...

Awww, isn't he cute???

Meow???

I finally saw a ghost orchid today! We went out and found THREE in flower and holy cow there are hundreds in this area. We've named it "Little Slough". And no, still not telling the location. I will say that Mike Owen at Fakahatchee Strand does not know this area. Chris has been talking to him several times and he was supposed to go out with us today. However, he had to do a tour so he was unable to make it. From the conversations Chris has had with him it is quite possible this area will double the population of the ghost orchids in Florida. I'm going to save the photo's until tomorrow since it is Green Thumb Sunday. I must say, we got some nice ones! In a few months we may make them available for sale as prints. They aren't Clyde Butcher quality, but you know, still pretty darn nice.

I also put up new kerchief's on Etsy and a new plant. I need to make one more kerchif and then I'll make some "fancier" ones. I'm in the process of a purse as well. So, we shall see.



Blog Meme
May 16, 2007
I had something written out and then I tried to send it to myself at work and it never showed. So....I'm going to catch up and do a meme that Danielle tagged me to do.
Title: My Pet Peeves - Blog Tag Torture
This really gets me going. The girl over at Danielle's Garden posted her top 5 pet peeves the other day and invited other bloggers to share in her rant. So here are mine.
1. People who cannot spell. Ok, so I admit that I do misspell things, but really now, it's rIdiculous, not rEdiculous. It's y'all, not ya'll. And my own pet peeve against myself was that for months and months I was spelling definitely definitly. It was one of those Fe-bru-ary situations where you have to sit down and sound it out. Dur!
2. Miami/South Florida drivers. Really, you do not know what a bad driver is until you come here. Visit Homestead, SW 8th Street, Kendall, those area's and you'll find out. Then after you experience that, get in a cab in Panama and then you'll have lots of fun! Rollercoaster fun!
3. It's crocheting, not knitting. Really now. *Some* people know I crochet when they see me doing it, but everyone thinks it is knitting. No, it is a crochet hook, ONE hook, not two knitting needles. And to pair along with this the thought that crochet, knitting, crafting is for "old ladies". Even so, who cares if "old ladies" do it? We're all going to be old one day.
4. People who make comments that softball players are all butch and lesbians. Nothing against butch women or lesbians, but really, we're not all like that. If you'd of known me 10 years ago you'd of seen the prissiest little softball player. I was such a nerd.
5. People who send me friggin' forward email's that are just plain dumb. Check the facts!!! Even after you tell them that it is false they still believe it. Helllooooo???!?!?!?!??!!

So, now I am tagging:
Robin
Shelly
Jessica
Gladeslvr/Chris (myspace)
New poster/lurker Snoskred
Have fun!!!


; I'm moving to the Keys
May 15, 2007

I wish I was still there. I need to move there. Someone, please hand me a job that will allow me to afford it. Wait, no. Someone hand me $25 million and then I can move there and not worry about anything. Sounds much better doesn't it?

My dad came in late last week and we hit the Keys on Friday morning. We stopped at Herbie's in Marathon for some lunch. Yummy! I can't believe we skipped the Key Lime pie this time! For Shame, Dad! ;) We were headed for Bahia Honda State Park where we were going to camp for two nights. First we stopped at "our" snorkel spot on the Ohio Missouri Channel, just after the 7 mile bridge. Dad stopped to pick up this:

A Whelk egg sack. Fun stuff already! YAY!
After snorkeling, where we had some fun tickling out a lobster (no we didn't bring it up and keep it. It's not the season.) and watched him scurry off, showed dad a sea biscuit, and he showed me some nice sponges, we got out and walked around the shore. It's fun to see this shore evolve over the past few years. There had been a dead tree, probably a mangrove or buttonwood, and it is now totally disintegrated and gone.

I got a bit artsy trying to get this rock. Tried very carefully not to get the camera wet while I squatted in the knee deep water.

And no matter how many times I photograph this red mangrove I still love it. Just a relaxing little thing to look at.
After all that we went back to the campsite where Chris fished for awhile and dad and I hit the beach to chill out for awhile. I can't remember if Chris caught this Friday night or Saturday morning, but it's cool.

Squak??? Polly got a cracker? This is a parrotfish. They like to eat coral pieces, which is appropriate for their nice little beak.

For dinner we went to Parrotdise a restaurant on Little Torch Key. I had a really good dinner, something vegetarian, which is odd for me. It was a filo dough filled with grilled veggies and goat cheese. It was so delicious that I am going to make something similar soon! Here's me and dad...

Saturday morning we got up to an overcast and smokey day. If you've heard, Florida is literally on fire. There was even a fire in the Keys. So, some of the smoke from local and distant area's was having fun down our way. It was probably a good thing because it kept the sun off us and made it a much easier day. We kayaked the mangrove's, introduced dad to sea cucumbers, which had fun squirting water at us, and we all chased a stingray for a bit. It was so neat seeing him dart around the water. It was so clear that you could see 50 feet in front of you. Chris chased fish and sharks through the day while he was fishing. We didn't bring the dry bag with us so I didn't get any photos of the kayaking. Next time, I promise!

Back at the campsite we had fun with the land crabs...

Mr. Land Crab, he thinks you can't see him....

And we went to the open part of the Bahia Honda Bridge
I'm actually kinda happy with the way this one turned out! It's a bit odd, but kinda rustic at the same time.

Me and Chris

Florida has iguana's running around and we looked down and saw this one sitting there. We surmised that he had probably walked on the bottom of the bridge and made it over there. Hrm???

Sunday morning Chris got a nice prize while fishing.
Chris and his prize, Goliath Grouper. Pretty nifty, eh?
After Chris fished to his heart's content Dad and I hit the beach again while Chris went to "our" spot and did some snorkeling. I walked around and snapped some photos, played frisbee with Dad and just enjoyed the day.

Hi, I'm Mr. Fiddler Crab. Please, don't come in!

A washed up gorgonian

Really it was much bluer than that....

Floating by....turtle grass, Thalassia testudinum

A little sargassum and turtle grass on the beach...

As we were walking around I just thought this was a nice shot.

Seagrass, crystal clear

Hi Dad!

Unknown fishes

We were walking back in the water towards the beach towel and a pelican comes crashing down and gobbled down some food.
I cropped this one so you could see it better, but at first we thought it was a Miami Blue butterfly. We had just visited the nature center and saw there was a variety of "blue's" at the park. Turns out this one was a Cassius Blue

It was a wonderful time. I am already thinking Chris and I have to go back here in a few weeks. I could settle on Big Pine Key and be happy. Just need me a job. Or $25 million.

Journal Ephemera

My Amazon Wishlist: You can buy me something!

« ? kindred blogs # »

Cutting through the Blog Smog

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

All Content Copyright:
Misti D.W. Little
oceanicwilderness@gmail.com

Best if viewed in Opera or FireFox