Big Smile!

I've posted quite a bit about the big sunflowers I planted this year, but haven't yet mentioned the minis. Last year, I so enjoyed having a mini-sunflower (var. "Ballad") in a container on the veranda that I wanted to be sure to do it again. This year, I bought two called "Big Smile" -- a pretty accurate name, as you can see below.

One of the things I enjoyed about these flowers last year was that, for several weeks, we had orioles in the yard, scarfing down the sunflower seeds. This year, I've seen a few orioles flitting through the backyard, but have yet to see them helping themselves to the seeds.

Bees, on the other hand, love the sunflowers, as illustrated below, so they're often my company when I'm having coffee on the veranda. Tangent: Have I mentioned yet how much less afraid I am of bees since I started gardening? :)

This year, I potted each of the two sunflowers with some alyssum (I'm starting to think alyssum belongs in everything!), and -- to contrast with the yellow -- something blue: Lobelia (yep, the same species as that Lobelia) in one pot and Evolvulus (which was new to me) in the other.

Don't Fence Me In

The whole point of the morning glory project was to cover the horrible chain-link fence surrounding our backyard. Guess what? It's working! :)

I am a little bummed that the flowers are living up to their name -- they look gorgeous in the morning, when these photos were taken, and are completely closed by about noon -- but otherwise, they look terrific.


They're taking a little longer to fill in the back fence...
...but as you can see, the side fence looks great -- not a link of chain in sight! :)

First Tomatoes!

Last weekend, we enjoyed our first home-grown tomatoes of the year: a Brandywine and a Half-Moon China.



They were just perfect with a some sliced avocado, a little blue cheese, a sprinkling of kosher salt, a handful of walnuts and a spritz of white truffle oil.


Even Sam, who visited for a few days (yay!), seems to approve. :)

The Trades

Everyone in town seems to be talking about KG heading to Boston this morning, and how much less familiar and popular the T-Wolves will be without him. Even Sweetcheeks has expressed his disappointment. But I'm far more bummed about the impending departure of Luis Castillo.

Castillo doesn't have Torii's charisma or Santana's raw talent or Mauer's local-cutie status, but I really like him. This is a guy that always looks like he's working really hard, particularly when making the dash to first. He's fun to watch at the plate, his stats are fully respectable and, as illustrated in today's local coverage, he's absolutely loved within the clubhouse.

In an article about the trade and a companion blog posting, Strib Twins reporter La Velle E. Neal II tells us that that "[Twins] players are upset to lose Castillo but measured their words carefully on the record" and that "Castillo's eyes watered up as he talked about not wanting to be traded." (Neal also questions the wisdom of trading Castillo for a catcher, given the number of catchers in the Twins system today). Joe Christensen describes how "Twins manager Ron Gardenhire spent several moments staring at his office ceiling, in obvious disappointment, while the Castillo trade was being finalized."

So while I certainly recognize that KG's move will have more impact on Minnesota sports, I'm sorry to see Mr. RunLikeHell go.

Walked Out This Morning...

... don't believe what I saw! No, not a hundred billion bottles (sorry, Sting), but something else that surprised the heck out of me: the biggest spider web I've ever seen in real life. In the middle of it, a ginormous spider. In true Sparklegirl form, I will now share several really blurry photos taken in my backyard. :)
I'm not particularly afraid of spiders, but I'm not a fan accidentally walking into spider webs -- and this one was sooooooooooooo big. To give you an idea of the size, there's a photo below with George on the left and the big pot with the sunflower on the right. The web stretched from George's lower branches to the sunflower pot -- across that whole space!

Look at that: it's gotta be five feet across. And of course, that's the first place I walk most mornings -- I come right down the stairs and walk over to check on the containers and beds near the veranda. I'm glad I had enough coffee to notice Mr. Spooky before I strolled right through his web.

So after wavering for a few minutes, I went ahead and knocked the web down. I felt a little bad about it -- I certainly would have left it up if it hadn't been in a major thoroughfare, but I knew I'd end up walking through it if it stayed there.

Immediately after I did it, I thought: Maybe I should have left it up to see if he could snag a squirrel. :)

Visitors to the Birdbath

At the recommendation of the BB-store owner (there's a phrase I never thought I'd write), I moved the birdbath over to the south part of the yard, under the tree where the stupid squirrels live. You can see their nest (which we've knocked down repeatedly) in the photo below.

I liked the birdbath near the veranda where it was, but it didn't seem to be attracting any birds (bees, yes; wasps, yes), so I didn't mind moving it. I didn't t think I'd see any birds using it in its new location, but surprise! Within the first few days, we saw a couple of birds playing in the water and then resting on the nearby trellis.


These are black-capped chickadees, one of my favorite birds. I just adore their friendly little "fee-bee" call, which you can hear at the end of this recording. But they're not the only birds who've come visiting lately.

Towards the end of last summer, we noticed a new pair of birds hanging around the neighborhood. It was difficult to get a good look, but we knew from the shape of their profiles -- particularly their hooked beaks -- that they were some type of small raptor. We've come to think they're peregrine falcons. Here's one on the telephone wire behind the house.


It's been a real treat to have them around. We hear their cries in the mornings and evenings while we're on the patio, and occasionally they swoop through the backyard. (I keep hoping they'll eat the squirrels, but no such luck so far.)

Yesterday, I was in the kitchen when Mason called out to come to the TV room. Looking out the window, we saw one of the falcons standing the birdbath. He stood motionless in the water for quite a while, occasionally bending his head to drink. Then he did a funny little bobbing dance, washing his back feathers in the water. We watched for about five minutes, and then the second falcon swooped down and landed on the trellis nearest to the birdbath. I managed to find the camera and take a few shots through the window. I wish the photos had come out better, but if you click on them to see the enlarged images, you might be able to get a better look.

P.S. Oh, and that mess you see in the backyard next to ours is our new neighbor settling in. He's completely ripping up the backyard, but that's a lot more attention than it's had for years, so I'm thinking anything he does to it will be a good thing.

What Would I Do Differently ...

... in the garden, that is. It's late July, so everything's reaching a pretty mature size, giving me a better idea of what I could have done differently from a planning/layout standpoint. I'm not unhappy about any of the choices I made, but all gardeners are constantly thinking about next year, right?

So, what would I have done differently?

• I love how well the tomato plants are doing, but they've sprawled all over everywhere and have been a little difficult to coax into place. So next year, maybe I'll plant them inside the trellis, instead of planting them outside and then trying to lash them to the trellis.
• A similar idea: I might do a little more pruning early on to make sure the main stem of each tomato plant is plenty strong -- I've lost a couple of branches in storms or wind.
• I'm also kind of wishing that I thought more about which bed I put the tomatoes in. I'd forgotten that you're not supposed to plant them in the same place two years in a row because rotating them helps prevent disease. But because all the other areas of the garden have perennials, there's not much room to add tomatoes to them next year. So that's something to ponder.
  
• Next year, I'm definitely trying some more vegetables. I love my tomatoes and all the herbs, and I'm waiting for my red peppers to ripen, but the Awesome NeighborsTM are already starting to see zucchinis and cucumbers, and I'm jealous. :)
• As I'd mentioned previously, I planted a number of sunflower seeds. I put them in the back bed (near the driveway), but when they emerged, their leaves were so huge that they didn't look good with some of the more delicate foliage in that area. So I moved them to some of the corners near the house. That's all well and good, but in transplanting the emerging plants, I also accidentally transplanted a couple of sunflower-sized weeds with remarkably sunflower-like leaves. (This was the day I got the heat exhaustion, so that's my excuse.) I realized my mistake and yanked the weeds up a bit later, but one goal for next year is not to mistake weeds for the real thing. Oy.

Here's one of the three spots where the sunflowers were moved.













And here's one of the weeds I accidentally transplanted in with them. It was only after these weird little buds formed that I realized what I'd done.

• This is something I'm trying yet this year: no gardening when it's too hot. It wasn't just me that needed lots of recovery time after I did all that transplanting on a 90-degree day -- some of the plants took weeks to bounce back. I pruned some of the annuals back really hard and gave them extra water, and they're finally starting to rebloom. So next year -- and for the remainder of this season -- I'll be much more cautious about doing any real gardening during or just before a hot spell.
• Then there's mulch. Up here, the rule of them is to mulch around June 15. The soil is warm enough by then, and a good layer of mulch really helps hold soil moisture and subdue weeds. Unfortunately, the garden sort of has to be "set" before I can mulch, and I'm still moving stuff around. I think I only have a little more rearranging to do, but until then, I can't mulch -- and that means I'm missing out on some of the weed-fighting and moisture-retention benefits of mulch. So the goal for next year: have everything in place by June 15.
  
• Finally, I think I'll spread things around a bit more next year, as opposed to having them as compartmentalized as they are now. For example, all the flowers and shrubs looking great in the corners right now, which makes the tomato beds look really boring, despite my having added some thyme as an ornamental groundcover in those areas. So next year, I think I'll include some smaller flowers (maybe Gaillardia?) around the base of the vegetable plants. I'd also like to spread out the alyssum a bit more. It's spilling beautifully over the bricks surrounding the beds, but I only planted them in patches. Next year, I think ring everything in alyssum.
  

So this winter, when I'm making a bunch of new gardening spreadsheets (I wish I were kidding), I'll have to look back at this post to remember what I need to do for 2008.

Oh, and the RSSIMHRN for today: nothing -- and I'm kind of enjoying the peace and quiet, actually. :)

The Wrath of Sparklegirl, Denouement

I've been putting off posting the finale of the squirrel saga, thinking that there would actually be, well, a finale. But this tale seems to have ended with a whimper instead of a bang -- at least, for now.

When last we left our heroine, she was headed to the BB-gun store (yes, Virginia, there is a BB-gun store) with M to get some ammo. We actually tried a couple of other places first -- the local sporting goods store, the local Ace hardware -- before ending up at B&B Supply Company. It's a teensy little building on a corner about a mile from our place, next to an adorable little bungalow with a thriving garden.

We walked in, and I blanched a bit to see the posters of various game animals, including rabbits, with targets on them. (It also smelled a little funny in there.) But I held my ground. The owner came out to talk to us and was very nice -- he was clearly invested in making sure that the pellets he sold us would be appropriate for squirrels (i.e., that they'd die instantly, without suffering). M did most of the talking, but I expressed my frustration with losing my plants.

Then, a funny thing happened. The owner said, "You know, I used to have some trouble with squirrels in my garden, but I never do anymore because I put out a couple of birdbaths for them."

Um, what?

"Well, the reason they rip up plants is to get at the roots for moisture. They do it when they're not getting enough water."

Wow. I did not know that. We are in a big ol' drought, though.

"So, in my garden, I put out a couple of birdbaths near the tree where the squirrels nest. Did you see the little house next door?"

Yes, I did -- totally cute, great garden.

"Yeah, that's my house. The squirrels used to get my plants all the time, but they haven't dug up anything this year, and I think it's because of the birdbaths."

Huh. Interesting idea, but remember that at this point, my Dianthus had been destroyed only moments before, and I was still very angry. (A friend saw the posting about it said that my shadow in the photo even looked pissed.) We did go ahead and buy some pellets. Later that afternoon, M cleaned his BB-gun and practiced a little in the backyard, while I cooled my temper with a beer in the air-conditioned TV room.

But while I still thought force would be necessary, I did move the birdbath over near the squirrel tree the next morning. (It hadn't been seeing any bird action, anyway -- it was more like a wasp-bath at that point.)

Surprise: that was at least two weeks ago, and I have yet to lose another plant! I'm not sure whether the tree-rats have been drinking from the birdbath or just finally get fed up with us knocking down their nest, but either way, something's working.

Am I ready to call off the war? Not a chance. But am I relieved to have even a temporary truce? Fo shizzle.

No, I know -- I can't remotely pull off "fo shizzle." :)

RSSIMHRN, July 21-23

I suppose it's not really a "random" song stuck in my head if it's not random, i.e., if I specifically sought out the source of the song -- which, in this case, I did. I saw "Hairspray" (the film) on Saturday afternoon, and for the last three days, my toes have been tapping to what's left in my head of "Good Morning, Baltimore."

"Hairspray" puts you in a good mood that lasts all day. And if you're expecting blah "Broadway-style" tunes, guess again -- the music is fantastic in a very Ronettes-meets-Martha-and-the-Vandellas sort of way. Everyone in the theater was dancing in their seats.

I realize this film's not for everyone, but between the terrific tunes, amazing cast (I was bawling by the end of Queen Latifah's "I Know Where I've Been") and the surprisingly substantial story (it pays homage to the optimism of the early 60s, which promised to be a decade that finally welcomed outsiders, and to those willing to take chances to affect change), I think most folks will find something in there to enjoy. :)

Separately, I've been meaning to finish posting about my goofy squirrel adventures, but last week was pretty icky (the merger for which I'm working on communications/training/support got pushed back a couple of months), so I appreciate your patience. :)

Lake Geneva Photos

Lake Geneva was just terrific -- wonderful weather, fun times hanging out with Mom and Bill, sailing opportunities for M, and my favorite surprise: fireflies!

Here's the cute house that Mom and Bill rented ...

... with, as you can see below, a big shady front yard -- great when we were babysitting four-year-old Chap on Saturday.

This is a shot of Mom's Melges 17 with its bright-red spinnaker. She was sailing that morning with buddy Peter Keck.

Here's LGYC -- the balcony is a great place to have a beer and watch the races. (Of course, I had to take a photo that included some landscaping -- look at that beautiful Russian sage!).

This is my completely unsuccessful attempt to photograph some fireflies. Oh, well -- they were wonderful to watch (we never see them in the city).

And this is Mom opening her birthday gift: a shirt from the Lake Calhoun Sailing School, where M recently completed his first sailing class -- which was his birthday gift from Mom this year. Whew, that gets a little circular, doesn't it?

Thanks to Mom and Bill for a terrific time! :)

RSSIMHRN, July 17

Seza, this is sooooooo your fault! ;)

Lake Geneva, Here We Come!

I'd meant to finish posting my squirrel saga, but the day got away from me, and now I'm looking at a six-hour drive. M and I are heading to Lake Geneva tonight to hang out for a few days with Mom and Bill, who have rented a house there for the month of July. Think there might be some sailing involved? :) I'll be sure to post some photos when we get back -- Lake Geneva is just beautiful.

RSSIMHRN, July 11

Sometimes, things hit you harder than you anticipate, don’t they? When I listened to the 30-second iTunes preview of this song, I immediately loved it and purchased it right away. But the first time I listened to the whole thing (I remember it was on the train, coming home from work) was also the last. It’s just too sad. Don’t get me wrong -- I totally appreciate melancholia in pop songs, but this one takes it all the way to painful, so I just prefer not to listen to it. Unfortunately, I caught a little of it while flipping stations this morning, and it’s now been stuck in my head for hours. I think I’m going have to blast it out of there with some Gnarls Barkley or The Shins or something.

The Wrath of Sparklegirl, Part II

When last we left our heroine, she was happily arriving home on a Friday afternoon, looking forward to taking off her high heels and enjoying some down-time, maybe in the hammock. Strolling up to the veranda, she takes out her key to unlock the back door and happens to look over at her new Dianthus in the pretty little blue clay pot.

What she sees awakens the wrath of Sparklegirl.

(OK, sorry about all the melodrama -- I’ll knock it off now.)

Remember my new Dianthus? Look at all those little flowers!

When I got home last Friday, it looked like this!

I looked closer, and realized that those stinking little tree-rats had popped off all but one of the blooms, which they then had left strewn on the table. They hadn’t touched any of the foliage or, from what I could tell, dug or buried anything in the soil. They didn’t even eat the flowers – they just removed them and left them, as if to flaunt their destruction! Why would they do this?!? Why? Why?

But it gets worse.

Stunned, I looked over at the other little table on the veranda, and there was the little wooden frog that usually sits in the mini-sunflower container -- out of its container and almost completely shredded. FYI: I don’t normally put lots of fake animals in my garden, but this little frog was left behind by the Edins, who owned the house for about fifty years before us. Having it peek out from the sunflower container was such a nice, simple way to honor them -- until those bushy-tailed bastards completely chewed it up.

I was shocked. In fact, I was momentarily rendered speechless (which, you know, doesn’t happen that often) and then let loose a stream of profanity that would have shocked the hell out of my work colleagues. Poor M just got out of my way as I ran for the camera. T from next door came out onto his deck, saw what had happened, saw me with the camera and asked, “Collecting evidence, huh?” That’s exactly right. I have no concept of why evidence was necessary, but it made me feel better to document the wreckage.

As I stood there fuming, M said, “C’mon, honey. Let’s go get some BBs.”

To be continued…

Summer Blooms

Our lawn may be golden-brown and it crunches when I walk on it, but as long as I stay on top of watering, the garden seems to love this heat -- so many things are in bloom! There are white, yellow and orange flowers on the Thunbergia vines on the trellises.

Three of my new (as of this year) Perovskia (Russian sage) have blossoms.

Here's the very first morning glory flower of the year!

The Rudbeckia are getting ready to do their thing; here's their first blossom.

And the tomatoes coming along too!

George

It's been almost two months, and M continues to make fun of our little tree. It's bad enough that the stupid f---ing squirrels keep messing with it, but -- literally adding insult to injury -- M keeps referring to it as the Retard Tree.


Concerned that the poor thing is going to get a complex, I decided to give it a name that would make it a little more difficult for M to pick on it. I chose "George," after M's paternal grandfather, who passed away a few years ago. I had a theory that M would have trouble mocking while thinking of Grandpa George. Plus, our little tree just seemed like a George.

I know, I know-- you're thinking that I've finally gone off the deep end. But you know what? M hasn't made fun of it since, so I must be pretty smart. :)

Yay for Wind!

As I think most of y'all know, this is M's third week is his new job, which seems to be nearly a perfect fit for him. The firm is a wind-energy finance start-up, and his role is half project development and half legal affairs. His colleagues seem terrific and he's thrilled to be in downtown Minneapolis (it really is soooo convenient and fun to work downtown). The "settling-in" process is making him a little tired, as I think happens to anyone in a new job when you suddenly have to become an expert on a range of new topics.

One of the coolest things about this, though, is that he has a head start on getting to know the wind energy industry: he did his senior thesis in college on wind power and was a project manager for a small wind power company back in the mid-90s. While he was interviewing for this position, we both kept finding ourselves amazed that, fifteen years and a law degree later, his path has led back to wind power. How awesome that there's now so much more activity and momentum in the industry!

And, of course, it's much more high-profile than it used to be. You'd have to have lived in a cave for the last few years to miss all the attention that alternative energy is getting. A terrific example is this commercial, found and sent to me by my good friend, ETC (thanks for the link!).

The Wrath of Sparklegirl, Part I

I never thought I'd be okay with shooting a squirrel, but guess what?

I tend to think of myself as -- at least when it comes to animals -- fairly tender-hearted. But things change, and the gaggle of squirrels that has been digging up my plants with near-surgical precision (seriously, it's like they're deliberately mocking me) was beginning to push me over the edge. So when M mentioned the air rifle, I laughed, but then I really thought about it.

A few days later, I mentioned it to a friend, who replied, "But aren't we encroaching on their land?"

I surprised myself by saying, "No way. We're not talking about a species losing its habitat because of suburban sprawl. This is a city and has been for more than a hundred and fifty years, which is why the squirrels are here -- they're living off of us and our gardens and garbage. Plus, there's hardly a shortage of squirrels."

The funny thing is, I've been feeling more okay about certain kinds of hunting since I moved to Minnesota. When M first told me that his yearly deer-hunting trip (a tradition going back to his early childhood with his grandfather and dad), I wasn't sure what to think other than "Yuck: guns." But it gave me a reason to learn about it.

Deer hunting here is carefully regulated by the DNR (that's the Department of Natural Resources for y'all non-Minnesotans), which issues a certain number of permits based on the deer population of a given year. In general, our deer population can get pretty out of control, so hunting plays important role in keeping the ecosystem of our beloved Minnesota forests from getting out of whack. And when the deer population is low, the DNR will reduce the number of "doe permits" to allow the population to recover.

In addition, although I'm sure there are people who do it only for sport and never use the meat, that's not us. I've worked hard to learn lots of venison recipes (my venison stroganoff is semi-famous), and we use all of it that we get. It reminds me a little of a conversation I had with Mike back when he was a vegetarian who also ate non-farmed fish. "Well," he explained over an order of take-out Chinese shrimp, "I figure these little guys had a free life, unlike most animals raised for meat." I'm not suggesting that Mike would be pro-hunting, but I figure that "free life" idea is true of the deer we eat, too.

So. Having married into a Minnesota family that does a little deer hunting probably laid the groundwork for me being able to think about shooting squirrels, but I was still pretty conflicted about it. (It seemed so much like something that a seven-year-old Dick Cheney would do.) That is, until I came home from work last Friday. And what I saw unleashed the wrath of Sparklegirl.

To be continued ...

Cool Treats for Hot Days

It was another scorching weekend, and while that annoys the crap out of me in some ways, it's a fun meal-planning challenge. I love that I can't remember the last time I turned on the oven, that recipes for crisp salads and cold treats abound, and that all the fresh produce makes "improvisational cooking" -- something I often enjoy -- even more fun and colorful.

Here's what we've been eating lately.

Chicken Salad Wraps

• Chopped fresh chives and parsley from the garden
• Slivered almonds
• Diced red onion
• Canned chicken breast
• Light mayo mixed with a little horseradish for bite
• And here's the best part: chopped dried cherries

Mix it all together, and spoon it onto tortillas that have been drizzled with honey mustard. If you'd like, boost the antioxidants by throwing in a few leaves of baby spinach.

Creamy Tomato-Cucumber Salad

• Diced fresh tomatoes (ours came from a road-side stand)
• Fresh cucumbers, skin and seeds removed
• Chopped red onion
• Fresh parsley and dill from the garden
• Marinade: red wine vinegar, salt, pepper, and a little Splenda

Marinate for up to three hours. Drain. Gently mix in cubes of sourdough bread that have been spritzed with olive oil and grilled (or toasted). In a separate bowl, mix a little more red wine vinegar with light sour cream and more herbs or salt to taste. Toss with the tomato mixture. Great with chilled Pinot Grigio.

Lemonade with Blueberry-Infused Vodka

• Dump a handful of blueberries into about eight ounces of vodka. Let steep overnight in the fridge.
• Prepare frozen lemonade according to the directions on the can, but substitute the blueberry vodka (including blueberries) for one can of water.
• Add a little orange liqueur for complexity (I like Patron Citronage, but you could also use Cointreau or Grand Marnier or even Triple Sec).
• If it's too tart, add a little Splenda.

This is soooo smooth that you have to be a little careful. You can barely taste the vodka, so it's easy to get carried away with this on a hot day.

RSSIMHRN: Did anybody else catch the Live Earth broadcast? We watched a little of it, and the Keith Urban/Alicia Keys version of "Gimme Shelter" was phenomenal. Unfortunately, that's not the song that got stuck in my head. This is. Bummer.

(Visual) Fruits of Labor

Here are some photos of all the gardening work I did last Sunday!

Updated Containers
The lettuce in the containers by the birdbath has been replaced by a "Red Beauty" pepper (I counted six peppers on the plant this morning!) and two kinds of mint.

Better Spacing for Back Bed
Here's a shot of the corner where I spaced out the perennials (particularly the Agastache) a bit better.

And here's a shot of the annuals, which now also have more breathing room. Having the red Salvia spaced out between the purple Ageratum (especially next to the chartreuse of the Agastache) just makes the colors pop a little more.
New Dianthus
This photo really doesn't do justice to how lovely the contrast is between the foliage and bloom colors.
Petunias Around Lamp
Yeah, I'm just not sure how crazy I am about this. Oh, well -- I can move them.

Relocated Sunflowers
Look at that wilt. :( Clearly, they didn't handle the heat any better than I did. They'll get extra water this week.
Oh, and RSSIMHRN: stupid Cardigans. Actually, that song isn't nearly as annoying as it used to be. Remember when the Cardigans played that big Roaring 20s party of Kelly's -- her birthday or prom or something -- and her dad showed up with her half-sister and she was mad all night and annoyed the hell out of Brandon? No? Surely I'm not the only one who watched "Nine-Oh" re-runs instead of studying, right?

Does it help that last night's RSSIMHRN was bit more substantial?

A Long Time Ago, In a Galaxy Far, Far Away

Just came across an article from JIVE magazine called "The Complex and Terrifying Reality of Star Wars Fandom." A small excerpt:

Star Wars fans hate Star Wars.

If you run into somebody who tells you they thought the franchise was quite enjoyable, and they very-much liked the originals as well as the prequels, and even own everything on DVD, and a few of the books, these imposters are not Star Wars Fans.

Star Wars fans hate Star Wars.

Tangent: Did you know that Luke Skywalker was recently named number eight on a list of the top ten wimpiest action heroes in movies? Says the L.A. Times:

Other characters got the immortal lines such as "May the force be with you" and "Luke, I am your father." But what did the ostensible hero of the original "Star Wars" trilogy whine in his first appearance? "But I wanted to go to Tacchi Station and get some power converters!" This is the son of Anakin Skywalker? No wonder his dad was trying to kill him.

ANYway, if you have any feelings -- positive or negative -- about The Force, you owe it to yourself to check out the JIVE article.

OH! And I've been thinking for a few days now about a new Sparklegirl feature. Introducing: RandomSongStuckInMyHeadRightNow, (RSSIMHRN). Currently, it's Ms. Underwood getting nasty, which is much better than a few days ago, when it was that song from the Pantene commercial.

Clicky-Clicky

Coming off a mid-week holiday is so strange -- it feels like you had half a weekend. I've got a chunk of things to get done today, but with the mood around the office palpably sluggish, I hope you'll forgive me for phoning in today's post. Let's just take a peek at some fun links clogging up the tubes this morning, shall we?

• From CuteOverload!: a teeeny-tiny-but-oh-so-mortified bun
• From OIM: A child after my own heart and the rationale (at least for one bridesmaid) for domestic violence
• From Go Fug Yourself (a fiesty new Sparklegirl fave): Oprah Winfrey goes to clown college? Nope, it's just Lauren Hill.
• And finally, from YouTube-via-Garden Rant, some time-lapse gardening!

Featured Garden: Next Door

As I've written about it previous posts/comments, our Awesome NeighborsTM next door have a fantastic garden. While we have a similar (or at least, very compatible) style, Seza has devoted a lot more space to veggies and herbs than I have, at least in the backyard. (Out front, their house sports a full-sun perennial bed, a bunch of window boxes, a climbing rose, a bunch of established shrubs and a gorgeous blue "Endless Summer" hydrangea.)

Here are some late-June photos of their backyard.

Heirloom Tomatoes, Peppers, Herbs and Nasturtiums
I have to just point out that it's impossible for me to hear the word "nasturtiums" without thinking of Winnie-the-Pooh (who thinks they're called "mastershalums.")


The Newly-Designed and Home-Built Planter on the Deck
Engineer/friend Fish designed it for Seza's birthday present, and T built it himself!


Vertically-Inclined Peas and Beans
Through the chain-link fence, you can kinda see the purple Ageratum and red Salvia in my back bed.


And in the Front Yard: Coneflowers
This is one of the Echinacea plants that was too pink for me. As you can see, it's pretty happy at Seza's!

Back At It

Over the weekend, I finally got some gardening done! It had been about two weeks since I’d been able to get out there, and it gave me some time to think about what to do next, which was great. The truth is, the garden looked pretty good -- all that planning and work in early spring really paid off. But you know how it is: it’s always easier to see the flaws or holes in your own backyard, and I constantly see a million things I need to do.

So here's what I got done on Sunday.

• I moved all the sunflowers. As I wrote about earlier, I was a little apprehensive about their size, and already their leaves were so outlandishly huge that they didn’t seem to fit in with the rest of the back bed. So I dug them up and moved them to a couple of other spots. They seemed a little stressed that afternoon, but I’m hoping they come through.
• I potted my "Red Beauty" pepper plant. First, in their new location, the sunflowers would be blocking the pepper’s light. Second, I didn’t do nearly as much to amend the soil where the pepper plant was, so I think it will do much better in the nice soil of a big container. And finally, the lettuce finally gave up and bolted (we finished it in a wonderful salad on Sunday), so I had a few spare containers to fill around the birdbath area.
• I repotted the orange mint and peppermint. I wasn’t happy with the goofy little homemade watering system (read: an upside-down Gatorade bottle with holes poked in it) that I’d put in the mint pot. It just didn’t drain as well as I’d hoped. So the mint went into another of the now-available lettuce pots. (Mint is one of the rare herbs that actually likes a little shade, so I hope this won’t be too much sun for it.)
• I gave away three way-too-pink coneflowers to the Awesome NeighborsTM. They’ve now found a happy home in their front yard, and one is in bloom. :)
• I pulled up some of the pansies that had given up in the heat. I still have a little more of this to do, but I need to get my thoughts together on exactly how to rearrange things to take their places.
• I put some deep purple petunias in a little corner by the patio. I’m not actually convinced I like this, but I’ll try it for a week. I can always move them again.
• I added more morning glories around the back fence. The removal of the sunflowers took a lot of green away from the back bed, thus exposing more of the horrible chain-link fence. So I found some cheap morning glories (quicker than starting from seed) at the farmer’s market, and added them back there. I’m hoping that Awesome Neighbor Seza and I don’t regret how many morning glories we’ve planted. I understand that they can be a little invasive, but damn, we both want to get that nasty fence covered.
• (Tangent: It’s sooooo nice that she and I have such similar gardening taste! Obviously, we don’t have to match everything, but it’s easier that we both, for example, like sunflowers. As the owner of Mother Earth said, “It’s pretty hard to pull off an informal cottage garden when there’s a formal Japanese garden right next door.” Too true.)
• I also moved around some of the annuals (and one perennial) in that same back-bed area. The Ageratum had become huge, and it just looked like one big mass of purple. So I spread it out a bit (which also helped fill in some of the spots left by the sunflowers). I then moved some of the Salvia, as well as the “regular” Agastache, which was getting smooshed behind the very-happy-and-spreading-like-crazy Agastache “Golden Jubilee.”
• I picked up and planted a couple more Thunbergia. I know it seems like I spend half my garden time and budget on these, but I’ve got one trellis on which they just haven’t taken, and it’s really noticeable.
• I potted a small but lovely Dianthus for the veranda, taking the place of some very tired looking pansies. I never got excited about Dianthus until I bought up a bouquet of them at the farmer’s market. I swear, those flowers looked perfectly fresh and full of color in a vase on my desk for almost two weeks. So when I saw this one at Mother Earth -- with deep, blue-red blooms over gray-tinged foliage -- I knew I could find a place for it. My thought is to leave it potted for the summer, and plant it in the ground this fall after the annual Salvia (which clashes with the Dianthus) is done for the year.
• Finally, and unfortunately, I gave myself a little heat exhaustion. I thought I had done everything right: drinking lots of cold water and Gatorade, taking a couple of breaks to sit down, doing all the potting-type chores in the shade, etc. But toward the end of four hours of gardening, I was talking to Seza (who was also gardening that day) and noticed I was completely out of breath and having trouble concentrating. I went into the house for a minute, and when M saw how red my face was, he ordered me into a cold shower. Later, we looked up “heat stroke” and “heat exhaustion” in his first aid book. The recommended treatment would have been making me lie down in the shade and then spraying me with the hose. M was pretty disappointed that he didn’t get to do that part. :)

My Boyfriend's An All-Star!

That's right: Sweetcheeks -- along with El Presidente and the Good Doctor -- has been named to the AL All-Star team. Whoo hoo! :)

P.S. Help a Twin; pitch in for Pat!