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. :)