Peonies

Years ago a friend, Kate, gave me some peonies from her yard. Since then I've enjoyed an abundance the the beautifully fragrant flowers and I want to share them with you.

Did you know?

Mischievous nymphs were said to hide in the petals of the Peony thus causing this magnificent flower to be given the meaning of Shame or Bashfulness in the Language of Flowers. It was named after Pæon, a physician to the gods, who obtained the plant on Mount Olympus from the mother of Apollo. Once planted the Peony likes to be left alone and punishes those who try to move it by not flowering again for several years. Once established, however, it produces splendid blooms each year for decades. (Taken from The Language of Flowers, edited by Sheila Pickles, 1990)
Peonies are also extensively grown as ornamental plants for their very large, often scented flowers.
Peonies tend to attract ants to the flower buds. This is due to the nectar that forms on the outside of the flower buds. (From Wikepedia)

Spring Cleaning? What's That?

For the past three weeks I've been fairly (just barely, actually) busy. At least I think so. As most of you know, I make soap; luscious, organic, vegan, herbal, artisan soaps. And, I make soy candles, and now a whipped body cream--and a soy lotion bar. So doing all that and going to sell the stuff at the Tower Grove Farmers' Market for the past three weekends has kept me off my tush.

But I've been ON my tush a lot, spending hours of creative time on the computer since all that stuff needs labels and ingredient lists, packaging, etc. And, of course, when one is on the computer for hours, one needs a diversion occasionally. In my case, fortunately (or unfortunately as the case may be), my diversion has been genealogy--done on the computer. Sitting. I'm addicted. I can't pull away. I've found distant relatives and have been exchanging information and stories. I look forward to it and have to drag myself away from it.

But now I have three weeks away from the Market and I need to restock and regroup. I'm limiting my genealogy time to the afternoon. The rest of my time needs to be spent on those ever lingering chores of housekeeping, laundry, cooking. Whoopee! This is day one of my "new" schedule. Wish me luck.

On the road again

I took a little trip to Bloomington this past weekend too visit Half-pint, Big Guy, Superstar, Babers and Spidy. It was a very busy weekend because we had much to do and I was reminded why we have children while we are young. I didn't take as many pictures as I planned but here are some...

Bleeding Heart Liberally

Flowers from my garden

Before and After

I've done a bit of trimming around the yard this past week. We had been planning to remove these pines from the front of the house because they were blocking the view of the house and street, and they were still growing. But this chore was too far down on His to-do list to suit me and it had been there for two years. I'd waited long enough. So, one day, when he was out of town, I took a saw and some pruning shears and cut them down. It took me all of one afternoon. All that was left for him to do was pull out the roots and haul the trash away. That took him a week, but he didn't gripe about me messing with his to-do list.

Before & After

You'll have to check back for the progress of my new flower garden.

What's Shakin'?

St Louis was at 4:35 this morning.

By the time you read this you will have heard all the details about a 5.2 earthquake felt here in St. Louis. There was no damage here but it was quite a rolling jolt…bed shaking, windows rattling, etc. Enough to get the adrenalin racing. After living my whole life near the Bay Area in California (until 1993), I’ve experienced quite a few earthquakes, so I knew exactly what was happening when I was awakened from a sound sleep by this one. The only thing I found confusing was that while still in my sleepy state, I thought I was back in California. We went downstairs and make coffee and watched the news and reminded ourselves of what to do in case of a major quake.

So our day started early today. I'm used to earthquakes and think that if you ain't screamin', it ain't nothin'. I'm more fearful of tornados.


Earthquake Facts: From the How Stuff Works site
http://science.howstuffworks.com/earthquake1.htm
We only hear about earthquakes in the news every once in a while, but they are actually an everyday occurrence on our planet. According to the United States Geological Survey, more than three million earthquakes occur every year. That's about 8,000 a day, or one every 11 seconds!
The vast majority of these 3 million quakes are extremely weak. The law of probability also causes a good number of stronger quakes to happen in uninhabited places where no one feels them. It is the big quakes that occur in highly populated areas that get our attention.
Earthquakes have caused a great deal of property damage over the years, and they have claimed many lives. In the last hundred years alone, there have been more than 1.5 million earthquake-related fatalities. Usually, it's not the shaking ground itself that claims lives -- it's the associated destruction of man-made structures and the instigation of other natural disasters, such as tsunamis, avalanches and landslides.

Things that happen in the Spring

A sign of spring...

A mourning dove nests in the window of the new bathroom construction giving (another) reason to halt work for now. The mother leaves the nest exposing the egg when I get too close. Snapping the picture, I backed off quickly and she promptly returned.