Poppy Leaf Dew

Poppy Leaf, originally uploaded by ParsecTraveller.

Dew drops on a California poppy leaf up on Yucca Ridge.

Happy New Year - eventually

A very belated Happy New Year! We've returned from what was truly the frozen North. Our slow dial-up connection was even slower than usual, prompting suspicious thoughts that the service is being relegated to a creaking server in a back room, as broadband use increases. Too slow to view sites with photos, let alone do any posting or replying to good wishes - for which thank you , so we had what turned out to be a blissfully computer-free time. Many books were read beside the open fire. Long midwinter sleep was enjoyed. Brisk walking took place in below zero temperatures, followed by cooking and eating large meals. However, no whisky was consumed, not even on Hogmanay. To salvage a bit of Scottish New Year tradition now that we're back home, I poured a dram of Macallan single malt for this photo, which my husband then very nobly drank.
This is a stingy, south of Scotland measure of whisky. If we were on Speyside, the dram of neat whisky would fill between a third to a half of the glass. I confess to not being a particular whisky fan. I love the smell of it, but a glass is too much for me. This despite starting my working life in a distillery, where all staff were entitled to a lunchtime dram of whisky. Nowadays that tradition has been toned down to a monthly bottle allowance, which is far preferable from a health point of view.

Happy cows

If you make it to the end of the rather blurry shot of this label in Mellis's cheese shop you'll see why the cows are happy. Actually the implication that these Isle of Mull cows are uniquely happy made me smile, because feeding cows with the spent grain from whisky distilleries is commonplace in Scotland. My father was a grain merchant, and I grew up with phone calls from farmers wanting this grain, or 'draff', for their cows, or my father trying to sell excess loads of draff to farmers, or giving haulage firms directions to remote farms deep in the hills in the days before satnav.
That apart, a visit to Mellis's shops in Victoria Street, just off the Royal Mile, or in Morningside or Stockbridge, is a treat. The shops are more like caves - cold, dampish caverns stacked with great wheels and pillars of artisan-made cheese.


The happy cows also made me smile as I remembered my student vacation job as a tour guide at Glenfiddich distillery. It was a disappointment if someone didn't come up with a 'happy cows' remark when hearing about how the spent barley was disposed of. The fact that there was no alcohol in the barley was beside the point.

Passalong Plants - Austin Style

This post, "Passalong Plants - Austin Style" is another entry in my Passalong Plant series, which began with A Passalong Plant From My Father, and includes Passalong Plants~The Book, and Passalong Plants ~ The Daylilies. The following photos were taken at various times of the year - they're not actually all in bloom at one time! Written by Annie in Austin at the Transplantable Rose.
In order to play the Passalong plant game, you need plants that can be shared through seedlings, cuttings, offsets or division, and they have to be established enough to divide. You also have to somehow bump into other gardeners who like the passalong idea! Some of us are lucky enough to have friends and family who pass plants along, but there are other ways.

1] Conversations with neighbors may unveil someone who has a conventionally boring front yard with the interesting stuff behind the fence. They may be glad to have a fellow gardener to share with when plants get crowded.
2] If you can’t stop talking about flowers, your family and friends will label you as "the gardener" (or possibly as "the garden nut") and immediately think of you at plant-thinning and plant-rescue time.
3] Many members of gardening organizations like the Hemerocallis and Iris societies are dedicated traders.
4] The regional boards of forums like GardenWeb [including the very active Texas group] may clue you in to a plant swap in your town, where you can have fun and meet other plant people.
Up in the Cedar Park/Leander area northwest of Austin, a group of women met through a swap group... Diva Mindy and I had the chance to meet them last summer when they explored the idea of forming their own cooperative garden group - kind of like our Divas of the Dirt.
5] Please share those great stories about how you found your passalong plants!

As a neighbor at two Austin addresses, as a friend, as an Austin Garden Blogger and as one of the Divas of the Dirt, I’ve given plants and received them. Having a blog now lets me acknowledge many of the kind Texas people who added interesting plants to my collection since 1999 - I hope they found my Passalongs interesting, too.

Sherry and I met when our sons became friends. We both liked to garden, so when Sherry was overwhelmed with starter shrubs and seedlings, she shared some surplus plants from her mother's garden. I recognized seedling Indian hawthorns, but what was the foot-tall mystery plant with the long leaves? Eight years and one move later - the long leaves grow on our 11-foot tall Loquat tree in the photo above.
My neighbor Gail passed along some kind of an Equisetum. This plant has lots of nicknames, including Horsetail Rush and sometimes Scouring Rush because it has so much silica that pioneers used it to clean pots.

My Horsetail would probably love to live near a pond but has had to survive life on the windswept, sunbaked deck at the previous house and then endure the indignity of being plunked next to the BBQ grill to hide the tank.

It's staying in that patio container - although I enjoy the sculptural qualities of this native, Equisetum can be very aggressive where it's too happy.

Diane gave me Salvia leucantha and Salvia greggii for our first Austin garden - perhaps they still bloom there. Three years ago she gave me a seedling from her loquat tree (yes! I have two!) and the nice large-leaved sedum that's seen above at left in the hypertufa container. Diane also gave me a start of the gently spreading patch of the Texas wood ferns that grow in the secret garden, seen here last summer with Indigofera from my friend Carole.

Carole's has a small stand of Indigofera in her garden and she was kind enough to give me a start a while ago. One piece took root and it bloomed this spring. I don't know the species name - but sometimes it's called Pink False Indigo.

Carole also shared some Shasta daisies with me while I still gardened on the deck at the other Austin house. They grew and bloomed in that container for several years then really took off once planted in the ground here. The Shasta daisies have already been passed along to other people and so have Carole’s passalong Lambs Ears and the wacky succulent called Mother of Thousands - it reached 5-feet tall in the breakfast room window last winter and bloomed for months.

Macky passed along the bridal veil type plant above- possibly Tradescantia geniculata, which now grows in a small woodland garden - making tiny white flowers for months on end. She also gave me the young Barbados cherries seen above, some beautiful clear red Salvia greggii, and garlic chives. Her passalong Barbados cherry plants have made it through a couple of winters - the larger plant I bought at a local nursery bailed at the first freeze.
My friend Sue had Salvia leucantha to share, and it’s growing more strongly than the plants of the same salvia from a nursery. The flowers look good in person but I can't seem to photograph them.
Christi had a couple of extra boxwoods - they stayed small while in containers at the other house, but are growing since they were planted in the ground here.
You’ve seen Ellen’s wonderful purple iris earlier this spring. She also gave me unusual plants from her garden-happy mother-in-law - a small Bauhinia, a blue butterfly flower, Mexican honeysuckle [all too small to bloom yet] and this weeping Buddleja in the Secret Garden. Ellen gave the original alligator plant to Carole, so they're both responsible for this mid-winter display in my breakfast room.
Susan, Sue and Carole all gave me bulbine, over and over! If the sixth try is the charm, it may finally live in the new front border.
Jane gave me a cutting from her red plumeria a few years ago - it took awhile to bloom, but is now a small tree in a large container, brought into the garage over winter.
In summer .., Sandy gave me fine bladed monkey grass and some cuttings of Aucuba japonica to root. The Aucuba is small but alive and the monkey grass looks good in front of the bench in the secret garden.
Passalong plants from garden bloggers grow here, too, and their presence is doubly sweet – because it means that we writers met in person – something that didn’t seem likely two years ago.
After conversations on her Zanthan Garden site, MSS and I met for the first time in the spring of .. when she gave me bluebonnet seedlings. That fall she shared some Oxblood lilies, and in fall .. shared more with all of us Divas of the Dirt. If they multiply we can pass them along to other gardeners, advancing the mission of MSS to keep this plant an emblem of Austin.
Pam from Digging is a wonderfully generous gardener, offering starts from her beautiful 'Amethyst Flame' iris. She also passed along a start of Heartleaf skullcap, a huge pot of Agapanthus, (Pam - they make great leaves but never bloom... what am I doing wrong??), a start of Anisacanthus which is starting to look happy in the new front bed, a Mexican oregano plant that grows in the Pink Entrance Garden and a stripey aloe.

Pam also gave me a start of her famous 'Best of Friends' daylily. This photo is from last summer - no sign of blooms yet this year.

In spring .. I finally met former garden blogger/now Mommy Blogger Martha – Martha gave me crinums and crocosmia which are growing but haven't bloomed. I'll have to wait to see what those flowers will look like, but other passalongs from Martha bloomed last year. Don't these beautiful burgundy-leaved cannas look good with the tall salvias? Martha also gave me roots of the canna below, which was so tall that a few volunteer Blue Pea Vines used it as a green trellis!

Looking back, it seems likely that the trees, shrubs, perennials, ornamental grasses, tropical plants, bulbs and groundcovers I passed along back in Illinois could fill an entire garden. Once moved to Texas it took years before I could share daylilies, Carole's Shasta daisies, Malva zebrina seedlings, 'Bengal Tiger' and 'City of Portland' Cannas, 'Telstar' dianthus, Lambs ears, Larkspur seedlings, Purple oxalis, 'Labuffarosea' Rainlilies, white iris, 'Amethyst Flame' iris or this Hedychium coronaria/Ginger lily. In recent months I've sent off a climbing rose, a couple of mini-roses, Purple coneflowers, 'Nuevo Leon' salvia, and Stapelia/carrion flower in addition to divisions of the fragrant orange iris seen at the beginning of this post.

Other gardeners are such generous people that it's very hard to follow my grandmother's rule and never say "Thank you" when someone gives me a plant. Maybe the best way for me to say how much I appreciate all of these wonderful people without actually saying it would be to just keep playing the passalong game, spreading the leafy love around.

This post, "Passalong Plants - Austin Style" is another entry in my Passalong Plant series by Annie in Austin for the Transplantable Rose.

My landscape orange

I've heard that when tattoo artists are in training, they practice on oranges before they permanently ink someone's skin. Good idea.
In the world of landscape design, your parents' yard is your practice orange. Better to mess up their garden than a stranger's. Thankfully, I designed a very Southern traditional landscape for my parents' Victorian House (circa 1900) so I don't cringe every time I pull in the driveway. It has matured into a lovely garden (mainly because of the sweat equity that my sweet mom and dad have put into it over the last ten years!).
Are there things I would change about it? Absolutely. But as my friend Nathalie Dupree says, "Life is not perfect."
Side of house with 'Natchez; Crape Myrtle, Loropetalum, and 'Gulf Stream' Nandina:
Front of house with Boxwood, Tea Olive, Iris, Spiraea and Gumpo Azalea. When I get around to updating it, I'll remove the Gumpos and add in a coarser texture. And I want to remove the Tea Olive at the corner, too.
Other side of house with Chinese Fringetree, Southern Indica Azalea, Loropetalum and Hydrangea. When the Blue Hydrangeas bloom, they are spectacular against the soft green house.
Thank God the house is gorgeous and the yard is full of mature Oaks, Pecans and Dogwoods. Having these elements to work off of made my novice design look a lot better than it really is.
Thanks Mom and Dad!

Bike on the Intrepid Trail

This weather has really getting me down. Most of my friends are feeling the same. Last week I took the hardtail to the bike shop to get the tires and pedals changed - studs and flats for knobbies and clipless. Thought MAYBE the weather is waiting me to signal Winter really was over.

Alas, the weather is very slow in changing. This week we are getting cool temperatures, overcast skies, and wind. Rain is in the forecast for later in the week. Even some predictions of snow!

Thought maybe a photo and thoughts of warmer temperatures, sunshine, and awesome scenery would brighten my spirits. This photo was taken on my birthday. The bike is my Trek Fuel EX7. My "buddy" on the handle bar is "Fest-er" from the MidWest Mountain Bike Festive. I was riding the Intrepid Trail at Dead Horse Point State Park, Utah. Was topping a great day in the red rock country near Moab.

OH, to be there today!

Milk: It does the body (and workout) good

You don't have to be a licensed nutritionist to know that milk does the body good.
Between milk mustache-filled advertisements and Joe Mauer Kemps commercials, the health benefits of milk are made pretty clear. The dairy staple is rich with protein, loaded with calcium and a good source of Vitamin D to boot. Aside from that, name one drink that goes better with a batch of fresh cookies.
According to an article I read recently by the Associated Press, milk can also be a valuable workout tool. The London-based personal trainer in the story prefers a bottle of milk after his workouts as opposed to protein bars, protein shakes and any other fitness concoction one can dream up. "Milk provides the building blocks for what you need to build new muscles," a medical researcher says in the story.
Scientists quoted in the story even go so far as to say that milk is better than sports drinks for replenishing fluids DURING exercise. They suspect this for two reasons: Milk have a lot of electrolytes, and it is digested more slowly than sports drinks, keeping the body hydrated for longer. According to the article, Michael Phelps regularly drank milk between races at the Beijing Olympics.
Generally speaking, this story shouldn't come as that big of a surprise to anyone. I never really thought of milk as an adequate drink during exercise (I prefer water; if it's good enough for Bobby Boche, it's good enough for me), but the rest of information is pretty basic. Doctors, advertising and parents have been preaching the dietary importance of milk all our lives. It would only make sense to use it after weightlifting.
However, the article does bring to light a possible paradigm shift in weightlifting. Like any other regular at the gym, I've heard plenty about post-workout products and the potential gains from using them. Heck, I'll admit to dabbling in protein bars and trying supplement powders from time to time (contrary to my beliefs beforehand, they do not make you look like Van Damme in "Blood Sport").
People spend boatloads at places like GNC for workout supplements when this article claims that the same benefits can be found in the dairy section at a grocery store. Definitely something to think about.
Just for fun, here's another funny milk commercial to digest. Enjoy!

Girl's Night (Ride) Out

Sometimes, it's girl's night out.
So your husband takes the kids to the movies. And you, you get dressed up.
You put on your wool undershirt, your baggy knickers, your long sleeve pink and black jersey and your beaver socks. You wrap your light tightly on your helmet, pull your battery off the charger and slip it into your jersey pocket.
And you go into the garden and collect various flowers and you place them in a piece of tissue paper. And you go down into the garage and pull your bike off of the hook and place it near the front of the garage and you oil your chain. You put on your helmet and slide the bottle of wine into the water bottle cage holder, slide your shoes on and hold onto the flowers while steering and you head up to your neighbor's house. Her kids and husband are gone and she's hosting a girl's night out at her house.
But you can only stay for an hour. Because in an hour, it's girl's night (ride) out back at your house.
So you have a few glasses of wine. And you talk about your kids and how smart they are and what teacher they have and why they're better then all the other kids. And you have some chips and dip and you hold the baby of the mom who's new and you coo and laugh and smile and nod. And all the while you're looking at your watch.
And soon it's getting dark and you excuse yourself politely and say goodbye to all the other moms and you ride back down to your house.

Sometimes it's girl's night out and you have 10 women come to your house and they bring mountain bikes and lights and snacks and something to drink. And it's warm out and a tiny bit foggy. And someone brings their boyfriend.
And you tinker with your bikes and your lights and someone passes around a flask of something and you eat a few clif blocks and talk about how Erin hasn't really ridden her new bike yet, but this will be a good ride for it.
And then you all set out up the hill. You all ride quietly through the canyons until you hit the first trail. And single file, one by one each woman pedals up the first hill onto the first part of the trail and you ride. And it feels nice. And you smile.
And you ride and ride and ride.
Sometimes you take a left turn onto the single track and it's dark and foggy and you can see the trail and the stream of little headlamp lights up ahead and behind, bobbing and winding and flowing and following and you start singing to yourself. It's girl's night out and you wonder how many other moms are spending their night like this.
And you ride and ride and ride.

On girl's night out, sometimes you come to a fork in the trail and you all stop to make sure that all 11 are there and then Janet passes her flask around and you sip it and it warms your ears. And when you start up again there's more laughing and the single track flows just a little bit smoother.
Sometimes as you ride, you can hear your hubs buzzing and the cracking of the leaves under your wheels and the bumping of the tires against the roots and rocks but you can't see any of it because the fog has gotten thicker and your glasses are fogging up and your light is still pointed too far down from the last time you stopped and tilted it down because you didn't want to blind Sam as you were talking to her.
So you tilt your light back up as you're barreling down the trail and it helps a little bit.
And you ride and ride and ride.
And every so often you look down at your watch and think, this is girl's night out and my kids are in bed and it's late and I'm out here riding single track. And you take in a really deep breath and slowly let it out because you know that it's all very perfect right now.
Sometimes we make a wrong turn and back track a little bit and we have to look at the map to make sure we know where we're going. On girl's night out we use a map that Morgan has made for us, highlighted with arrows in the direction we should be going. So we turn around and take the trail that goes down, with Jennifer leading us.

And we ride and ride and ride.
Sometimes we get to the end of the single track on girl's night out and we take a left and cruise along the ridge looking for a way out. And we come to the end of the fire road and there's the real road and we realize it's over.
I look at my watch and two and a half hours has passed and I think, how can that be, we only just started. And Jennifer and I talk about where we should go next, but decide to ride back down to the house sensing that the others want to be done.
Sometimes it's girls night out and after our ride we eat pretzels and drink beer and talk about how we suck in our stomachs at the neighborhood pool while we walk around in bikinis and wonder if it's the last summer we can get away with even wearing bikinis.
This is how we spend girl's night out.

I have my mountain back!

One of my cycling goals this year is to ride a vertical century, or accumulate 100 miles of total climbing before December 31. Oddly, I was actually a little behind schedule until last month, when I managed 17km of climbing in 31 days. Yet I had to do all that without being able to climb the highest mountain in the area, as it has been closed by the landslide that came within 15 minutes of killing me for the last two months. Well, the road to Springbrook was re-opened last week, but as I was touring around Crows Nest, I didn't get a crack at it until Saturday morning. It's amazing how I didn't think what happened last time, and simply headed straight for it.

The landslide from before took out quite a chunk of the mountain, and the view from the inside of one particular narrow switchback will be scarred for some time. Oddly, given the length of time that the road was closed, there was surprisingly little work done in the area - only the erection of a rather flimsy 'fence' that won't even slow another landslide should it happen next wet season. Nevertheless, it was a good feeling to be back. Each mountain climb has a unique feeling about it, and Springbrook's was in evidence on a cool morning. I realised how much I've missed it since that crazy April day.

Yet something else about that place that's not often noticed is just how many different things there are to see, be it flower or exotic plants. I think that's why I keep coming back, even when the mountain threatens to throw rocks at me. Still, I don't mind, the variety gives me a great escape from suburbia, and a great way to spend a morning. Now that I have my mountain back, nothing is going to stop me!

The dark time

Darker than usual this year, as the tramworks have put out of action some of the city centre streetlights. On Saturday afternoon the streets leading off Princes Street were unlit chasms. Dark in the countryside enfolds, but dark in a city, among the press of shadowy crowds, is unsettling. The streets that were lit reminded me of the opening of Ursula Le Guin's 'The Left Hand of Darkness'. "Rainclouds over dark towers, rain falling in deep streets, a dark storm-beaten city of stone, through which one vein of gold winds slowly."
But Edinburgh's 'Winter Wonderland' is taking shape again (already?). Behind the spire of the Scott Monument the big wheel experiments with a red zig zag of lights.
In answer to Tami's question, we have about 7 hours 40 minutes of daylight this week, but with low cloud it feels MUCH less!