Rain 1 Peony 0

All good peonies must come to an end. Peony week lasted a whole eight days until the rain came. And what rain it was! We had a bit of rain a few days ago, but the peonies held on; it took some serious thunderstorms to shake the flowers down. The weather came in last night, […]

Mystery Plants

Got a couple of mystery plants. One is new, one is old. I have a guess for both, but I’m never sure. The new one is a several ones all sprouting near where a small sunflower grew last year. Is it another sunflower? Or a Black-Eyed Susan? It might even be a coneflower. Or something […]

Syrphid Sunday

It’s easy enough to find beautiful flowers, now that the weather has warmed up, but you need to look really close to spot one of these beautiful little syrphid flies. There’s a whole range of these predatory flies, often dressed in beelike yellow and black. Some like this Allograpta obliqua are hover flies. You might […]

Cloudy with a chance of showers

When the cat comes in as you begin Some weeding, And the clouds turn gray and far away They rumble, It’s time to quit your private bit Of Eden. Don’t watch the trees or vines or bees Or bumbles. They buzz and flower no matter how It swelters. If you get caught you’ll be doing […]

Re: Non-Zero Probabilities

Just because a story is nominated for both the Nebula and the Hugo doesn’t mean I’ll like it. And if I don’t, who cares? But if such a story was also written by someone I have known, however glancingly (she was the previous organizer of my SF Meetup), I do care. So I put off […]

Re: Bride of Frankenstein

I am appalled. Horrified and appalled. I actually liked a sentimental story by Mike Resnick.

Strawberries in May

The volunteer strawberries that turned up last year really are strawberry plants! Not only did they spread out in a generous swath under one of the pear trees, they are ripening much earlier. It’s still May, and yesterday I picked a handful of fruits and today another handful and tomorrow…

Re: Spar

Whatever you might think of the Nebula-winning “Spar“, you have to admit that Kij Johnson did what she set out to do. In an interview, says she feared her writing was getting too “glossy” and she wanted to get away from that. This story is far from “glossy” all right. It’s so raw, it doesn’t […]

Weed patrol: Curly dock

Like so many other perennial weeds, curly dock first reveals itself as a rosette, then rises up as a towering, magnificent bastard. Check out this one, already taller than my rain barrel. Supposedly it’s edible, but I never find them before they’ve already turned bitter. Slugs are more likely to eat it.

Peony Sunday

The first peony is open in all its magnificence. This is one of the landmarks in the garden year. It’s a grand week, peony week, and it’s a week earlier this year. Interesting. Gee, I wonder why?