The Nature of Things

Happy January to all my Bloom Day visitors. Do you have color and blooms where you are? Here in my zone 9a garden in Southeast Texas things are looking pretty bleak these days. Just over a week ago, on January 7, I showed you some of my blooms that were still going. That night we did finally have our first experience this season of below freezing temperatures with frost and that put an end to most of those blooms. It has continued to be chilly and rather dreary since then, although the temperatures haven't dipped quite that low again. Still, even now, I do have a few blooms to show you. The violas, planted for their winter color and just because I love them so, continue to bloom, of course. As do the cyclamen. The ornamental cabbage "blooms" in a pot with heuchera, foxtail fern and pansies. Somewhat surprisingly, some of the Copper Canyon daisy blossoms survived the frost. As did some of the nearby 'Mystic Spires' salvia.  Even more surprisingly, even though much...

Here we are in almost mid-January and I can just about count the hours of sunshine that we've had this month on the fingers of my two hands. It's a gray, dreary, foggy, misty, rainy, chilly, cloud-covered month of depressing sameness so far. The only suns that my garden has seen lately are these two. This Talavera sun hangs on the fence in the sitting area in the front yard, under my beloved red oak tree. This metal sun overlooks my backyard garden and brings a bit of cheery color to these gray days. Winter has, in fact, arrived here at long last. Our daytime temperatures are in the 40 degrees F., a bit too chilly to be entirely comfortable sitting outside for long periods. On the night of January 7, we finally had a REAL frost when the thermometer hit 30 degrees F. That's still our low temperature for the season so far. But if winter has finally come to my yard, the birds most definitely have not. In past winters, by mid-January this feeder in my front yard would have bee...

With age comes wisdom - or so I've heard. But my own experience in life often makes me question that. Still, we'd like to believe that we do learn from our experiences and maybe even become just a wee bit wiser as we get older. A friend sent me this email of "Lessons that we learn as we age." See if any of them ring a bell with you. ~~~ Age 5 : I've learned that I like my teacher because she cries when we sing "Silent Night." Age 7 : I've learned that our dog doesn't want to eat my broccoli either. Age 9 : I've learned that when I wave to people in the country, they stop what they are doing and wave back. Age 12 : I've learned that just when I get my room the way I like it, Mom makes me clean it up again. Age 14 : I've learned that if you want to cheer yourself up, you should try cheering someone else up. Age 15 : I've learned that although it's hard to admit it, I'm secretly glad my parents are strict with me. Age 2...

Borrowed Light by Graham Hurley My rating: 3 of 5 stars In the late summer of 2009, D.I. Joe Faraday and his partner, the French anthropologist Gabrielle, are on a birding holiday in the Middle East. It is one of the happiest times that Faraday can remember. After a day trip of birding with a young guide, Faraday and Gabrielle are on their way back to their hotel with their guide driving the car. A moment of inattention by the driver leads to a near collision with a big truck and he swerves to avoid the head-on smash. And instead hits a tree. Neither the driver nor Faraday, also in the front seat, had bothered to put on their seat belts. The driver was crushed against the steering wheel and died. Faraday was thrown through the windshield and suffered severe head injuries. Gabrielle, in the back seat and with her seat belt on, suffered only minor injuries. From that fateful day forward, it seems that Joe Faraday's life is in a downward spiral. He is taken to a hospital which is sho...

That moment that parents dread... The Talk BY  GAYLE DANLEY Pretty soon we’ll have the talk. She’ll ask me where babies come from And I will lie to her: “Babies come from the chance meeting of sperm and egg See the man deposits his sssperm which is like a pudding into the woman’s vvagina and it travels up this tube-y thing and only one of them gets the prize and bing! A cell becomes a fetus becomes baby becomes you. Go do your homework.” She will wait for me to calm down, her eyes patient requiring the truth and I will tell her: “Babies come from Friday nights melted into Saturday mornings; the Isley Brothers and 3 or 4 glasses of white zin; miniskirts and aching zippers; sofa cushions sweaty and  
ogodthecondombroke ; Babies come from blue lights and e.p.t. tests and the wet spot on clean sheets; Lonely knees that bump beneath the table; love letters sealed with a miss and $758 phone bills; eyeliner and lips to match; muscled Thighs and a sweet, milky quarter of yes in the ce...

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment : Things are still distressingly quiet around my bird feeders, but finally this week I saw my first Pine Warbler of the season visiting the feeders. He joined my regular crew of an Orange-crowned Warbler , a few Carolina Chickadees , Carolina Wrens , Downy Woodpecker , Red-bellied Woodpecker , and, of course, House Sparrows .  Such a sparsity of feeder visitors in January is completely unprecedented in my memory. Usually, the traffic is busy and constant and very diverse at this time of year. *~*~*~* While it is winter in the northern hemisphere, it is another very hot summer in the southern hemisphere, and in Australia, they are suffering through another season of unprecedented wildfires . In spite of the fact that 2014 was one of the hottest years on record in the country and the wildfires have been exacerbated by overheated conditions, the Conservative Prime Minister of the country, Tony Abbott, is from the James Inhofe ...

2015 is not off to a sterling start. Events in France this week confirmed for us once again that there are angry, misguided people in the world who feel persecuted by simply living in a society that protects and indeed encourages freedom of speech, even the most offensive speech.  Goodness knows we have plenty of the thin-skinned in this country, people who take offense at any criticism . Usually, they just shoot off at the mouth (see Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Curt Schilling ), but occasionally the more deluded of them take up arms (see Cliven Bundy, various open carry activists, the Boston Marathon bombers). The most misguided of all imagine that by physically attacking and killing the purveyors of free speech, they can eradicate the speech which they find offensive. They are always wrong. It only causes such speech to metastasize.  Vive la France!