my little garden pals

there are wrens galore around our neighborhood and a couple nesting in houses in the yard and garden. i have never seen a more industrious bird--the males gather sticks like mad to build a nest that will win the approval of their mate. i've watched them patiently and deftly maneuver a stick twice their own length until it can be fit into the nesting hole and added to the nest in progress. if they happen to drop one they don't fly down and pick it up but take off and come back in a jiffy with a new one.

the chippewa indians had a long name for wrens which, when translated, is "makes big noise for it's size"--which is very true. their long warbling song is incredibly loud for a bird that is about 4 inches in size.

they are also very territiorial and destroy the eggs of other birds and wrens nesting too closely to them. sad, but true.
i love them anyway and no other bird is nearly as perky as my jenny wrens!

our wisteria vine in bloom

who says you can't grow wisteria in northern wisconsin? (zone 4/5. also known as "the deep freeze")

wisteria vines are most commonly seen draping the front of classic english country manors and cotswold cottages but ha! it also drapes the front porch of my 1950 stucco ranch in northeast wisconsin!

isn't this an awesomely pretty flower?!? and the fragrance.....

if it's summer, you won't find me in the house

great summer advice from the old crab-ass. our beautiful weather is so short-lived, why spend a minute doing things that don't involve sunshine and outdoors?

on self-confidence

"Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are."

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"Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig."

saturday afternoon on the river

i am so glad we didn't "round-up" aka "annihilate" everything on our high banks when we bought this patch as the neighbor, who had turf growing down to the waters' edge, advised us to do. of course he was a transplanted suburban flat-lander. (he didn't much like our outhouse, either.) instead we spot treated all the poison ivy and saved everything else. the bees and butterflies and all the other critters are happy we didn't want a lawn down to the river.
gimme a minute and i'll remember the name of this....

a woodland anemone.
a little wild potentilla.
the day's view downriver. peace on earth.
fox grapes growing at waters' edge.
i think it was emily dickinson who said it only takes one clover and one bee to make an entire meadow.

the name of this b'fly escapes me at the moment.
the official flower of june. i think oxeye daisies are just about my favorite wildflower. too bad they smell like crap...
i make dennis mow around this little white island of blooms.
boo and arrggh! still fighting the good fight against poison ivy. this is a baby plant--the pretty one on the upper left--"leaves of three, let me be". it will be history next time we're out there. i'll be packing round-up. the only time i will use an herbicide.

from a little acorn. someday this will be a big oak tree. i'll be dust.

this is where we make the turn off river road onto south park dr. it is brodie's signal to go nuts.

In June as many as a dozen species may burst their buds on a single day. No man can heed all of these anniversaries; no man can ignore all of them. Aldo Leopold

“The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.”
--Theodore Hesburgh (American Clergyman, University President)

Sherman made the terrible discovery that men make about their fathers sooner or later... that the man before him was not an aging father but a boy, a boy much like himself, a boy who grew up and had a child of his own and, as best he could, out of a sense of duty and, perhaps love, adopted a role called Being a Father so that his child would have something mythical and infinitely important: a Protector, who would keep a lid on all the chaotic and catastrophic possibilities of life.
-Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire of the Vanities

scentimental journey

was thinking today of how closely fragrance is tied to memory.

that got me to thinking of how many "most favorite ever" fragrances i've had in my lifetime.

the longest running favorite has been bath and bodies freesia---but i don't wear it anymore.

dennis has bought me some very expensive fragrances as gifts but the more costly they were, the quicker the onset of the migraine after application to my skin....very weird

strawberry oil was the fragrance of post high school, followed closely by patchouli oil.
incense and peppermints, if ya get my drift.....(the lost years).....

baby magic was the fragrance of the 80's for me--too busy with raisin' babies to have time to apply perfume, for god's sake!!!!!

that was followed by the freesia period.

nowadays i mostly like the fragrances i smell on other people.

what fragrances are tied to the memories of your life???













one of the girls in the "cool clique" wore this....

should have been declared taboo because it smelled so bad.....

lauerman's sold this by the barrel-ful in the summer. it sold as well as "summer blonde" haircolor.

"your wind song stays on his, wind song stays on his mind....."

the "forbidden" fragrance--what a temptation for a catholic girl.....

there were a couple girls at the ice rink who wore this fragrance--you could smell 'em coming from across the whole rink!

my favorite fragrance back when i had a "london boy" haircut and used to stop at brook's drug store to buy little bags of cashews and red pistachios.

there's a baby on the way!

sometime tomorrow, (or more likely friday) we will be welcoming connor john schuchart into the world.

meanwhile

"go lisa, go lisa, you got it, you got it!"

"spring being a tough act to follow, god created june"

oh, the sand between the toes...the beach beckons.
the driftwood, and stones, and occasional beach glass are treasures just waiting to be found.

flowers for st. paul's

these are pics of flower arrangements i've done for church. started doing it in january once in awhile and it's been a lot of fun. especially the shopping for ideas.

pictures of my gardens in june

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass on a summer day listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is hardly a waste of time. ~John Lubbock

betsy's garden

"happy feet"

these dirty feet signify a good day.

before i go further, though, i think back to my twiggy thoughts of yesterday and realize that even my feet could never be twiggy-feet due to the imperfection of my webbed 2nd/3rd toe.
at least i can say my feet are narrow, unlike the rest of my body. enough on that.

saturday was a great day.
had monthly breakfast with my nurse friends at my favorite restaurant.
i mentioned that the memorial garden that we have for a member of our little breakfast club is in need of some updating---and boom---within 1 minute i had a pile of money in my lap.
that's the kind of women and friends these girls are--when one of us has a need, the response is immediate and unquestioning.
i am blessed to have them in my life.
our breakfast talk is always stimulating, i always learn something.
there is no shop talk, there is no gossip.

now to get to my point. after loitering around at the marina on first st.--it was a busy place--heritage day with folks dressed up in period costume, free fishing day for kids, a plant sale at the library, and the farmer's mkt.---first of the season, i went to my neighborhood family-owned garden center and got the colorful ingredients i needed to whip up some beauty at betsy's garden.

then did all kinds of planting at home before heading out to the uw-marinette center to work on her garden.

the happy feet pictured above are the proof of a day well-spent.

and on a lighter note....remember when...who did you want to be?

remember this little cockney waif?? 1967 or so??? oh, how i wanted to be this girl, or at least look like her.

i used to pooch out my thin lips to get that pouty lipped look==ha! by today's angelina jolie fat lips standard even twiggy couldn't make the cut!

now my nose may have had more of a chance of looking kinda twig-like.

the eyes, well, the brow arch is not bad but the size of the eye...no way.

as for the rest of the body, um, a big no. way too short, first off, way too much heavier, secondly, and the legs....well, a boyfriend once told me i had legs that looked like chicken drumsticks. how kind.

so suffice it to say, the closest i could get to looking like twiggy was probably my hair.
i had a do that did mimic hers quite well back in the day.

i wonder what she is doing now.
i hope she didn't get screwed out of all her money as so many naive teen successes do.
i hope she isn't doing some stupid reality show in order to eat.
i hope she is eating now.
god, she was skinny.
is she kate moss' mother???