Organic Gardening Magazine and a mutant grape

Here's a recent post from my blog to prove that I'm a real Garden Guru! At the bottom of my post I refer to Donald, who was our cockerel (young rooster).  We adopted three baby chicks that were all sexed to be girls, but sexing isn't 100% accurate so there's always a chance that you'll end up with a boy like we did.  We live in a suburb so we felt we couldn't keep him, so a farmer from the Farmer's Market helped me to place him with a farming family who are in the National Guard.

I just got the October/November issue of Organic Gardening Magazine!  This is the bottom of page 12, photographed in my golden sage plant.

Woo hoo!

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Also, today Alan found this strange mutant grape, no I didn't grow it.  Have you ever seen anything like it?  Not only is it huge, but it has ribs like a pumpkin!  After photographing it, Alan cut it up and fed it to the chickens.

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Joel gave my contact info to Donald's soon to be new family.  His new "mom" wants him to come to the farm soon, before she deploys to (I think) Virginia to train combat helicopter pilots later this month.  His soon to be new "dad" has just deployed to Iraq.  Their son will take care of the farm while they're gone.  In the mean time, we're trying to photograph Donald a lot and shoot videos of him before he goes.  He's growing into quite a handsome cockerel, and he still likes to sit on my lap!

That's it for now!

Minature Yellow Rose from the Rockin' Heart Ranch

Theses are miniature yellow roses that I grow in a container.  We are expecting a freeze tonight and decided they needed picking and brought inside for my enjoyment.  I live in the Texas Panhandle in the USA.

So Long Since a Post Here.

A big hello to everyone where ever that may be.

It has been sometime since anyone posted here and after taking a small tour of the posts in this group, I could not help but notice how beautiful the posts have been.

Maybe it is autumn where you are and the leaves have turned into those magnificent colours nature adorns our foliage with before the winter comes and blows hard covering some of your gardens in a blanket of snow.

Here on the other hand it is spring and although it is a very mild spring this year with good rains and usually quite over cast conditions the garden has loved every drop of this welcome rain.

I went to the garden store yesterday and bought some fill up plants such as the ground cover snow in summer, a peppermint scented geranium, some beautiful blue lobelia planted beneath fragrant blue salvia and an old fashioned red Kalenchloe.

So today as it is over cast I will do some planting and hopefully these grey clouds over head will sprinkle the earth and help the new additions.

I also purchased a pink Hippeastrum in flower and have decided to leave it in the pot for now as it has one flower and two more buds to come out later. With Giant flowers these are such a glorious bulb plant and not overly fussy to grow.

I hope that you will share your gardens and photos with us here and of course videos as I said previously this group has posted some truly wonderful posts in the past and I for one would love to see more friends and input into our little Garden Gurus Group.

Peas and Peace to All.

Green is Good.

Milli in Australia.

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Spring Fever in My Garden

Above is a photo of the garden made into a fresco in the photobucket edit application.

Spring Has Sprung

 

Well its happening daily as more and more of the pretty spring flowers come into bloom. I love the new colours popping out in the garden right now amongst the last of the vibrant winter blooms.

Below is another Fresco. I love the old fashioned painted look the fresco produces.

 

In Praise of Spring

Winter bare every where

Cold and bleak

 A good time to think

Read a book

Take a walk by a babbling brook

Grey skies heavy rain

Stiff joints and some pain

Hearty food and drinks by a fire

Winter brought it's blessings beside the mire

September Sun now shines on me

Spring has Sprung and I can be

Warmed and filled with renewed Zest

And my Garden will be at it's Very Best.

Milli 10

Ps I know that the Northern Hemisphere prepares for my other favourite Season Autumn and I wish you all a perfect Indian Summer as we call a beautiful Autumn here.

 

 

 

~ The Look of Nature ~

A Look at Nature and the surrounding plants on this Southern Ocean Facing Terrain. Magnificent in All it's Glory.

Three Weeks Until Spring.

Change of Season

Right now the chilliness of Winter permeates the air

So I sit here warm and snug in my chair

While outside

The blossoms on the almond trees

Have burst their bubs which now attract the bees

A sure sign from nature that spring is not too far away

So I take heart that September first, will be the day

When officially Spring revives anew

Not only the Winter landscape

But also

 My depleted Joie de vivre will certainly 

Bounce back again too!

Milli 10

Tonight's Moon

Lunar Data for Sunday, 25 July, 2010

Apparent geocentric position Right ascension  19h 53m 7s Declination -19° 32' 55" Range 401,649 km Constellation             Sagittarius Appearance Diameter 29.75' Illumination of disk 100% Libration in longitude  3.222° Libration in latitude -1.747°

Appearance of the Moon, celestial north is upwards This was the beautiful sight to meet my eyes as I left from work tonight. I had my camera with me and decided to share the photos I took on the way to my car with you, together with the information about tonight's moon. Tomorrow night will be a good time to take advantage of a full moon for all those who enjoy to 'shoot the moon'.  Milli 10 PS Click on photos to enlarge.

Topocentric Event	Time	Altitude
Sets:	07:26	+0.1°
Rises:	19:50	+0.1°
Maximum altitude:	01:15	68.7°

Phases

New moon:	21:40 Sunday, 11 July
First quarter:	12:11 Sunday, 18 July
Full moon:	03:37 Monday, 26 July
Last quarter:	06:59 Tuesday, 03 August
New moon:	05:08 Tuesday, 10 August

April Showers and It Is Autumn in Aus.

It has not taken long for Summer brown to be replaced with Gorgeous Green down here in South Australia.

So far the Autumn has been kind to us all with an almost perfect Easter Break and good rains that followed. So combined now with warm soil and water the grasses are sprouting and the bulbs of winter have popped their tiny little pretty heads out of the ground ready for their own flower shows in winter. Of course there has been one or two draw backs. We have reverted back now to pre daylight saving and the view above was taken around 6pm on Sunday night as I headed along the coast road on the way home from work. What I thought would be a spectacular Sunset, worthy of stopping for, was not as I had expected because there was so much deep cloud cover just above the horizon. So this photo taken up the coast, gives a better view of how the sky became more of a focus for me, than the sunset. Our days are still warm and quite still, except in the evening when the winds come through and start to blow the leaves around. As one would expect in Autumn. Although I would not give up the beautiful big trees around the house in spite of the mess they can create. Each and every tree is very special and many of them are doing exceptionally well after this last Summer, when in spite of the Summers before and lack of rain, many trees and shrubs just gave up the ghost and pretty much keeled over, or had to be removed before they caused damage.

I know it is a bit of a conundrum for those of you in the western hemisphere to get your heads around the exact opposite of what you have as your new season there right now, but remember what comes around goes around and as the dark days of winter gradually head our way I can always pop on over to your blog and warm myself up and as you become so hot and bothered by so much heat, feel free to come on over and cool yourselves down with a bit of Aussie Winter hospitality.

Cheers to All 

From Milli.

 

Below is the view towards the no show sunset.

 

Georgia O'Keeffe My Version

I knew just the artist I wanted to emulate 

And she is:

Georgia O'Keeffe

I love what she does in her art, with her big bold flowers.

If I were an artist I would be happy to emulate her style.

Some Artist background information-

Groundbreaking Modernist painter Georgia O’Keeffe (1887 – 1986) rejected artistic norms to express her own unique vision. Known for the flower paintings which encompass a quarter of her work, O’Keeffe was originally inspired by nature during her childhood in rural Wisconsin. Shunning her artistic education in favor of expressing her emotions, O’Keeffe enlarged flowers until they became abstract artforms whose sheer size commanded attention. An innovator who profoundly impacted 20th century art, O’Keeffe was the first woman honored with her own exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

Presenting My Personal Photographic Version of 

A Georgia O'Keefe Painting Style --

From A Cottage Garden

'Pink Holly Hocks'