Haunted Houses (Part One) And The Leaf Of The Day

"Every small town has at least one house the children whisper about; the type of house that has always been abandoned; where once pristine white paint has faded to a grimy gray; where the windows are boarded, and the lawn never grows; where children hold their breath and close their eyes as they pass by. A house that sounds like it contains an army of whispering spirits when the wind whistles through the nearby trees."

~The Blood Brothers

The House On Creep Street

Yesterday, after all my doctor appointments and medical tests, I treated myself to a trip to Cull Canyon, to see how my favorite autumn tree was progressing. It's coming along nicely, but perhaps a little too fast with the color. I don't want to lose the colors too early in the season, and yet at the same time, we are due for a cold wet autumn and winter, if the Farmer's Almanac is correct, so time to get out there and get things done!

While I was photographing some newly fallen color, I spotted the remains of what was once, last summer, a nice patch of Butterfly Weed. I love it! It's great for attracting hummingbirds, and butterflies, and on it's own, has always reminded me even on the hottest of summer days, that autumn was just around the corner! It has a brief summer life, and just happens to be all the lovely colors of autumn.

This patch was dead and dying, evident by the huge amount of spider webbing covering almost everything! Mums, the Butterfly Weed, some showy yellow flowers, and some gorgeous leaves that drifted into the spider's home! Well, actually, it had to have been a lot of spiders, a group or condominium of spiders, and not just one, because of the amount of webbing around, otherwise it would have been a spider the size of... well... I don't to think about the size it would have to have been!

Anyway, it seemed as if the web was, at this point, more haunted house, than actually a current residence! I spotted a small spider within all the chaos of the web rooms, along with what appeared to be both victims and squatters! Aphids. Gnats. Small moths. Small black bugs that may or may not have been tiny beetles. A ladybug or two, feasting on the aphids. It was quite the horror show! A true haunted house!

I have become very interested in spider webs in the last couple years, both occupied and abandoned! I am scared to death of spiders, that fact is pretty well known amongst my friends, but last year I found myself photographing a bunch of colorful leaves that had collected in the home of a particularly wily white spider! I kept a nice distance, thank god for cameras with long lenses, but I was kinda hooked from then on. Yesterday, I captured two different haunted spider houses, this set is the first, and I will post the second later in the week.

Can you spot the spider?

Just click on the photo to enlarge it!

 

#4 Leaf Of The Day

September 23rd, 2018

Stockton, California 

~Mood: Tired/Creative

~Me :)

 

Carly's Garden Digest 2013: Day One... March 25th, 2013

"When one of my plants dies, I die a little inside too."

~Linda Solegato

 

Mumpfh. It's spring now, and sick or not, it is time to get the garden ready for vegetables and flowers. You know... the stuff good living is all about! The yard itself is lush and green, and that's the good news. There is a lot of healthy going on! Just look at the lavender, isn't it gorgeous? I have big plans for my lavender this year, lots of herbal remedies and a sachets for better sleeping! There is nothing like tucking some dried lavender in a light cloth pocket under a pillow. Lavender is amazing for clearing the mind of noise and clouds. Awwww. That's the stuff dreams are made of!

Unfortunately, the rose garden is in a bit of peril. It seems the aphids did a very good job of overwintering, and came back to my rose garden in force! Blech! When I did a once around of the garden yesterday, I found that they had attached themselves in great numbers to half the rose plants, but that left about half in decent shape, with NO signs of damage to them. No black fungus damage or frostbite from that quick chill we had. So, I am counting my blessings, and spending the day preparing for some deep gardening later this week.

I am making a DIY spray to rid the garden of the nastiness. A small amount of cutting back comes next, then I will sprinkle a generous helping of ground cinnamon at the base of each rose, then place some foil on top of the cinnamon, secure the foil with bricks, and sprinkle a little more around the outside for good measure. Once that is done, it will be time to plant between 8 and 12 small mint plants in the ground between the rose plants, and perhaps one or two new, healthy roses (perhaps mini roses) to encourage new growth. Lastly, I am going to plant (3) 5lb pots of lavender against the fence and let it run along the back. It's work, but I have Alan to help me, and it's going to be amazing a couple months from now.

You'll see!

Here We The Before View...


If All Else Fails, I Will Do What I Did A Few Years Back... Buy Ladybugs!


Pretty Soon... Hello Beauty! :)



"Gardening is cheaper than therapy, and you get tomatoes."

~Unknown

Mood: Happy but Determined

~Me :)

A Photo A Day For 6 Months: Day 119~ The Light In The Afternoon

"But now in September the garden has cooled, and with it my possessiveness. The Sun warms my back instead of beating on my head... The harvest has dwindled and I grown apart from the intense midsummer relationship that brought it on."

~Robert Finch




Ordinarily I wouldn't complain about summer coming to an end, but I enjoyed this past three months of warm weather, because it helped to produce the most beautiful roses I have ever grown, and the yummiest tomatoes and zucchini. It wasn't one of those oppressive summers, when it is so hot outside you can't think straight, but it was a consistent summer and it was good, not just for growing things, but for stretching my creativity as well.

Later today, Alan and I will be cooking up some tomatoes from the garden, in some wonderful all purpose tomato sauce, that will eventually become pasta sauce, pizza sauce, and assorted different bases for dinner dishes. I will post the photos along with the recipes as they are developed. I am still considering what wines I may want to add to the sauce. A nice Cabernet for sure I think. We'll see. :)

 

 For the most part, we had an amazingly bug free garden. The roses have been strong and producing new growth at a better than expected rate, so it softened the blow a good bit when I found some aphids munching down on some of my Pink Promise roses. (YIKES). I caught the infestation early, and cut the rose bush back to eliminate the infected new growth, then did a deep sprinkling of cinnamon at the base of the bush. Next I did some preventive maintenance by cutting the new growth from the rest of the roses in the garden.

 

It's been a couple days, and I haven't seen any new instances of aphids, but I will have to watch things closely for the rest of the season. If all else fails, I have some homemade organic remedy all mixed up and ready to go. It worked wonders in years past, so I am confident that if I need to use it, it will do the trick! In late October, I will prune all of the rose bushes back by a third to promote new growth next spring. Aphids like to overwinter in dry leaves, so while I adore autumn and look forward to the big mess the leaves make, this year I will have to be diligent about the raking and disposal of them. FUN! :) It's a good thing I love autumn leaves so much... lol... it will make dealing with them a lot more fun. At least that's what I am hoping! LOL.

The autumn light is beginning to whisper our way, especially in the late afternoon. When that gorgeous late day sun hits the roses, it's nothing short of magical. The roses in this posting all are showing off that light, with only a tiny amount of editing on my part. This pretty much how everything looks right now, and we are getting little bits of color all around. The leaves are gorgeous this year, and I can't wait to get out with my camera a document it all.

Autumn... HERE I COME!




Me :)

EMPS #101: On The Horizon

"When one of my plants dies, I die a little inside, too."

~Linda Solegato

EMPS#101: On The Horizon

My Garden.

Earlier this week, I showed you some of my sunflowers. There will be more pictures of them to come, but for now, lets look at the roses. :) I planted 5 different ones this year.

1. Pink Promise (pink with hints of white and greeen)

2. Angel Face (deep lavender)

3. Beloved (dark red)

4. Apricot Nectar (apricot with pink tones)

5. Red/Gold (more like bright yellow and hot pink)

I am considering adding a few more next year. I like the bright colors of the ones I planted this year, but there are some really unusual colored ones I like as well. One of the most beautiful is the "Honey Dijon" which actually is the color of Honey-Dijon mustard. Lovely. Also the "Pumpkin Patch" rose. It is gorgeous, colored dark, like the very darkest orange of a pumpkin rind. If I had the room I would probably fill the yard with roses, but fighting aphids would be exhausting. LOL. Aphids destroyed my garden a couple years ago, and I wouldn't want that to happen again. It broke my heart to see all my work and care for my roses just wither and die. DARN APHIDS!

:)

(Pink Promise) The Official rose associated with Breast Cancer awareness.



Red/Gold...



The rose at the top of the entry is the "Apricot Nectar" rose.


Who knows what next year's garden might bring. I know one thing for sure, there will be plenty of ladybugs. You can buy them at Home Depot and cost about $5.99 for 2,000 or so. They are the best friend of the rose gardener, as they LOVE to munch on aphids!

Here ladybug, ladybug, ladybug...

Okay, that's my look at the horizon, my plans for my garden. How about you? Did you do this week's Monday Photo Shoot assignment? If not, you still have time. It doesn't close until 6:00 PM tonight. If you can't make it this week, I hope to see you next week!



-Carly

Round Robin Challenge: Spring Cleaning

Spring Cleaning
By Susan Reiner

March bustles in on windy feet
And sweeps my doorstep and my street
She washes and cleans with pounding rains
Scrubbing the earth of winter stains

She shakes the grime from carpet green
Till naught but fresh new blades are seen
Then, house in order, all neat as a pin
She ushers gentle springtime in.

My Round Robin teammate Steven, chose "Spring Cleaning" for our photo subject this time around, and we also have the additional task to come up with 3 more challenge topics each for the challenge pool. The last time we did this was in November. Every 6 months seems about right to do these new challenge subject roundups. You Robins have submitted some really great ideas, I am looking forward to seeing what you have come up with this time around. :)

As for the subject of Spring Cleaning, well, see, I thought I was in a bit of a fix with this one. See, I am not a "Spring Cleaning" gal, I am an "Autumn Cleaning gal." I do everything backwards. It's just that I really like getting the house in shape before the cold winter months set in. Because of my Fibromyalgia, I am often limited in the winter in terms of my energy. My hands swell, and I am really tired a lot of the time, and therefore things can get away from me before I know it. So, what's a girl to do? Well, she does a deep house cleaning no later then a couple weeks after Halloween, that way she can take better care of herself during those difficult winter months. But that didn't help me much with this challenge.

So I thought... and thought... and thought. What to do? What to do? Yikes. Would I have to sit this one out? Hmmmm... then it came to me. I did have a bit of a mess on my hands this spring, in the form of those yucky aphids in my beloved rose garden! It was a mess! But all was not lost, in fact, I didn't have to do much cleaning at all to get rid of those intruders, I simply called in the cleaning ladies... The Ladybugs. After a brief trip to Home Depot to purchase them, I put them to work, and within four weeks, we were back to a nearly all clear lovely garden again. In fact, in the photos below, you see a beautiful, spicy scented rose I had all but given up on! Isn't she gorgeous!

Now on to the new challenge ideas!

1. Quench My Thirst

Take a photograph of your favorite beverage, in an artistic light. Include a recipe if you have created a completely unique drink.

2. Politics

Whether we like it or not, at least a little politics is a part of all of our lives. City government, state and federal it affects us all. With the upcoming elections, there will be a lot of campaign signs, and political statements being made. Photograph something that says "Politics" to you. Have some fun with it. Buttons, yard signs, a candidate's personal appearance in your town, a protest, a political bumper sticker, anything to do with politics that strikes your fancy.

3. Numbers

Photograph anything dealing with numbers. The face of a clock or watch. A cash register, a pair of dice or dominoes, a math equation, a scale, a measuring cup.

Okie doke. There are my three new subjects for the challenge pool. Now, go visit the participating Robins on the list below. If you haven't played along with this challenge yet, there is still plenty of time. You have up to one week from today, to take your photos and submit an entry. If you can't play this time around, but would like to submit some ideas, well that's cool too. Just send them to either Steven, Karen or myself. You can find our email addresses on the RR blog sidebar. Hope to hear from you soon!

Linking List

Steven... (sometimes)blog POSTED!

Carly... Ellipsis POSTED!

Karen... Outpost Mavarin POSTED!

Momma... Sandcastle Momma

Gattina... Keyhole Pictures POSTED!

Wammy... The Ellis Family Cincinnatti

Martha... Perception

Lisa... Lisa's Chaos POSTED!

Sarah... Charish Me POSTED!

Vicki... Maracas POSTED!

Angela... Chocolate Syrup For The Soul POSTED!

Marie... Photographs and Memories

Kiva... Ecletic Granny POSTED!

Kim... Nekked Lizard Adventures POSTED!

Julie... Julie's Web Journal POSTED!

Jennifer Robin... Robin's Woods POSTED!

-OndineMonet

Ladies In Red Dresses

"She sat down in a weed patch, her elbows on her knees, and kept her eyes on the small mysterious world of the ground. In the shade and sun of grass and forests, small living things had their metropolis."

-Nancy Price

The Pretty Girl

This past week I invited 1,500 ladies in red dresses into my garden to handle a matter most serious. You see, my lovely roses have Aphids! YIKES. Because I like to take care of such things by organic means as often as possible, I am trying the ladybug method first. I found them at Home Depot for a reasonable price. $4.95! One package to start, but I think I will more then likely be adding more as the month moves on. It was actually kind of fascinating to open the package and sprinkle them about the roses. They went to work immediately, happily chomping away, while others went about, well, procreating. So I guess, in no time at all, we will have baby ladybugs about as well. Cool. I like them. They are a pretty insect, and very helpful. It was pleasant to sit by my favorite flowers, with a nice glass of green tea in hand, and watch as my new girlfriends lend me a hand.

Ladybug Porn ;)

"Or perhaps you notice a congregation of ladybugs on a rose stalk.
Don't invoke the old nursery saying and ask them to fly away home.
Their house is not on fire. Your roses are, with Aphids, which the ladybugs
are feeding on ... and you can bless yourself that they have come to your rescue."

-Eleanor Perenyl

-OndineMonet
"Red Is For Ladybug, Green Is For Aphids"
Berkeley, California
April 3, 2008
Afternoon