Archive for Green grass, flowers and such

Good grief, where did October go?

pumpkin patch

Iowa fall street

fall gold

Although the month isn’t quite gone, it feels like I’ve lost some of it, at least on the blog here.  We have a hymn that says, “life passes like a dream”.  This month has been a very beautiful dream, at any rate.  New workers, new gospel meetings, new babes, beautiful days, peace and rest, swimming at the ARF center, very satisfying work, sweet companions, tasty apples and sewing!

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Morning sunlight

morning in the woods

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Lake lovely lake!

red white and blue

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Morning Glories

I LOVE morning glories and mine on the balcony have finally started blooming!  And your Monday morning thought for the day: enrich your life, take a closer look -  at things, at people, at situations.  Sometimes you need to get really really close to fully appreciate the beauty!

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Natural plants

Ok, I am going to admit some of my extreme greeness here.  Today, being green means being ecologically sensitive;  but for me, being green means loving plants, you know, the way people love their dogs, their kids, maybe their houses.  I’ll blame my mother who let me buy the book The Secret Life of Plants when I was a pre-teen, and my gardening dad can share some blame too.  So…I feel really guilty when I don’t take care of my plants properly…and…..although I love some of the extreme bloomers that Earl May and K-Mart sell these days, sometimes I wonder if these plants feel abused, their genes pushed to the extreme for the sole pleasure of humans, kind of like ultra thin models or 3 year old beauty queens.  Maybe we as humans just need to change our point of view and see the natural beauty in some of our native plants.  I know a lot of ecologically green people are doing that these days.  So here are some close ups of plants from yesterday’s rain garden.  Aren’t they beautiful?

blue

brown

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texture

rudbeckia

mini lace

puff

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Rain Gardens and Native Plants

If you live in Ames, have you wondered about the “weedy looking” lot next to the Ames Public Library? I stopped by there to take some photos last Saturday.  My understanding is that it is an example of a rain garden, planted for the purpose of slowing down water runoff during hard rains.  Remember the flooding of 2008 in Iowa? Some blame the changing landscape that has eliminated “weedy looking” areas, but these native planting alternatives to traditional lawn grass are much better at catching rain water, holding it, and keeping it from running and collecting in such a way that increases flooding.  People usually keep lawns, parks and highway landscaping mowed.  Shorter grass means faster runoff.  Another thing a lot of people never think of: when you mow frequently, the heavy equipment will compact the soil, making it harder and harder over the years and less able to absorb rainwater.

Think about what rain water will do if it falls on this

slowing run off

instead of this

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Hmmm, I thought I had a better example of a closely cropped lawn, but you get the idea, right?!

If you visit our library, take a few minutes to escape to the prairie, walk the little path, run your hand through the fresh smelling sage, chatter with the wasps, bees and butterflies and think about the rain, where it comes from, where it goes…

rain gardensAPL rain garden

I also love the Ames Public Library wild area because it reminds me that I’m not in Anywhere, USA, I’m Iowa, a state the was once over 80% prairie!

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Ahhh, peony time

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A big thank you to Lani who has agreed to share her “real” garden with me this summer!  I went over to check on the transplants and came home with some heavenly peonies.  Have you ever buried your face in a warm, sun kissed peony?  If so, you know the kind of sensual experience I’m talking about.

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Mother’s Day

Mom's reading Day1 One of the things I enjoyed doing on Mother’s Day was taking a little time out to slip into HyVee for some Starbucks and a Sunday paper and an appropriately decorated sugar cookie. Now my own mother would have baked the cookies at home, but I’m one of those bake-a-batch-eat-a-batch of cookies people, so I am much better off just letting HyVee do the baking! I also enjoyed picking lilacs!

Lilac lilac and daisylilac close up2

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Fragile spring beauty

crab apple close up I don’t understand why every year I forget how breathtaking spring is. In the winter, I yearn for it, I day dream about it, but when May comes around, my breath gets taken away again, as if it’s the first time all over again. I’m not working full time right now, and that adds to my feelings of urgency to fully take in this brief flush of new life. I have the same feeling when I look at the children in my meeting, so young, new, sweet but fragile; and, the closer you observe, the more amazed you become. I love to take close up photos of flowers, to get the veins in the petals, the stamens, the puffy yellow pollen. I cut these crab apple blossoms from the trees around my apartment complex. The close up shows how perfectly designed each blossom is and yet with one bump or gust of breeze, all the petals come tumbling off and the showy beauty disappears. That reminds me that it’s all about the seeds. The fragile beauty slips away, but the seed producing core remains and pulls all the sunlight’s energy into it’s important task. Knowing this helps me look forward to summer and not mourn spring’s passing too much. The leaves on the trees are growing bigger and stronger every day now, rustling in the breezes, the tree flowers are mostly gone and summer is slipping in.

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May Day 2009

My sister sent me a May Basket…all the way from New Zealand! On your list of all the things to do before you left, I can’t believe you remembered May Day! Thank you dear sister!

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The yummy sherbet colors in this bouquet, raspberry, lemon, peach, strawberry, grape, make it absolutely scrumptious! Kudos to Ames Greenhouse and Florals, two years in a row now!

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