Yum!

some of the best food i have ever had in my life
new orleans.....yummy!

KATRINA

just back from five days in new orleans.
what an eye-opening experience!
there is a vast untold story that needs attention. the city is active and busy with tourists. but what do tourists see? well, the french quarter was untouched by the flood that swept through most of the city. many businesses are open there. as you creep through the downtown traffic it allows you time to look about and up to skyscrapers with every single window blown out of their facade. you see traffic signal lights flashing their warnings while prostrate on the ground. sink holes wait for their next auto casualty. one way traffic signs and street name signs have blown away so caution is imperative to getting where you're going. and since traffic lights aren't always in working order drivers blast through intersections at full speed, even when there appears to be a red light, with their horn a-honking. it's an odd mix of urban decay in a modern world, almost a surreal mad max's world.
while driving through vast suburbs that were destroyed by the flood of katrina you can't help but wonder what will happen to all those abandoned houses. a standard spray-painted x adorns the front door to these homes, within average middle class neighborhoods, indicating the date the house was inspected in one quadrant, the group that assessed the house, the number of animals found dead in the house, and the number of bodies found in the last quadrant. fortunately we saw mostly zeros in the body quadrant, but many animals in others. new homes are under construction in between condemned homes. fortunately the new homes are being constructed higher off the ground. entire shopping centers sit abandoned, not razed, just in limbo. the ground, since it was saturated for so long, created pot holes that want to swallow your car. some are marked with a construction cone if you are lucky. i couldn't help but feel the worst about the animals that were left to drown. the photo shown here is on the banks of lake pontchartrain. graveyards of buildings and boats sit as a reminder of the ferocity of weather.
but amongst the carnage lives a city that prides itself with an amazing array of fabulous food. you can't be a calorie counter in this city. i tried mud bugs (crayfish) and alligator. standard on menus is turtle as well. while at the southern yacht club a steady stream of shrimp boats, right out of a forest gump movie set, motored by to unload their catch. if you like food this is the place to eat the best of it.
joy and sorrow coexist in this place on equal footing. the story of new orleans, post katrina, needs to be heard by more people to understand this colossal paradox.

a wee selection of flowers from our garden right now

luna purses

more fun with vinyl!

enkianthus

the bee magnet

who would have guessed?

that sewing with vinyl would be so much fun?

oh the abundance!

snowballs, with their corpulent fluffiness exude the tone of the moment. the rampant billowing spring growth, luscious greenness and flowers make you want to wrap your arms around this plant and give it a big kiss for the pleasure it evokes.other bits about the garden are lilacs, the buds bursting on the blue ceanothus, kolkwitzia (aptly named beauty bush), columbine, chive flowers, species geraniums, red twig dogwood flowers, weigela and a mess of other stuff.

emerging gunnera leaf

if ever there were a man eating plant this has got to be it.

summer on nantucketthe latest cards on towhee from my oil paintings.

dandelion seed everywhereat least you know we don't use poisons in our garden.
i think dandelions are pretty anyway.

i added a new bird to my life long checklist yesterday. it was a yellow rumped warbler. a cute little guy with very distinctive yellow bar markings.
it's so exciting to see a new bird for the first time, racing home, trying to remember all the details, and finally thrashing through the guidebook to try to identify it. the overwhelming desire for proper identification can supercede any other tasks that are pressing until the creature is located. and ultimatley, voila, there it is with it's name in black + white. joy.

happy birthday!they'll go to after school practice.

thanks kim for the link to cool borders.

petals everywhereviburnum 'mariesii' is such a great shrub! happy happy
just can't get enough of this sweet plant
petals swirling in the wind and rain look like a snow storm from the huge prunus padus tree

in printmy painting koura is on the inside cover of the latest arts + humanities council magazine called exhibition.it's shown on top of a project in progress...a quilted grocery bag made from samples of outdoor fabrics, that were sent to me years ago and have just been sitting around collecting dust. i've been wanting to use up my accumulations so the batting is felt that i bought for halloween costumes long ago. the outdoor fabric will make for a strong construction for my grocery bag.

oh the fragrance of spring!daphne 'carol mackie'
erythronium oreganum
fothergilla major

busy busy busywhite bleeding hearts
bluebells
leucojum
'pocahontas' lilacahhhhh all the little sweeties of the garden are up and bloomingforget-me-nots, viburnum, daphne, fawn lilies, anenomes, apple trees, mock orange, rosemary, geranium hymalayense, ceanothus, spireae, lilacs, rhodies, the last of the magnoliassoon the roses will be coming onspring, oh glorious spring!

at this time of the year little botanical treasures can be missed if you don't step outside at just the right moment. one jewel i'm glad i didn't miss is this Rhododendron schlippenbachii that only blooms in years that it feels like it. last fall i pruned the vine maples that were growing so huge that they were cutting out quite a bit of light over this shrub. i guess the rhodie is rewarding me for allowing more light to reach its lovely emerald green obovate leaves with its delightful diaphanous petals.

ahhh the fresh color of spring!this is kerria japonica that has moved along with me from garden to garden. i first purchased it at a strybing arboretum plant sale, in san francisco, which i miss being able to attend verrrrry much.

happy easter!these are the pysanky we made this year

in printa detail from my painting 29 is on the cover of the seattle review. this is the literary journal for the university of washington's english department.

blissfulwhen i planted little shrubs from cuttings and young trees a dozen years ago i imagined that someday it would look as it does now. patience and anticipation are what guide a garden designers hand. i have to stop and soak in the image from my kitchen window as the collision of bloom from buttery corelopsis, forsythia, cornus mas, ribes sanguineum to that wonderous prunus 'accolade' just define a perfect moment. i know while i stand there in ecstasy that the image will change soon from its peak to the sublimity of falling petals and then ultimately the focus will turn elsewhere in the garden. but for that brief moment every little problem melts away as i gaze upon those soft colors, spellbound.

grocery bagjust finished my new grocery bag. it's made out of a weird crinkly fabric, with cotton embellishments, that is quilted with cotton batting sandwiched inside to give it some body. this was a fun quilting project, on a reasonable scale, after doing that monster quilt.
grocery bags can be more than utilitarian. they can be a fashion accessory.