Will Binghamton Be a Championship Town Tonight?

So many setbacks....and the one time Binghamton gets into the national news it is due to a mass shooting in April of 2009.  (no, wait, another time-it was probably when we had major floods back in 2006.)

Or maybe a third time, the Binghamton Salt Babies tragedy of 1962.

Now we have something to celebrate - after tonight, the American Hockey League Binghamton Senators may be the winners of this year's Calder Cup.

Parties start everywhere around 7:15 pm.

Some people underestimate the power sports have to unite a population. But I saw that firsthand, years back, when I had the opportunity to live in Texas and Arkansas.  In both areas, high school football is a very powerful force.  Here, our "burnt out industrial town" needs all the good news we can get.  It needs a lot of unity. This event may provide it - even if we don't win.

Binghamton has never had a championship hockey team.  On certain streets in Binghamton, "Go B-Sen" signs have sprouted.  A certain local radio drive-time radio announcer (I heard this second hand from a fan this morning) expressed hopes that a certain building in downtown Binghamton, which has colored light displays on its upper floors and has been known to employ special event colors, might light up in red (B-Sen color) tonight.

If we win....tonight and tomorrow will be happy indeed.  And, perhaps we all will be wearing red.  Just in time for the temperatures to hit 95 degrees tomorrow, the B-Sen fans will heat up the town tonight.

Peony Spring

In the never ending saga of Blogger, I've been having trouble uploading photos the past three days.  Tonight, the photo upload function is apparently (according to the site) down for maintenance.

So my regularly scheduled post (which would have needed photos to carry the story) will not be posted.  Perhaps it will give me more time to decide
a.  If I want to defect to WordPress and/or
b.  If I want to continue my experiment in being a garden/photo blog.

So tonight, I will take a different tack.  Instead of photos a haiku: (not a traditional haiku, a shame since peonies have symbolism in the Eastern world.  But I am as much a beginner at haiku as I am in garden blogging.)  Peonies are blooming here in the Southern Tier of New York, just in time for a heat wave.

Peony blossoms
Welcome spring into summer
As thunderstorms brew

Peonies never seem to last for long here in the Binghamton, NY area.  By the time they start to bloom, it seems the heat comes.  Or, the rains.  Or both.  For some reason, they seemed to do a lot better in Wichita, Kansas (where I lived for several years) than they do here.

I don't have any peonies but several neighbors do.  If Blogger cooperates, I will post some photos later this week.

Sunny Days and Sundays Never Get Me Down

I promised rhododendron photos today.  I ended up not taking the walk I was planning, and instead took some photos closer to home. The sun came out, it was in the 70's, there was a small breeze, and the Vestal Rail Trail was calling.  I brought my camera, and stopped three or four times during the 4 miles walk to take some photos.  Hopefully, I'll post those tomorrow.

To tide you over, I'm posting a couple of rhododendron photos taken at my house.  These rhododendrons were there when we bought the house in 1987.  So, I have no idea how old they are.  One is doing quite well.  This is a common shade in our area.

The other, a much lighter pink, is not so common, and has not been doing so well for the past 10 or so years.  We've given it some tender loving care and it seems to be doing better.  It's partially hidden though by shrubbery.

Also blooming today in the area:  roses, peonies (neither of which we have).

Our irises are about done. 

Tomorrow, hopefully I'll have time to post the Vestal Rail Trail photos.

I Came, I Saw, I Tweeted

I've done my first tweets.  I am following several Blogathoners, people who I know are good writers.  I will study you to find out just how, when, and why to tweet. (If I haven't offered to follow you, please let me know you are out there, and I will.)

I don't want to follow too many people right now; otherwise using Twitter will be like (the expression goes) "drinking from a fire hose".

Great news, I have two followers!  I am a bit humbled because I am just starting out and I hope they don't give up on me before I have enough experience to exit newbie status.

I must say Twitter isn't what I expected, not at all.  Now I'll get some questions "well, what did you expect?"  To be honest, I expected it to be a bunch of inane "here I am having pancakes for breakfast" kind of updates.  I know there is probably stuff like that out there (depending on who you follow) but I am overjoyed at what I have been finding so far.

I hope I have enough material about gardening to keep me busy; after all (as Michelle warns us) I am certainly not as interesting as Lady Gaga.

And now, heading out to hope that some rhododendrons are still in bloom.

A Walk , a Tweet and Some Irises

June 4 is a very busy weekend day in this area.  There are a number of festivals going on, and you don't know which way to turn.

So what I did instead is take some pictures, walk in an autism walk, post some photos to my Facebook account and sign up for Twitter.  Sometimes the Internet can be such a drain on time.  But I hope today's activity was worth it.

Yes, I did it, no thanks to new blogging friends from the Blogathon.  I am on Twitter, under the name of RamblinGarden.  You are welcome to follow me.  Please bear with me while I get my "Twitter Legs" because some of my first posts may be a bit on the inane side.

As for the pictures, apparently, Firefox 4 is not playing well with Blogger.  For a while, I couldn't get into my account at all and had to use Internet Explorer.  Now, I can get into my account, but I can't upload photos if I am using Firefox.  Something tells me I am going to leave Blogger if too much more of this stuff happens.  Life is too short.  (end of whine).

This first photo is of a bearded iris I know only as the "Kool Aid iris".  The tubers were given to me by someone I used to work with.  I wish blogs had smell-o-blogpost, because this post would have the delicious scent of grape Kool-Aid.

I was told this is a rebloomer, but this has never rebloomed.  For that matter, no rebloomer I've ever planted has rebloomed.  Either the climate isn't right or the plants don't like me.  (and yes, I do think plants can like or dislike their caretakers.  More on that another time.)

This is another purple bearded iris.  We lost some of the blooms to the hailstorm last week but some of the buds survived.  This iris also has a scent.

Finally,  here is a yellow iris I bought at a local iris show.  Of course, I have no idea what it is called.  I end up not remembering half of what I planted, which isn't good for someone aspiring to perhaps turn this into a gardening blog.

We have a white iris also but its buds rotted away during our Rain Festival.

As for the walk, it was the second annual Greater Binghamton Walk for Autism.  I was very glad to run into someone I hadn't seen for years, although I've had some communication with her on Facebook.  And then, when we went food shopping afterwards, I ran into someone else I had not seen in years.

As today would have been my mother's 93rd birthday, the day was a bit bittersweet.  But, after a gloomy drizzly start to the day, the sun ended up coming out. 

Tomorrow (maybe)....rhododendrons.

Blue, Blue, My Blue Petunias are....Purple

On May 31 I blogged about the Sky Blue petunias I purchased mail order from Burpees.  This would be a most unusual flower color for a petunia.  I was looking forward to receiving the plants.  I had a planter and a hanging basket ready for them.

I promised I would post a picture when they bloomed.

Here they are.

Wrong picture?  No.  They aren't sky blue.

They are purple.  Or lavender-ish.  But not blue.

Sometimes, there is disappointment in gardening.  I just didn't have good luck with this order at all, as I blogged about earlier.  I truly don't know how much I can blame on Burpees (and I will, calmly, contact their customer service people with the other issues I experienced) but I was really disappointed by the purp....I mean sky blue petunias.

I suspected they were going to be maybe blue with a purplish tint.  I love unusual flowers, and I could have lived with that.  But the catalog description says, and I quote:

Here, before your eyes, is the first and only spreading petunia with true azure blooms. This old-fashioned charmer in a stunning new color rolls out a low-growing carpet of sky-blue 3" flowers all summer—a sea of tranquility for a sunny spot.

Azure.  Hmmm.  I looked azure up online, and Wikipedia told me, and again I quote:

 The word Azure is a near synonym for the color blue. Commonly it refers to a bright blue, resembling the sky on a bright, clear day.

I haven't seen too many skies the color of these flowers.  I have seen purple petunias approximating this shade locally, and would have gladly given my business to a local nursery if that is what I had wanted.  But sky blue-not that's not something you find in petunias every day.  I was expecting something closer to a morning glory type blue.

Please don't get me wrong.  This isn't tragic, there are lots more important things going on in my life, and my growing season isn't wrecked.  Life will go on and I'm sure these flowers will be pretty.  I'm sure they will give me a lot of pleasure.

But I do feel misled.  Misled by a company that I have faithfully purchased gardening items from for most of the last 33 years.  I pay extra for that quality, and money becomes more and more precious every year.

Maybe this is a sign that I need to go back to basics.

At that I will have to give business to a local nursery because it appears that 9 of the 12 double flowered impatiens I received in the same order have gone to the great flower patch in the sky.

The azure sky.

JUNE 4 UPDATE:  Only two of the 12 impatiens left alive.  And now it's starting to rain again....

Name that Bite!

Before I get into my itchy dilemma, I must brag:  The Blogathon has ended.  I've blogged for 31 days straight.  (Actually, 33 days so far, and counting.)  I have my badge!  It is well earned, and I will be displaying it proudly on my blog.

Now:  I also have about eight assorted insect bites, which I must have gotten while taking photos for my blog.  We've been getting so much rain, I shouldn't be surprised that I've been bitten up.  I have bites on my legs, my arms, my torso.  A couple are near places I can't even mention in a family blog.   A country-living friend identified one on my chest as a blackfly bite.  Some of the others, I've tried to figure out via the internet, but all I know is that they are painful...and itchy as heck.   They aren't mosquito bites. (it's probably a little too early for them, anyway.)  The worst one is on my left arm.  It has two painful pimple like things surrounded by a big raised circular itchy-as-heck welt.  It isn't infected (I read up on that.) just itchy.

I asked my friend "what should I put on these"  Her response:  Witch Hazel.

So, after itching (and itching) at work yesterday, I stopped at CVS on the way home, and bought some witch hazel and cottom balls.  So far, the witch hazel seems to be working on all but the one really big spot on my left arm.  I took some Benadryl as a last resort.  I don't know if it really worked.  Things seem slightly better this morning.

I'm not about to take a picture of my arm and post it.  Although, if the Blogathon was still going on, maybe I would have.

I wish I knew what bit me up.

Sometimes, I hate spring.

Scratch scratch itch.

To Tweet or Not to Tweet - That is the Twestion

The Blogathon is over.   My time is mine again.  I didn't have to wake up at 5:30 to write. But I did.
I said the other day that one thing the Blogathon did for me was make me stretch.  I want to keep stretching, growing.    So now, I am considering signing up for Twitter.

So far, I have resisted using Twitter.  I do not text message (I barely use my cell phone as a phone; I'm going to be one of the 143 people left in this country who don't text message).  But in the Blogathon that just concluded yesterday, I found that many bloggers in the Blogathon tweet and have their tweets visible on their blogs.

The "wrap" party for the Blogathon "competition" is going to be on Twitter, too.  I can follow it by using a certain hash tag.  But I have no account, so I can't party.  Being left out.   It isn't a good feeling.

Know what?  I feel like I felt about the Internet back in 1995.  Reading about that "http" stuff and how web addresses worked seemed so daunting.  But I bought my first computer on my birthday in 1996 and have never looked back.  (I can still remember my first night online - January 20, 1997...and how I fumbled around.  But am I glad I did.). What if I don't have enough to say?  What if I have too much?  What if I choose the wrong user name (or whatever it is called).

I've tried to find a good tutorial on Twitter online. What I seem to be finding is already a year or two old.  So:  I invite your comments.  Does Twitter work for you?  Is it worth the stretch?  Should I take the plunge?

Is it worth the time I will invest in learning about it?

(and, sneaky me, I'll know if anyone is still reading my blog now that we've finished Blogathoning.)

And meanwhile, fellow Blogathoners - enjoy that party.

Blogathon - It's a Wrap! Lessons Learned

The Blogathon is over.  And so is may.  I am depressed, because it has been so much fun.  Fellow Blogathoners, you've all been great!


Tomorrow is the wrap party, which I won't be attending - first, because I will be working at my day job when the party takes place (oh well) and second, because I still haven't signed up for Twitter, where it will take place.  However, I've done a little research on my blog statistics and:

Successes

1.  I received 31 comments on posts posted during the Blogathon.  For the entire two plus years of my blog previous to this May, I only received 7 (not counting the spam I had to delete before Blogger increased its blog filter.  As a result of the spam, I turned off commenting for a couple of months.)

I hope some of my Blogathon readers stay with me.  I will try to make it worth your while.
2. Traffic to my blog increased.  Although the top two viewers are people who knew about my blog previous to the Blogathon, I did get increased traffic overall.  (and yes, I know who has been viewing, and I thank each and every one of you for reading.)

3.  I got the opportunity to guest blog post on two blogs - one person I knew beforehand (although I've only met her once) and the other was on a blog I had never heard of before the Blogathon.

4.  I got to stretch myself, blogging alongside several professional writers.  These professional writers leave me breathless, by the way.  It is obviously a LOT of hard work - work I'm not sure I am ready for.  Yet, if the worst ever happens and I find myself unemployed, I have an idea now of directions that I can go.

And, to those people, thank you for being gentle with me.

5.  I know now what people are interested in when reading my blog.  The gardening and weather posts seem to be getting the most attention. Although, my #1 post ever (to my amazement) was not Blogathon related but a post from last year concerning dinosaurs that briefly invaded Binghamton, before vandals put an end to their reign.

My "to do" list

1.  Give thought to where I want to go with this blog.  Should I dedicate it to gardening and perhaps local food?  Or, as an alternative, have "theme days"?  (I don't think I am going to keep posting 7 days a week!)

2  Improve my proof reading skills.  (also see #3)

3.  Perhaps buy a style book?  Or learn something about grammar?  Do more editing?  Sometimes, after I post, I find sentences that made sense in my head, but not on screen.  I have to go back and edit the posted post.

4.  Play less FarmVille?  Would you believe, I didn't take the cheap way out and blog about FarmVille, not once?  (Also, I played Angry Birds for the first time this weekend - I'm staying far away from that)

5.  Continue to visit, and comment, on other blogs. This is something I did very little of (the commenting part, anyway) before the Blogathon.  I now realize how important it is.

6.  Mine my blog a little more - now that I have over two years of material, I can revisit some of the older material and see if I have grown in my writing.

7.  Keep that momentum going!  I'm not one for "new year's resolutions" but hey, it's May!

And, last but not least-
8.  Look forward to Blogathon 2012. 

Blue Petunias Match My Gardening Mood

My Burpees live plant order arrived the other day.

One of the plants I was looking forward to planting was a new variety (to me), the Sky Blue petunia.  These are supposed to be true blue petunias, not a flower that is actually a shade of purple. When/if they bloom, I will post those photos.

For the first time in my four years of ordering from Burpees, I was disappointed.  I pay extra for Burpee plants (over and above what some others charge), but it is worth it to me because of the care they take in packing and the quality of plants overall.   It's an expense to buy plants rather than start from seeds but it's worth it to me because
1.My windowsill space is limited
2. I work a full time job and "time is money" (unfortunately)
3. Certain seeds I've never had luck germinating.  That includes petunias and impatiens.

Burpees plants are usually of the highest quality.  The couple of times I've had minor problems, which normally crop up a day or two after planting, Burpees has always promptly credited me - their plants are guaranteed (another plus!) I was depending on the impatien plants - I love the double flowered types and they are expensive in local nurseries.

So what happens when you get plants mail order?  Usually you have to add a little water to each cell upon receipt, and then you rest the plants for 24-48 hours.  Then you can generally plant.

This time the plants, every one, were in cells so soaking wet you could have practically wrung water out of them.  (and now, for a little rant.)

The heavy Northeast rains may be responsible for that.  (although, just because Burpees is headquartered in Pennsylvania doesn't mean the plants came from there.  And maybe that doesn't make sense-would the plants have been field grown?)
The petunias were supposed to be in a pack of 12.  I got 11 plants.  The 12th plant wasn't rotted:  there was no trace of a plant in the cell. (However, the other plants did survive the trip in good condition-so far.)

I also ordered 12 double-flowered impatiens.  This is the 3rd year I've ordered these.  In previous years, no problem.  Upon delivery this year, two of the plants were wilted.  I think it was wilt from being too wet.  Within a day, during the rest period, 6 of the 12 plants were dead or dying.

One of my 3 Cardinal basils also wilted within a day after delivery.   The other two are out in our yard tonight, with the other plants, and they face their next challenge:

Rain.  Lots and lots of rain.

At the Binghamton airport (which is on a mountaintop, and doesn't always have the same weather as our river valley where I live) they've had over 17 inches of rain between April and May.  Last night I was awakened on three separate occasions by thunder and torrential rains coming down. The soil in our community garden is squirts water when you walk.  My spouse is a strong man but he can't even work the soil (and you shouldn't be working it anyway, if it is that wet).  We have a lot of organic matter in it from tending the same plots year after year, but there's only so much organic matter can do.

The soil in our small yard isn't much better.

My mood is blue, as blue as the sky blue petunias that we planted this holiday weekend.  I am going to wait a day or so to see if any other plants die (I won't blame Burpees if it is weather related) and then I will contact Burpees customer service.

I wish I wasn't ending this with a gardening "downer".  I hope I have better news for you, dear reader, soon.

And with that, dear blogging friends new and old, my participation in the 2011 Blogathon ends.  Tomorrow: the recap.  But for now:  I'm sad that the Blogathon, and May, are over.  It's been a lot of fun.

Memories of Memorial Day

In 2002, we were on our way from upstate New York in the United States to the Black Hills of South Dakota.  We stopped off in Iowa City, where one of my aunts then lived.  It was the Memorial Day weekend.

Just after we crossed into the city limits, we passed a cemetery.  It was a blizzard of American flags.  I could not believe how many flags there were.  It showed that the residents of Iowa City had not completely forgotten the meaning of Memorial Day, a special day for residents of the United States.

Last year I blogged about a GI love story for Memorial Day.  This year, at the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, I'd like to talk some more about the origin of this holiday.  It's strange in a way, when I write about the Civil War, because I had no ancestors in this country during the Civil War.  So I don't have any direct family links to this war.  Rather, my links come from being born and growing up in this country.  And, knowing that I had family members in several wars.

Memorial Day was originally called Decoration Day.  It was first observed in 1868 with laying of flowers on the graves of both Union and Confederate troops at Arlington National Cemetery.  (as an aside, you may be interested in the origin of Arlington National Cemetery,  whose origin is also directly related to the Civil War.)

My home state, New York, was the first to adopt Decoration Day as a holiday.

After World War I, it became a holiday (Memorial Day) to honor the dead of all wars.

I can remember, growing up, when Memorial Day was observed on May 30, no matter what day of the week it was.  In 1971, I believe, it was changed to the current "last Monday in May" so that it could become part of several three day weekends being created.  Many people think that celebrating Memorial Day more as a "first day of summer" blowout beach/BBQ/shopping day has been recent, but apparently even in the early 20th century the day was already starting to drift away from its original meeting.

Another ceremony connected with this holiday is the playing of Taps.  Taps originated during the Civil War, composed by a member of the Army of the Potomac to serve as a "lights out" signal. Research I've done indicates that it didn't take long for Taps to be adopted by both Federal and Confederate armies.  It is so well suited to military burials that, again, its true origin is somewhat buried.

I am proud to say that my father was a disabled veteran of World War II.  Today, let us take a moment to honor the veterans of all wars, living and dead.  They are our living reminders that the price of freedom is sometimes a very steep one for those who pay it on our behalf.

The Thank You BBQ-Or, Adventures in Long Distance Caregiving

Yesterday was a day I wished was not necessary, but it was a happy occasion nevertheless.

My mother in law is now 83 years old.  Earlier this year she had a dizzy spell in her house and fell.  She sprained her ankle and bruised herself up badly.  The recovery was going to take a while.

We live 150 miles away.

What happened next?  Panic time. Mom was going to have limited mobility and a long recovery time.  We'd have to cook for her, help clean for her, take care of shopping and transportation needs - from 150 miles away.

 But then, to the rescue...

There were several sets of guardian angels in my mother in law's life, and yesterday we all converged on my mother in law's house for a BBQ we had promised as a thank you.


Two sets of nieces and nephews, and a single niece, sprung into action to help my mother in law out.  These weren't local people either.  They lived closer than we do, but they still had to drive a bit.  One of the duos sometimes came out more than once a week.  They all had experience with caregiving for their elderly parents (in all cases, since deceased).  They did many things, too many things to mention, to help her recovery and make her everyday life easier.  I learned a lot from the experience.  I know we are going to have many more adventures in our care giving journey.  I know this is only the beginning. 

All of these relatives, and you know who you are, thank you.  You will always have a special place in my heart.


One of the nieces, during this whole process, gave me almost nightly updates on Facebook.  We kept in touch with my mother in law, of course, and visited when we could, and other siblings helped out also.  But we both work, and anyone who has done long distance caregiving knows how difficult it can be.  I know it is only going to get worse.  We've been lucky so far.

In our case, the fact that my mother in law lives with her developmentally disabled son just added to the complications.  That's worth a blog post all by itself.

Thankfully, my mother in law is a lot better now. But time marches on and she is very frustrated at what the aging process has done to her.

Today, the weather cooperated.  My spouse (the family cook) grilled hamburgers, white hots (a type of bockwurst popular in our part of upstate NY), pork tenderloin spiedies (spiedies are another specialty food of our area), and grilled vegetables.  Everyone else brought a covered dish or a dessert.  Two people brought their I-Pads and owning one is very tantalizing.  One of the men brought a remote control helicopter, called a Parrot, which is controlled through an I-Pad.  If I'm up to it, I'll post some pictures of the adventures of the Parrot later this week.

One of the couples brought their daughter, who will graduate high school on June 15. What a smart, well poised cousin my husband has.  This is a young woman who is going to go places.  She pitched right in and did more than her share of the cleanup.

After dinner, my mother in law brought her wedding photo album out for some family memories.

There is a lot of sadness in watching my mother in law age.  She's always been a hard worker, and it is so hard for her to sit down and let other people do the work. She kept herself in shape when younger, but time takes its toll on everyone.  A stroke several years ago didn't help her, either.

She managed to exhaust herself because she kept insisting on helping us out.  Still, I know she enjoyed herself very much today, and that is all that really mattered.

And now....we can keep worrying.  Worrying about when the next fall will be.

Hail, Hail, the Hail's All Here

A little excitement last night for the Binghamton/Johnson City area.

This is the second night in a row for storms. On my exercise walk on the West Side of Binghamton this afternoon, we saw damage from downed trees and branches from last night's storms.

About 6:30, the rain started to come down with thunder. We were under a severe thunderstorm warning. We weren't under a tornado watch, unlike Thursday night.  My spouse, the amateur metereologist, was at the back door.  He never saw any hail sign. But suddenly we heard the thudding of hail on the roof.

Quarter sized hail came down, shredded most of our iris plants, decimated plants we bought at Home Depot yesterday to plant for my mother in law, did other damage to our home garden (and probably our car, but I haven't had the heart to check yet.)

This is "nothing" compared to some hail storms we used to get back in my Tornado Alley days, but was pretty impressive for upstate NY.

This storm (unlike the storm the night before last that came at 9:30 and the sirens going off had me scrambling, half asleep, to see if they were tornado sirens or fire department sirens) had the courtesy to come when it was still light.

Here are a couple of pictures of the hailstorms to give some perspective: this first one was taken during the storm (the hand is my husband's) so it is a bit blurry.

This picture was taken after the storm:

And finally (thank you, husband, for risking frostbite), one more.

In the next photo, the rectangular box is an Earthbox (with tomato seedlings in it) and the white stuff on the ground is also hail  It looks like marble chips on the ground, doesn't it?  This was taken during the storm.

Here is another perspective from right outside our front porch.  Again, the white stuff" is hail.   This was also taken during the storm.

I tried to take some "action photos" (I didn't have enough card space for video) but they really didn't come out that good.

I hope no one had a tree come down on their house.  And that no one got hurt from the storm.

(I'm also grateful that the storms have apparently subsided, at least temporarily, in the midwest.)

The Odyssey of the Rosemary

(Thank you, Gardening-4-Life, for giving me the inspiration for today's post.)

Sometimes I really envy zone 7 and zone 8 gardeners.  They can grow so much that we can't here in upstate NY.  Plants such as camellias, one of my favorite flower.  And, they can grow plants outdoors all year that we have to take in, or plant as annuals.  Things such as paperwhites.  Dahlias. And rosemary.

To grow rosemary in upstate NY you have to have a strong back, and a good sense of weather timing.  Let me explain....

In the late 1980's (I forget the exact year), we went somewhere and saw rosemary plants for sale.  At that time, it was not that common to find herbs for sale, at least around here.  We bought two plants.

Our local neighborhood groundhog quickly took care of one of the plants.  But the other one thrived.

Problem:  we knew the plant wouldn't survive the fall.  So come fall, dear spouse potted up the plant and brought it inside.  Little did he know of the odyssey he was embarking on.

Rosemary is not that easy to grow indoors (it tends to get too dry) so the first quest was to find out how to keep it moist, but not too moist. And, we had to find a sunny place for it.  At that time, we didn't have any nice sunny windows.  So spouse had to rig up a lighting system.  All for one little plant.  But spouse loves to use rosemary in his cooking.

That winter was a type of hopscotch.  If it warmed up, the plant went out.  If it was cooling off the plant went back in.  Out, in.  Out, in.  A lot more in than out, because our winters tend to be very snowy, cold-and long.  But we noticed that the plant looked better if it could spend even a few hours outside.  We knew, though, that it wouldn't survive much of a frost.

The plant made it, and the next year it went back into the ground once danger of frost was past. (For us, that's usually early to mid May.)

Then in the fall, back into a (larger) pot, and back indoors when our first frost threatened to hit in October.

Sometimes, when we brought the plant in, spouse would accidentally knock off a branch.   One time, (this was before the Internet, so we couldn't just run to our computers and look stuff like this up) spouse got the idea to put the sprig in water and see what happened.  To his delight, it grew roots.  He potted it, and now we had two plants. And then three.

Over the years, the original rosemary plant got larger and larger.  It bloomed, beautiful little purple flowers.  Its trunk was like wood, gnarled, like a large bonsai. There were some close calls with cold weather.  Spouse experimented with various types of overwintering.  For some years, he used the basement (with a grow light).  As our son grew older we had the use of a former bedroom, and the plant did better there.

The plant got larger and larger.  Fortunately spouse is very strong and (unlike me) a strong back.  It was no problem to transport the matriarch rosemary plant in and out.

The years passed.  The babies were adults now, in large pots, too.  And the matriarch kept going.

Finally, a couple of years ago, the unthinkable happened.  We left the plants out and it got down to about 28 degrees.  The younger plants were frostbit, but we were able to nurse them back to health.

It was too late for the matriarch.

Almost the entire plant died.  One little branch survived, but it was obvious the plant wasn't going to make it. Spouse finally clipped off the last little branch and put it in water.

The matriarch lived, we think, about 18 years.  The oldest "child" now is about 18 years old, too.

We still have the matriarch in our back yard.  Last year, a volunteer tomato plant sprouted near it and grew up using the dead rosemary as support.  We tied it to the gnarled trunk.  The frost came, the tomato plant died, and we left the pot out for the winter.

This spring, it's still out there.  Spouse has taken a couple of clippings of it still fragrant trunk for special BBQ's. He intends to continue to use it until it's gone.

A fitting end to a special plant.

The Mystery Wartime Photo

On my almost daily walks through downtown Binghamton, I frequently pass a number of historic buildings, among them the Security Mutual building.

(The Security Mutual website features a very nice history of the building and company, for those interested.)

Several weeks ago, scaffolding appeared around the building.  Some window work is being done. Two or three weeks ago some banners appeared, strung between the supports of the scaffolding.  One of them features a photo it says was taken of employees, right outside the front entrance, on Christmas Day 1943.

It's hard to see the photo (I had to stand in the street to take this and I tried to get the entire banner into the shot) but the photo contains mainly women.  There are only a few men, and they are old.  This tracks with the fact that this photo was taken during World War II.  The young men were fighting overseas.

How many Security Mutual employees went off to war?  Did they all return safely?  I don't know.

Were all of these women working there before the war?  Or did some take the place of the soldier employees, to disappear into the home again after the fighting was over?

Then, I had still another question.  Right now I have no answer to this question, either.

What were they doing there on Christmas Day, 1943, instead of being with their families back at home?

Did Security Mutual ask them to come in for a company sponsored Christmas dinner?  Or, because of the war effort, did they have to work?

Why the photo, to begin with?  Was it sent to soldier overseas?  Was it done to boost morale?

I would love to know the story behind this photo.

Memories of Tornado Alley Past

So much tragedy in the past few days, between Joplin, MO and now Oklahoma.  TV and the Internet brings us a taste of the suffering and tragedy that has resulted.    It brings back memories of living in Tornado Alley, years ago. 

Sunday, I was alerted to the tornado in Joplin on-where else, but Facebook.  I turned on the Weather Channel.  A team of Weather Channel stormchasers had almost rammed into the back of the tornado.  The weather had delayed them, otherwise they would have arrived in Joplin just in time to be swept up into Oz.

They arrived at a local hospital to find a parking lot that looked like a junkyard.  A hospital had been hit.  Rubble of former buildings was everywhere. The only thing I could think of was....how many dead under that rubble?

When I lived in Tornado Alley, I met people who had survived tornadoes.  It is an experience you never forget and I'm glad I never had that experience. The trauma colors the rest of your life.  The one thing everyone remembered was the sound.  A tornado set to strike you sounds like a train  The largest train you could ever imagine.  Roaring so loud it can shatter your eardrums.

Yet, most of the time you are not dodging tornadoes or listening to tornado warnings (contrary to popular opinion).  Actually, it becomes a part of your everyday life.  Many people live all their lives out there without coming close to a tornado-yes, really.  And, in general, spring is a gorgeous time of year out there.


Memories of living in Kansas flood into my mind, from the safety of the Southern Tier of Upstate NY.


When I lived in Kansas back in the late 1970's, there would be a special symbol in the lower right hand corner of the TV screen if we were under a tornado watch.  A different symbol if it was a warning.  This was before Wichita had cable TV.  We listened to the broadcast networks: CBS, NBC, ABC.  The CBS stations in Kansas had banded into the "Kansas State Network" so they could better keep people informed of bad weather, hence the symbols.  The "tornado watch, tornado warning" became an almost everyday feature of life in the springtime.  We had no Weather Channel, no doppler radar.   We did have warning sirens.  The same sirens that put fear into my life as a child (too many duck-and-cover drills) now would be warning me to take cover from nature.

I remember seeing the sky turn black as night at 9:30 on a summer morning, one day at work.  I remember storms where the sky turned green, where rain came down so hard you couldn't see the road in front of you.  You haven't experienced Kansas weather until you've seen the ground covered in summer snow, but it isn't snow-it is large hail, and your garden has been pounded into submission.

But now those memories flood back live, and in color, online and on TV.  Yesterday evening I watched the Weather Channel, again live, picking up the live feed of Channel 4 in Oklahoma City.  A storm chaser was surrounded (literally) by tornadoes.  As he drove down the road, a utility pole snapped in two and rose into the air, barely missing the car, like some kind of special effect. 

I understand that storm left at least two dead.

Spring.  Beautiful....and deadly.

Yes, our turn will come.  Our turn will come in mid-June.  Not as bad as Tornado Alley but I'm not looking forward to it.

Now to enjoy the calm while we can.

So Where Do I Like to Write?

So, hmmmm....where do I like to write from?  Well, since the Internet has allowed us to roam almost anywhere to write, thanks to laptops and other devices, the possibilities are endless.

There are a lot of places I WISH I could write from. For example, I wish I could be writing from a comfy chair at a nice motel in Sanibel Island, Florida. (alligators optional.)

I can imagine myself sitting in a quiet garden in Prince Edward Island, Canada.

Or, inside a lovely historic Bed and Breakfast in Americus, Georgia, while lingering over an awesome breakfast.

Or, last but certainly not least, from Massee Lane Gardens in Georgia (at least during the winter!)

But, you know what?  I'm not in any of these places.  You know what they say....be happy where you are planted.

Where I am is in a yard in upstate New York.  The sun is shining (miracle) and the birds are singing!  So right now, I don't mind this being my place to write at all.

New Directions as the Blogathon enters Its Last Week

New directions for people in my life....and a new direction for this blog?

But before I begin.....I used to live in Northwest Arkansas, and my heart goes out to the victims of the Joplin, MO tornado.  I never visited but I went through Joplin several times during the early and mid 1980's.

And now, back to upstate New York.

1.  My cousin graduated yesterday from Binghamton University.  She loved her four years there, but is going to go to graduate school in another city.  She grew up in New York City, fell in love with Binghamton in her college years, but also likes Manhattan.  She's at the beginning of her adult life - so many directions she can go in.  I wish her the best.  I will do the world a favor and not give her any unsolicited advice.

2.  Another relative, earlier this week, bade farewell to his job - he had worked for this employer (through a number of buyouts and takeovers - so it wasn't the same ownership as he started out with but all his benefits carried forward from owner to owner) for over 30 years.  He was laid off.  He wasn't totally surprised, having survived several other layoffs. He follows his wife, who was laid off in March.  They both see this as the opening of new possibilities, but also face uncertainty.  Many of us have been there before-too many, in this new world of ours.

3.  And last, but not least - the Blogathon has made me think.  Made me think of what I want to do with this blog.  I've been posting a lot of flower pictures recently, because someone I know is going through a very hard time right now, and I want her to know she is in my thoughts.  I know she loves these types of photos.  But this kind of thing is not totally normal for this blog, which has no set topic.  So:
-should I devote it to one topic?  Or maybe several related topics?
-should I include more photos?  (I don't think I am a horrid photographer, but I could certainly use practice.)
-how should I further hone my writing skills?  should I try to take my amateur writing to the "next level", whatever the next level is?  If #2 above happens to me, then what?

For now, I will keep on ramblin...I even feel more Civil War haikus coming on! (run for the hills!) But for the future after the Blogathon - ??????  Is anyone else feeling a need to reassess due to the Blogathon?

More Dispatches from the Binghamton Rain Festival (aka "Spring")

No, there isn't any such thing as the Binghamton Rain Festival.  But if there was one, it would be in full swing right now.  I've been through drought and I've been through too much rain, and I honesty don't know which one is worse.

During this week, our lilacs bloomed.  By the time I got to them for cut flowers, they were already rotting on the bushes.  I never did get to pick any for indoor bouquets.  I also missed taking pictures of neighborhood dogwoods.

Right now, the main season bearded irises are starting to come out.  I should have pictures later this week of some irises. Azaleas and rhododendrons are also in bloom.  Between yesterday and today, I took these pictures for your enjoyment.

I believe these azaleas (yellow) are "Mollis" azaleas. These are deciduous azaleas which bloom before they fully leaf out, in colors of orange or yellow.   I caught a pink dogwood, basically done with blooming,on the right.

In a nearby yard, was an example of an orange azalea.

This house featured a lovely blend of a pink dogwood and a Japanese maple.

This may be a spirea, trimmed into a "ball".  Spireas do not seem to do as well here as in other parts of the country I've lived in. (they seemed to thrive especially in southeast Kansas.)

This house also had a nice combination of red azaleas and a white flowering tree, although the tree in front didn't do much for the composition of the photo.

In other gardening news, a big yellow ball appeared in the sky a couple of times this week when there were breaks in the clouds.  We were all puzzled by its appearance.  Was it a UFO?  When it came out, it got warmer, and it felt so good.  Also, the light was blinding to eyes used to the constant cloud cover.  But it only came out while I was at work.  By the time I got home, it was again drizzling, or raining. 

Many people here are starting to ask "are we going to have a summer"?


Let's hope so.

The Peregrine Falcons of Downtown Binghamton, NY

One of the joys of working in our downtown area here in Binghamton, New York, is knowing that high above you, a pair of peregrine falcons is taking care of business. 

Back in 2001, a pair set up on top of the Security Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York building, and proceeded to nest.  They (and another pair that took over at some point, I believe), make this an annual ritual.

I have been fortunate enough to see the falcons several times over the years.  Sometimes, bird watchers set up near the Broome County Court house when they are sighted, and allow noonday office workers out and about at lunch to share their binoculars.  And, enough times....how do I say this delicately, but if I have to walk past the Security Mutual building, I must step around....er, the remains of their lunch.  Pigeons are their favorite, and they are choosy about which parts they eat.

I understand they can dive at 200 miles per hour.  I've never seen one take prey, but I have heard their haunting screeches.

In June of 2008, someone I know who works in the Security Mutual building sent me these photos.  I would like to share these photos with you.

Thank you, Donna, for these photos. As Donna explained at the time:

"Please enjoy the pictures of the male, baby Falcon, approximately 3 months old, that hit the window of the Security Mutual Building around lunch time, and decided to take a little rest on the ledge, outside offices on the 8th floor, before he took off flying to join the rest of his family.  We learned from the DEC (Department of Environmental Conservation) that this may have been his maiden flight."  

The building visible in most of the pictures is the Broome County Courthouse.

This is an action sequence.  The bird rests on the ledge, a bit stunned, recovers, and then finally flies away. 

The pigeons may not be happy to have the falcons in town, but many office workers in downtown Binghamton are thrilled to have the falcons live among us.

 Here, the falcon peeks into the 8th floor offices.

What a beautiful sight.

 A very nice closeup.

 Great shot down Court Street, as the bird prepares to take off.  And finally, the happy ending.

 
The young birds, sadly, do not always survive to adulthood.  But I believe this one did.