In the Nursery

As the last few pictures attest, my only frequent activity these days is in the garden. The calendar suggested the beets and potatoes were ready for harvesting, but I wasn't sure, having never grown either. So, I dug up one potato plant. To my delight, there were two perfect, new potatoes. To my dismay, I may have wiped out several more that still needed time to grow, as evidenced by the tiny red dots you can observe to the right of the "ready" potatoes. I boiled them, along with the baby beet I harvested (honestly no bigger than a cherry), and had a very simple lunch seasoned with fresh pepper, butter, and parsley from the garden. The potatoes melted in my mouth.

I tried tamping the tiny spuds back in the ground, but I'm afraid I've likely killed any potential potatoes on that plant. It looked pretty wilted when I went back outside. But I am excited that I will have SOME potatoes.

On the bottom right you can see a baby butternut squash. This will be a first for me as well.

So that is all the news I have from the veggie nursery. I'm looking at a macro lens, which should improve shots of smaller, close-up objects. We'll see.

Sunday Afternoon

I wish I had been able to capture the light as well as it looked while taking the picture. Friends were over cooking and visiting with us. Deli had just finished chopping vegetables on the new table I set in the corner of the kitchen for a breakfast nook. I picked the gardenias Sunday before they arrived--I wish you could smell how wonderful they are.

While standing in the kitchen, I turned around to see the light falling on the corner of the table, the splash of white against the heart pine walls, and I new I needed a photograph.

Veggie Tales

Isn't that lovely! This is the first blossom of the butternut squash growing in the garden. I should call it the accidental squash because we had thrown squash guts into the compost bin and found 10 little seedlings growing a week or so later. I planted all 10, but the dogs and cat relieved me of some of the seedlings; I was a wee bit mad about that because only three survived the pet attack. However, looking at the space those three take up in the garden, I'm glad their numbers are limited!

I'm not pleased with the past two months of 30-day Detour postings, so when June hits, I'm going to alternate with a poem and a photo each day--I think I should have time then.

Encore Provence

There has been no time to play with the camera--probably there will be no time until after next week, so I bringing up another photo from my 2008 trip to France. We left Paris on the TGV, a high-speed train, and arrived in Avignon after about two hours. After spending the night there, we began our whirlwind tour with stops just outside Avignon to see the Roman ruins of aqueducts, then to Arles where we saw the ruins of a Roman amphitheatre, and through Nimes and an ancient Roman coliseum.

Then we turned toward Provence and the villages of Peter Mayle's series of books on Provence. Glenna and I stumbled upon this castle ruin when we took a wrong turn somewhere in the Luberon. If I remember correctly, this facade was across the valley from Gordes.

Glenna was a little worried about getting out of the car and poking around the grounds, but I didn't think we could pass up the opportunity to wander just a bit. Whether the area surrounding the castle walls had been a moat or perhaps an interior garden between an outer wall and the castle wall, I cannot say. But it was a fun little adventure none-the-less!

She and I hope to make our way back to Paris in the next year or two, and maybe we'll be able to wander dusty roads of the French countryside once more!

Sweet Jasmine

The weather is still pleasant, even cool at times, here in Alabama; so pleasant, in fact, we've been eating family dinner and had dinner with a friend on the deck in recent weeks. Sitting at the table, a light breeze washes us in the scent of jasmine.

This is my favorite time of year. Skies are clear and blue, and something is in bloom all the time. Spring showers wash everything, making the world look fresh and green. In a couple of weeks, we'll have gardenias in bloom and some old-fashioned pink roses with the most heavenly scent.

Ahhh. Spring.

Theme Day (a day late)

One of my favorite blogs--one I've followed for a couple of years now--is Paris Daily Photo. The blog is part of a network of blogs that feature photographers from all over the world who post photographs each day of life in their respective cities. The first of the month is always theme day, and the May 1 theme was mailboxes. While I think my mailbox is more picturesque than the one featured on PDP, I am late, and I didn't have time to use manual settings. I shot this on the way out the door to work, so I chose automatic focus; however, it didn't focus automatically, as my first picture would attest. But, it did take care of aperture and shutter speed for me as I was in a hurry out the door. I've always loved the look of vines adorning a mailbox, so I decided to take the challenge--one day late in America, two days late in Paris. Unfortunately, the iris have already bloomed, but the lovely Clematis is still performing!

Tomorrow is another early day to work, so I'm not sure that I'll use the manual settings, but I'm going to try very hard to have a picture posted. A photograph a day is much more manageable than a poem a day!

Kudos

Kudos to all my friends who bravely accepted--and completed the challenge of NaPoWriMo by writing a poem a day, or at least 30 poems in 30 days. As you can see, I was not able to do so, in part because I made my other blog my first priority, and work got in the way.

Because I recently bought a new camera (new to me), my next detour is going to be photography. My Nikon D60 has manual and automatic settings, and I want to practice using the manual settings. Years ago, I used a Pentax 1000, which was nothing but manual, and took some pretty decent shots, so I'm ready to reacquaint myself with shutter speed and aperture.

Today, I'm going to cheat and post one of my favorite photos from France. My best friend Glenna and I were in the Luberon in the South of France one beautiful May several years ago. After four or five days in Paris, we took the train south to Avignon, rented a car, and made a whirlwind tour of Roman ruins in various towns--Arles, Nimes, and somewhere near Avignon where ancient aquaducts can be seen. We then went up into the Luberon to see towns like Bonnieux, Apt, and Menerbes. I was forever asking her to stop so that I could take pictures of poppies. This photograph is from Bonnieux, one of the small towns in the mountains where lavender and poppies bloom profusely along the roads.