I want to do that...

While snuggling with Miss Paige on Sunday we saw a commercial for the Tour de France. Our conversation went something like this...
"Hey mom! I want to do that!"
Her face was all lit up like this was the best thing she had ever seen on television. She went back to being engrossed in the commercial.
After it was over she turned and said with a very serious little face, "You want to do it with me?"
Oh how John and I laughed and laughed... Sweetie, I'm definitely not up for the Tour de France today. I do hope that you keep dreaming BIG.
Promised to take her for a bike ride this week. I'm such a sucker for cute curly headed little girls.

Green Wizard...

What is a Green Wizard? Well it's a coneflower, Rudbeckia fulgida 'Green Wizard'. My favorite description reads, "This unusual black-eyed Susan is the black eye without the Susan!" I try to buy one packet of quirky seeds each year. I started six from seed. Two plants made it thru winter. We didn't have blooms last year but we do this year. The pollen will come off of the bloom soon and then I will enjoy this black cone for the rest of the summer. Here's a link to one of the many purveyors of seed packets...

My sweet miniature rose bush is blooming again. This bloom is just shy of an inch across so the photo is actually bigger than the bloom.

Happy bicolor rose... pretty no?
So hope you enjoyed visiting my garden today.

Working in the garden...

I actually got shots of the girls working at "The Botanicals"....most of the time they only play but "Mr. Matt's spray that smelled like dinner" was to good for Sydney to resist. Once Syd started helping then Paige had to help too. Kate well she's just gathering bugs. She's knows beneficial insects and isn't allowed to capture them. Bugs.....good for hours and hours of fun.

Mr. Preying Mantis is only an 3/4 to 1 inch long! The big stalks are actually chives. Checkout his hiding technique between the two chives.Pretty little purple hot peppers on a compact plant...not sure on the variety(I'll double check tomorrow!) Peppers are about an inch long and each little plant produces a bunch. Okay I just can't stop myself from thinking this. Peter piper picked a peck of purple peppers. Glad I got that out my head sorry to put it in yours.

Through the Garden Gate...

Oh how I love my garden gate. Discovered in the rubbish in our former chicken coop/toy stashing area. Erected by my John and Jim Allen former resident on this property. This gate was used by Jim's father who had a garden on this spot back in the day. Love the family history involved in this gate. Jim found out that I wanted to use the gate someday and went and bought some posts. Viola! John even bought a nifty latch (not pictured) and attached some plastic mesh at the bottom to keep out all of the angels of destruction, a.k.a bunnies and cute little baby bunnies. The gate looks like it stands alone because you can't see the chicken wire fencing surrounding the Garden. Gardens are magical places, gates the enticement to see what's on the other side. Here's a poem that I love about gardens.

Garden Gate

trampled pathway
kutzu vine binds access
chokes once thriving plants
tattered garden gate
guards broken dreams
hopeless probabilities
terra cotta memories

hears silent sounds
swings open

aspirations lost
now unfurl
abandoned visions
misplaced expectations
gathering possibilities
flourishing again

D.A. Hemingway

MOM!!!!

We've been outside today...it is beautiful, a little hot in the sun but perfect in the shade. I was weeding my shade garden. Things I discovered today in the garden... stinging nettle- AGAIN! For the love of a horse you'd think I'd learn. Every year this happens, I don't wear gloves and Wow! My hands are still stinging seven hours later. Here is a photo of the offending plant make yourself familiar...

Stinging Nettle shootsStinging Nettle stems
Stinging Nettle Flowers

Nature is gross... alright finding dead feathered nature while you're weeding is gross. I planned on conducting a speedy burial so that the smallest Rapplings wouldn't find out. Most moms don't yell frantically for a shovel to be delivered to the back yard. Kate wanted to know, "Mom what is wrong with you?" I sent Kate to the garage to quickly retrieve the shovel. I finally realized five minutes later that she had moved on to another project when she couldn't immediately locate the shovel. Completely forgetting to let me know that she was moving on to another task more urgent to her ten year old self. I will admit she is definitely my daughter. I left the dead nature hidden in the weeds and retrieved the necessary burial tool myself. Luckily Paige and Sydney still hadn't asked what I was up to. I was not in the mood for a burial ceremony, complete with eulogy, that all dead nature requires if discovered by the little ladies.

Later Kate invited Faith over. She is lot of fun. The girls went hunting toads. We have a lot of toads of the American variety, Bufo Americanus living in our shady spots. As I was walking out to the studio to see what the ladies wanted for lunch.

Kate burst out of the door, almost knocking me down, "Mom! Mom!!!! They're mating."
Me, "Really??! How many toads do you have, exactly?"

Kate, "Only three mom.... but just two are mating. We looked it up on the Internet."

At this point I was disbelieving but thought I should go check out the "fun" going on in my studio. Amongst my piles of fabric, paper, and general kid messiness were two toad habitats. The girls had separated the mating toads from the non-mating toad.

This is when Kate announced..."So we know how to tell the difference between the boy and girl toads!"

I just kept thinking good lord NOOOO!!!!! Poor Faith!
AND I DEFINITELY didn't want to have this discussion with Sydney today! Believe me we've had quite interesting talks with Sydney or Paige and when you put Sydney, Paige and Kate together for these "conversations" you won't have always get the facts but you also won't stop laughing for hours.

"So mom do you want to know how? You squeeze them!"

"What???!!!" Poor, poor toads.

"Well you squeeze them... and the boys well.... (wait for it) the boys make a sound when you squeeze them and the girls don't! And mom it worked! The boy and girl toad are definitely mating!!!"

Amen to children looking up scientific information on the Internet! I pulled up this website so that in the future Kate, Faith and Sydney would know how to correctly identify toads without squeezing them to death.

On the way into the house while laughing Faith stopped me and said, "Oh, when I came into the studio to check on the toads a, well.... a squirrel ran out the door right at me."
REALLY it all happened here TODAY!!!

No toads or squirrels were harmed in the creation of this blog... they only had the pee scared out of them.

Happy Birthday little swan...

We have anxiously been awaiting the appearance of a baby swan. There are signs posted to protect the unsuspecting visitor from Swan Rage. The girls love "daddy" swan's posturing. Whenever we arrive at the garden one of the first things done is to check and see if they can see the BABY! Well Miss Lucy told us that one of the three eggs had hatched in the past couple of days. Not thirty seconds later we saw mom with the little one tagging along behind. Perfect. Kate's photo... all the rest belong to me

but Kate deserved credit for her beautiful shot.

I'm sure that by the next trip to the botanicals each girl

will have a different name for the newest resident of the gardens.

My littlest gardener...

Caught Paige and Sydney dead heading the grape hyacinths. I mentioned that I needed to do this in passing a few days before. They went to work on their own. Scissors are always available in my gardening bucket. Sydney got frustrated with sharing her job and went to the car. Paige stayed the course. Luckily I saw her and was able to supervise before things got out of hand. Obviously they listened and thought they'd help me out.

Orange, definitely my favorite...

Here's a few photos that made my day. The Rose Garden at TBG is beautiful. I've met a few photographers that come in every Tuesday and some Thursdays to take photos. Both of them have a spray bottle with water. I took advantage of the "dewy" roses. Some of these are going up on my wall soon.

Graham Thomas...

That's the name of this rose. My favorite in my garden... Yes I did take this one too!

Really Jennifer I still take photos!

Miss Jennifer was dishing out a little sass that I haven't been taking a lot of photos lately. I find that I post the fun things that Kate, Syd, and Paige do. While anything we do as a family requires me to reign in the littlest Rappling to keep her out of trouble. That requires John to be on photographer duty. Yes Kate, I said duty. Foxglove... I love the spots.
I wonder what color mine will be next year?

These are pinkish so Charlene do you need a copy?

These are glass fish in the pond at TBG. In march the girls and I discovered two dead Koi from the pond freezing all the way down to where they hide in the bottom. Well Paige talked about it for days and days. So when we spotted these Paige had found some more "dead fish." We were all relieved when we discovered that they are glass. Pretty sweet actually.

Monet? Don't blame him I love the water lillies too. Amazing irises.

Practicing with my camera on moving objects...like a few water droplets.

Right before she tripped on a tree stump and we had to leave due to technical difficulties.

I love this garden, the gazebo, and the pond.

See I really do still take pictures.

Photographed Thursday the 11th of June

Day Trippin'

We had an adventure today! John had a paper due for Ohio history that required us too visit a few places....Here I'll let him tell you.
The mission, if I chose to accept it, was to visit three historic sites, three natural sites and two contemporary sites in Ohio. The message was delivered via a syllabus and would not self destruct in any amount of time, but the task needed to be completed by June 18, 2009 and time was running short. As the deadline grew near I decided to enlist the assistance of a top notch team of road trippers (my wife and three daughters) and we set out to see just how many sights we could indeed see. Supplies for this mission we few. We had one van, one full tank of gas and a half full box of granola bars. Armed with Google map directions and an Ohio road map and little money, we set out for a day long adventure. The date was June 12, 2009 and the team was briefed on the mission. We would arrive at each destination, take a few pictures, enjoy and then speed away to the next location. There was to be no complaining or whining from the team or they would be left behind or reprimanded when we returned to base camp and sequestered to their barracks (translated: when we get home they would be sent to their room for the night).

Oak Openings is an amazing metro park. We went on an adventure to see the sand dunes a great favorite with the girls.

Yep...John Rapp, he has skills.

Awwww... I love when they are nice to each other!

Sydney and I got a lot of hand holding in too.

Really give my girls sand and they're happy for hours.

Want to learn more about this amazing area? Here's a great link.

Marblehead lighthouse... Kate and Syd loved the waves and tried

to guess how high they would come on the rock

and run back away from them. Paige wanted nothing to do

with the waves and insisted I sit down....

far, far away from them.... "They're scary." Yes they are GETTING ALONG!

Not pushing each other off the edge or anything.

I was waiting for Sydney's shoes to drop into the waves,

slip-ons might not have been the best choice

A lighthouse... waves... fishing...

"Mom when can we go fishing?

What about tomorrow?

Do you think we can come back?"

Yeah, fishing one thing I don't know how to do

East Harbor State Park...I expected the water to be cold,(which is why we don't have swimsuits for the girls) but it wasn't! The beach is shallow, at most knee deep, out to the breakers 250 to 300 feet out. Much fun for little girlies.

Here are the photographic proof that we actually went with him!

See he's even in the picture.