Saturday Night Fun - Wordles!

Randy's Saturday Night Fun for this week is Wordles, which was inspired by John Newmark! What's a Wordle? It is a graphic representation of text that can be created at wordle.net but be forewarned - you can spend a lot of time playing with the various font and directional settings.

These surname Wordles were created back in July of last year for my maternal and fraternal lines, Phend and Wiseman, respectively. (As always, click on the images for a larger version.)


This facebook wordle was also created in July '08

And this one for the Genea-Blogger Group Games was created in August '08

Goodbye Florida Keys

We waved a sad goodbye to the Florida Keys today.



As sad as we were to leave, we were happy to be heading to Fort Lauderdale again. We spent the night with Bryce, Renie and our grandkids. We got them a Wii game for Christmas and had fun playing that together. Liv and I did some crafts and chatted. Gabe adored Austin and spent as much time by his side as he could. The dogs snuggled up to Nathan. We had a wonderful time.



Austin has been sick this past week and I'm afraid he passed it on to me. So I am looking forward to heading out tomorrow where we will stay put for three weeks. I'm hoping I can rest and heal there.



Happy Holidays!

Ridlington - Brooke - Preston - Ridlington

About 9 miles. With Maureen and Barry.





I forgot the magic tracking machine, so I'm trying to write this from memory and a map. Barry was leading this one, and I don't pay as much attention!



Parked in the corner of the sports field, walked back towards the village and followed the footpath sign down Noel Lane, past 'The Old Noel Arms' and cottages.

Ridlington Church

We followed the path across fields towards the river Chater and some 'fish ponds', turning right along a quiet road, shortly after a bridge in a field of pale orange sheep.







This forms the MacMillan/Leighfield Way, passing Priors Coppice on our left. When we reached a T junction we turned right for a few hundred yards, then left at a crossroads into Brooke.











There we went past the church and took a slightly hidden path (because workmen had placed their portaloo strategically) to the right.

No risk of activating these.

Preston Church

(tbc)

First Papaver

The first bloom on my Papaver commutatum 'Ladybird' from Annie's Annuals.

Spring Lightning

Last night saw the first lightning storm of the year come over Grand Portage Bay... at least, the first one that produced lightning strong enough to photograph. These images were captured from the beach in front of my house on Grand Portage Bay at about 1:30 a.m.

Photos After the Rain

I thought my garden was going to be shut out of the rain-game when we'd had none by Tuesday morning. The many posts by rejoicing Austin bloggers made me glad for them, but glum for our part of town. Then the Roulette Wheel of Rain spun around to NW Austin on Tuesday afternoon, and by Wednesday morning the gauge showed an inch-and-three quarters of precious moisture. Hallelujah!

Another half-inch fell Thursday evening - from feeling unlucky we went to feeling very lucky. This afternoon a bonus 3/4 inch came down a little too fast and too hard with more possible over the weekend.

A few weeks ago, worried as the drought continued, I turned on John Dromgoole's call-in radio show, and heard his voice remind us what kind of leafy green vegetables we should plan to plant in late summer and assure us that when the August rains came our gardens would perk up.
Yes, he said when - not if. Maybe John was whistling in the dark, but he made me feel better, and he was right. During the last few dry months I've hand-watered the borders, shrubs and trees and each day I filled the four birdbaths. Enough moisture traveled through the ground to keep the strips of lawn adjacent to those watered areas alive. In the shady parts of the yard the grass isn't lush but it's alive. In sunny places any grass more than 2-feet from an irrigated section is brown. St. Augustine doesn't go dormant - it dies - so there are completely dead patches and the parkway's in sad shape.
Now is the time to watch, wait, think, and take photos so I can analyze what worked and what didn't and what should be changed. Did you notice that there are photos today? The last camera didn't work out, so Philo and I bought a different point-and-shoot camera and are experimenting with it. It's fairly simple but with more settings than my old EasyShare.

Unless noted, these photos were uploaded without enhancements - no contrast, no color balancing or sharpening - they're just cut and reduced to 130KB or less - my usual blog photo size - so I can test how they look on the page.

There's enough detail to see that while the blossom of the Blue Butterfly Flower/Clerodendrum ugandense has gone to seed since GBBD, new buds are forming and the blue bloom will go on. I can show you the way rained-on Silver gray Lambs Ears/Stachys byzantina look with orange Crocosmia.
The camera can get in close enough to catch the way neither heat, drought nor storms could destroy the Balloon Flowers/Platycodon 'Fuji White'.
I can get your ideas on why one Persian Shield/Strobilanthes dyerianus plant responded to the rain with entire branches wilting and looking awful...while the second Persian Shield 4 feet away looks refreshed and revived. One was in shade and the other in sun when I took the photos, but in the course of a day they get the same mixture of filtered light.

I can share my excitement at taking a picture of this bee on the Salvia coccinea. It wouldn't be a big deal to most of you but it's my best Bee Photo to date - the EasyShare couldn't do this much.

Today there are no Passionvine flowers, but there's a Gulf Fritillary caterpillar - the first I've seen this year.

Today you don't just hear the news that the seedling Blue Butterfly Pea/Clitorea ternatea vines have reached for the top of the obelisk and are in bloom - I can show it to you
I can also show you a crummy photo of the Cypress Vine/Ipomoea quamoclit which gets daily visits from hummingbirds. Here's an even worse look at one of the hummingbirds - even after I used Photoshop Elements on the picture. My hummers don't hover at feeders but zip quickly around an entire garden planted to entice them. There's nowhere I can hide to sneak a snap so I took it with auto settings from about 15-20 feet away. Even a bad photo of a hummingbird is a triumph when it's the only hummingbird photo in 4 years of trying! I think of this little blur more as evidence than art - Mary's photos of the birds at her feeders can be art. Buying a better camera can't turn me into a bird blogger or a bug blogger or a macro-flower blogger - but I hope that this one will let me illustrate or document the things I want to talk about.

For two years I've tried to take a photo of this native rainlily for the blog. It's called Copper Lily or Habranthus tubispathus . I couldn't make either my EasyShare or the returned camera capture it, but today you can see right down to the pollen why I was so happy that these bright little lilies popped up in my yard.

Two Days of Christmas

In Europe, there are two days of Christmas, the 25th and the 26th. The Christmas tradition in the Netherlands is usually spent with the family, and in most cases the event is highlighted with a grand dinner on either of the two Christmas Days. For the religious flock, they attend the nachtmis (night mass) on the eve of the first day of Christmas.

This year the second Dutch sister is hosting the family dinner. Next year seems to be our turn? Hmm, I hope by that time we will be in our new house.


After the late afternoon tea we had in the living room, the kids moved outside to roast some marshmallows over an open fire. I joined in and realized for the 1076th time in the foto above how SMALL I truly am! The kids have grown so fast; they are now taller than me even with my high heels on!

The Netherlands, known to be the country of the giants (tallest people on earth - I swear it must be the milk and cheese!) is a bad place to be for midgets like me ha-ha! Well, Madonna, Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears and Kylie Minogue (I am taller than Kylie!) are midgets too ;-)

This is also the year that I did not put up a tree. I got busy with work = stress. I am actually done for the year and have over performed but in business, the powers-that-be always try to squeeze every little ounce of revenue they can out of you. So no Christmas tree this year, but I bought two pointsettias and a generous bunch of eucalyptus for that fresh pungent holiday season smell to linger in the air.

Anywho, our last 3 days were splendid! We spent them sleeping in, having late brunches and doing almost nothing. Heerlijk.