Phyllis and flowers

Phyllis, my mother, was the first flower gardener I knew as a child and I have vivid memories of some of her flowers that grew in our yard from those early days in the late 1950s. I returned home to Manassas in 1985 after years of study and fun in New York City to find she had let flower gardening slide and I dreamed of rebuilding a big flowering garden. With a lot of free time and the suburban luxury of the big yard in I began to discover gardening and Phyllis has supported our garden delights ever since. I was inspired also after I worked for a few years in a flower shop in NYC, called Pure Mädderlake, where I learned the names of lots of cut flowers and developed a taste for some really nice varieties. In Manassas I had a chance to try and grow them if I could find them and make it work in our climate and soil. Seems from this flower gardening I have developed an ever expanding interest in the environment and the natural world. 

This week I set out to take Phyllis to a native plants ground cover talk hosted by the Virginia Native Plants Society downtown Manassas. It was a great experience to be in a room with some many people interested in local native plants and the speaker Janet Davis from Hill House Farm and Nursery was inspired giving us lots to think about in the way a garden is constructed and grown. I recognized several plants during the slide show from experiences in gardening and walking the trails of the area. This plant we brought home seems to be the same one I was obsessed with photographing on my hike out at the Battlefield recently that was growing and blooming throughout the meadows and at the woods edge. 

I hope it grows for us in our home garden as well as it does out in the open untended fields of the battlefield park . 

The home garden was looking good, full of flowers and creatures. A few of them I had close encounters with and brought back images to share. 

While staking and tying up tall flowers in the front flower beds I nearly jumped out of my skin when I lifted a long bough of phlox to step into the garden and nearly stepped right on top of this great eastern box turtle. It's the first time we have seen one in the garden. 

This lovely sphinx moth that looked like a small humming bird or a really big bumble bee was all over the flowering butterfly bush and other deep throat flower trumpets sipping the nectar. It's Moth Week so I was excited to get home and discover I had some images of a very cool one who lives and flies in daylight hours. Its called a Snowberry Clearwing Hemaris diffinis fully described in the hot link. 

Sweet gum or Liquid amber tree by the old Koi pond still stands out in the back yard.

Virginia Creeper native vine 

 Our neighbor down Lomond Drive has six honey bee hives discreetly located behind a six foot tall fence and those bees are regular visitors now to the flowers and especially the purple flowering hyssop that smells like licorice candy when you crush the leaves. Makes me wonder if sipping that nectar impacts the flavor of his honey?

Last but not least the birds were always on my mind and in view when I looked for them in the trees around the house. These cardinals showed up twice and the catbird modeled in a low branch of the crepe myrtle trees for a nice portrait. 

I think I remember in grade school we were given little golden books to help identify various things like an adult I use books and now the internet to look up what I can. Though I never liked to read as a kid those picture books were endlessly interesting because of the great pictures and they helped me look more closely at the world around us where we played in the back yard and on trips to SW Virginia the woods the fields where we learned to respect the dangers and appreciate the other creatures in the world. It feels like I still have a lot to learn about the world around us.

winter is really extra cold

The other day we had one inch of snow that was powdery and didn't stick together because it is so cold here this winter. I noticed that the river was freezing over last week when I drove out to VA over the 14th St. bridge and thought that was unusual to see. This week local news shows us how cold DC really is by having a live reporter standing next to the frozen river front. They warn viewers not to venture onto icy river, lakes or other bodies of water because it doesn't freeze evenly and people are dying from hypothermia when they do break through. Last night a discussion ensued with my partner Keith about how kids would know to stay off ice. He says his mom always warned him to stay away from the icy water. I said we haven't had this much cold in so long parents might not have had any reason to warn kids to stay off frozen water until this year. Also on the local news the scene of rescue workers practicing how to rescue a person fallen trough the river ice was a reminder it isn't safe to walk on the river.

Late Sunday night CNN did a report about the extra cold weather this year. It was pretty exciting to get the first real meteorological explanation for all this cold weather around the northern hemisphere. A very large strong high pressure system over the Arctic is so strong that it has pushed the low pressure systems in the region we live in with the cold air down into the wind stream over lower latitudes. Vast areas of snow that has been dumped on all these unusually cold regions aren't warming up when the clouds leave due to the reflection of solar energy off the surface of the white snow covered land. Hopefully this is going to ease up later this week for a little bit more melting.

While writing I went to look up some more information and found a good report posted today on a Capital Weather Gang blog with some great NASA maps of average cold over the last month compared to the last ten winters. The cold in Europe looks really just like here only they got snow and wind with the extra cold and haven't had a break yet. The blog and CNN meteorologists both talked about the Arctic Oscillation (AO) and how this changes. This winter the CNN experts said AO was at a 60 year low. However now I am reading on Andrew Freedman's blog that the air in the Arctic is actually warmer this year Greenland has rain and unseasonably warm weather! My pal Jonny Jamtjord says in his arctic circle town Tormøs, Norway the temperatures are about 28ºC warmer than in the southern Norwegian capitol town of Oslo where it is extra cold today! In Tormøs they have darkness for several months too and he sent me a link to a slide show of what they see this time of year. So as cold as it is here in DC there are other areas that are experiencing the opposite extra warm weather. All of central Europe is very cold Russia and parts of northern China where they still use manpower to clear the roads with shovels and houses are colpasing from the heavy snowfall. We do live in a united world now more than ever. I suggest we enjoy the cold because the specialists are also predicting a hotter than usual year for 2010 after we get past our current cold spell.

a couple artists far from here

©Michael Nobbs 2008

©Ahmad Nadalian 2008

This week I am working on my books and trying to build my stock for the Light in October. I have perfect weather to be out in my glass box porch, the light is great which makes it fun to work but always requires I take it slow to avoid damage to my spine. I learned that lesson the hard way a few years ago. My reason for posting today are two fold. I have sometime ago discovered a couple artists I like that I don't know personally and yet I enjoy the work they show on the internet and I wanted to share them with you. First came Michael Nobbs  who is now showing his Masters graduation exhibition in Wales, UK and the web. I met Michael in an Artist Way's group on the internet about nine years ago when I worked through that book of 12 chapters to a more creative life. We all worked on a single  Artist's Way chapter each week and discussed it online. Michael was struggling with a diagnosis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome but he has also learned to go slowly. I followed his development in exciting blog posts when he began writing and posting his thoughts and his delightful sketches of his life and things near at hand. Then he did these very interesting books (a zine) the size of your hand with his sketches and stories in them. I subscribed to Michael's zine "The Beany" and treasure each one of three he published and sent out in 2006. Now he has taken his art to the next level and done a masters degree and set up a show in a gallery and published a limited edition digital book. Good news is most of this show is online for us all to enjoy. I would rather go to Wales to see it in person but you know it would leave a huge carbon foot print. So I can enjoy it in a very 21st century way and show you now too. I wanted to congratulate Michael for his hard work and give him support not just because I think he is a great guy but he also lost his  Mom while he was working on this show. His Dad has been gone for many years so I know this was a very hard time for him. So take a look and explore the Michael Nobbs online. I encourage you to leave him some comments. 

The next artist Ahmad Nadalian is a Persian (Iranian) artist I stumbled upon somehow who sends out these great long emails every once in a while reporting on all his art making adventures. He is a traveler and makes river art an inspiration that makes me glad.  He inspires peace and thoughtfulness and delights my eyes and soul in a way that Scottish artist Andy Goldsworthy does but in an eastern sort of way. Ahmad carves fish on stones and leaves them in places he travels. He was once in Washington DC and left some of his stone fish in Rock Creek. and they wrote about his visit  and art in Utne Reader that is where I found him. These fish are in the four corners of the world now which was the subject of his latest post as illustrated in the photo from his email above. He writes in both English and Persian which is something I don't know anything about. I find I respond to the marks he leaves on the sands and the rocks and the people he meets around the world. I want my friends to explore his world and put aside the propaganda we are fed about Iran for a few minutes. You will be glad you did. Ahmad Nadalian's last email began with this text to give you a little introduction in his words and then go see this website: 

"Today is 26 September. I am flying in the sky and writing this note.  Many people like hearing stories, and many tell stories- I want to be the story. My art and life are the same,  my life is my art."

  "My life shows my art. In the past 12 years , I’ve traveled to many lands and dedicated my fish to nature.  Canal of Venice, Rock Creek River- Washington DC, River Thames in London, Seine river in Paris, Lijiang River in China, Rhein River in Germany, Danube river in Serbia, … Persian Gulf, are now permanent hosts of the sprit of my fish.  Now I also dedicated my fish to South Africa's rivers, Indian and Atlantic oceans.  These fish were born in the streams of my village and now they swim in the ocean of the global village."

 Riverart in South Africa Ahmad Nadalian

breath of fresh air

Greenpeace just came out with this new ad. I came across it on Treehugger.com and I am very inspired after watching. Take a look, it is short and to the point, without being preachy. Oceans and those little creatures: phytoplanktons, who don't get much credit, give us oxygen and soak up tons of C2O. The world's rain forests are not the only set of lungs for planet earth.

Try it out, breath in, breath out it is very relaxing....