Flowers in June

The garden is full of flowers slowly blooming in succession in the right time and order. We have managed to get a kind of hybrid and native mixed border garden in our flower beds. The annuals are always so tempting and I usually try to get a few mixed in the beds and pots for color here and at home for mom and brother David. Last week before I went out to visit I took a walk and collected the wild flowers blooming along the drive that runs along the railroad corridor a few blocks from our apartment. They made a beautiful bouquet in a thrift store vase.

Lavender crown vetch, queen anne's lace, and red clover are simple but were very effective bit of nature at the side of my desk.

Ascelepias incarnata or swamp milk weed is a native and grows about 3 feet tall and has these lovely blooms in white and also pink but our pinks didn't survive in the crowded garden this year.

This week the mature hen's and chicks or sempervivum have begun to shoot upward to make their peculiar flowers on tall stems. Its always such a surprise to see them go from low rosettes to a tall projectile that gets little cactus like flowers on the tip.

While I was visiting Manassas I was excited to see how well our porch flowers are doing under mom's careful attention. She and I went to a close out sale on the roadside stand and came home with two big hanging baskets she chose for her porch and I got a few little things marked down 50% from original prices. Big pink begonias and purple trailing verbena were her basket choices.

The in ground flowering has begun with summer phlox and Asian lilies!

 We took on an adventure by buying zinnia seeds and planting them over the now bare area by the bird bath where the spring tulips are planted. Just a ten day period of damp to bring them up out of the soil and maybe we will have red, purple giant zinnias and mix of tiny lilliput flowering later this summer. Fingers crossed, and be careful mom going out to water the seed bed. We also found that the pink dahlia didn't freeze last winter! It came up and is two feet tall already. I got more purple pink mixed cactus type dahlias to replace the pink but now we hope to have both if the new ones can catch up with the sturdy pink ones. This is a clear sign our climate has changed when dahlias keep coming back year after year.
This week I am nearly finished with my Michael Miller Challenge for the Modern Quilt Guild quilt. It's small and coming together very nicely. Can't wait to share it on Saturday at the next DC Modern Quilt Guild meeting. Downtown again at the great little Shaw library on 7th and Rhode Island with in walking distance of the homes I lived in back in the 1990's. All my mates who died of AIDS back in 1990's wouldn't believe how much that neighborhood has changed in the last few years.

new used stuff

old red day lily rescued from the back yard last fall. 

Morning sketch of the red day lily. 

I went last week to visit Mom in Manassas for a couple days and since she had been away for a few weeks and my car was in the shop for a few more it's been a long time coming. I was excited to see how she was and how the garden was doing in Manassas since it went unattended for a long spell when she was out of town.  Things looked good but a few were lost due to a few extremely hot days unseasonal for May. The fun thing to see was the old red day lily that I found last summer and potted up was happy and blooming. I used it as a subject for my sketch that morning on the porch. I love the shape of the petals of these exotic day lilies.
Keith and I have been on a diet recently and we have done well with getting to our goals.
I found that about half way to my goal that many of my clothes are so baggy now that I feel kind of uncomfortable going out in them. So this visit to Manassas where there are at least four second hand stores that sell used items to raise money for charity was the perfect place to shop for some interim britches at a bargin price. We set out first to the local Good Will and found some great pale yellow Columbia brand bermuda shorts just the right size for the interim.  I also spotted a set of little pressed glass bowls with handles and a cut glass design I liked but left behind, after all I had two days to think about if I really liked them enough to bring them home. It happens they do a 20% discount on Tuesdays so I got my shorts for cheaper than usual.
Then we swung by a new place where Mom found a soft black leather purse that seemed to be new for about $4 but not much else. Wednesday is discount day at the Salvation Army stores where they give a 25% discount all day on everything. So we headed up there and I found a couple pairs of light colored kaki pants and Mom noticed a lovely unfinished wooden bowl set for tossing and serving salads. I have been dreaming about having one for years. It is because of the years I lived with Harry and George, they had a big v shaped wooden bowl, it was made without shellac or urethane coating the wood but I didn't realize this was such a hard thing to buy inexpensively. They last for centuries so it makes sense people hang on to them when they get one seasoned with olive oils.

 I tried them out yesterday and they are perfect. Just what I had wanted for our summer salad tossing with lemon herb dressings. Being on a diet, our food and the presentation have been much more important to me than usual. We have lots of cool dishes and food tastes even better if it is put together in some pleasing way on a nice old bowl or plate.
Funny thing I guess but it really makes my meal feel more delicious somehow. I was hunting also for used 15 pound dumb bells to do bicep curls at these thrift stores. I saw only one set of 5 pounders which is too light for me now. Thursday morning we went downtown Manassas to the farmers market where we saw potter Jason Alexander buying farm fresh eggs and chicken. He paid my beard a complement " Frederick, I love the beard, it is really working the artist look". I got a chicken on his recommendation and brought it home to roast with lemon, tarragon and garlic. At the Prince William Pink Ladies Thrift Store by the farmer's market was my last stop to look for used dumb bells, they had none but I found a nice Columbia swim suit and a beautiful green linen shirt in just the right sizes. Now I was ready to go home after we went to the sporting goods store and to buy new 15 pound dumb bells but they work just fine and were on special too. Car gassed up with discount gas from Giant Food bonus points at Shell where I saved 50¢ a gallon. Then I thought oh those pressed glass bowls just will not stop haunting me I better stop and see if they are still available. Said good by to Mom and thanked her for a fun visit then swung by the Good Will shop and there they were 5 for 99¢ each. I took them all and have been enjoying making fat and sugar free pudding and jello in them ever since I got them home.

I like the way that textured glass feels in my hands. 

Keith says they remind him of the bowls his great grandmother used to serve him home canned stewed tomatoes in for a snack as a kid. He thinks she got them from the detergent box or cereal during the depression.

snip, slice, cut, peal, repeat.

This week has been so much fun since my workshop at the Pyramid Atlantic Studios in paper cut stencil making also called a Scherenschnitte which is very particular to they type of art craft making. I know it looks hard to say but "sharon sh-knit-ta" is a phonetic approximation of how it sounds with my American English... Anyway how ever you pronounce it the point is it is fun.

diamonds, spades, clubs and heart 3x22" black paper

Today after some shopping I spent the afternoon enduring this little heat wave that blew into DC sitting by the AC drawing then cutting a third scherenschnitte motif. I was thinking about my brother in law Franz Poti who arranged for all the family ladies to meet him and my sister Jenny, in Las Vegas for the beginning of a week long trip to Utah time shares. He loves to gamble and this past weekend was his 50th Birthday so he got to gamble and have fun in Las Vegas. Cards came to mind so I offer this little design with him and Bridge mistress Mildred Cunningham in mind.

 Keith took my photo while I was cutting the final few bits out of my first scherenschnitte last Friday evening after the workshop. I love seeing how "into it" I was I didn't even notice I was getting my portrait made.  Notice, I forgot to take off my orange name tag? Today that ice cold glass of water looks so delicious. Thanks for catching me shinning so brightly, Keith.

Frederick cutting his first scherenschnitte 5-20-2011

I did a second paper cut this week which is more ambitious than my first heart design. I was thinking about my neighbor's two robins nesting in his front and back yard. Dan and Peter were posting daily photos on face book as the little blue eggs appeared, then hatched and eventually flew away. So this one is dedicated to all the bird lovers who love to watch these creatures raise their young in our gardens. I am still waiting on the house wren to settle into one of our bird houses and make some babies!

 chicks in a tree, worms are on the way

The last thing I have to offer today is a bit of red hot orange! My native Turk's cap species lilies began to bloom and I couldn't resist drawing them this morning while in the garden for my daily sketch. The fastest way to share the sketch and the flowers is with a couple photos of them together so watch for more images when I get this scanned. 

watercolor and pen sketch of lily in our garden

orange Turk's cap lilies

casa blanca lily

One of my favorite flowers of summer, the Casa Blanca lily always reminds me of my mom because they usually bloom near her birthday. I first learned about them in NYC working for a flower shop called Madderlake, when they were the most elegant and expensive rare cut flowers. After I moved back to Virginia the name stuck with me... and we bought some bulbs for the garden. They lasted for years out there in Manassas and were added to my Washington garden not long ago as a reliable repeater. Only one or two inside will fill a room with sweet perfume more than a few will knock you out but they are magnificent in the garden.

August, in the middle of

orange butterfly purple flowers

orange blackberry lily

brown moth on bricks

orange heirloom tomatoes 

1970's orange wall phone 

orange butterfly

orange monarch butterfly 

woodpecker on choke cherry tree

small woodpecker

orange cock's comb

Manassas finches with orange beak

Well, this weekend is cool and clear like last! What a delight it is to have perfect weather inthe middle of  August. I am  just home from another trip to Manassas where mom and I went to get some fruits and vegetables at the farm market after probating Dad's will with the court and dropping off some tax records. Orange was everywhere and I am moved to post some things orange but also birds and butterflies not to mention some bees and a bouquet of lovely cock's comb in a vintage yellow McCoy vase that Keith bought in a second hand store recently while I was watching laundry spin in the dryers. This morning outside while I was writing I heard a sound and noticed a little woodpecker on the crusty old choke cherry tree. It didn't mind me at all, so I pulled out the camera to take a few zoom photos of him among the vines.  I suppose there are a lot of bugs under that dead English ivy vine clinging to the crusty bark. The dead leaves have been falling all summer, crunchy under foot. I really enjoyed looking at this woodpecker chipping away at the tree. The zoom photographs didn't turn out as detailed as I hoped but still it is a record and that was the only bird I saw in the yard this morning. I saw the monarch butterfly on the butterfly bush's purple blooms and caught it drinking nectar. While in Manassas I got a photo of a couple of the exotic finches my brother Dave gave to my parents a year or two ago. The brown one is a Spice Finch and the orange marked one is called a Zebra Finch and they have different songs they sing when ever inspired. Usually they sing when my cell phone rings.  Also in my camera I have a shot of the arrangement that Keith made from leftover orange cock's comb and some sort of yellow dried flowers from last year. His arrangements this week for his Ikebana blog have been very exciting, even exotic and you can go see them here >>>> SOGETSUDC. I haven't figured out which arragnement is my favorite yet. Earlier in the week I was happy to take Keith downtown to buy a new seamless back ground paper to put behind our still life photos. I think he has become a really good flower arrangement photographer. I began encouraging him to try back in 1999 to do his own. I was surprised to learn then he has been working with flowers for many years and didn't have a professional portfolio and the reason was mostly because he didn't know much about making studio photographs. I didn't either but I knew we could figure it out.  

I do still live photos of  my books and boxes. The worst part of it is figuring what arrangement looks best and how to light them. Then while I was in Manassas I decided to go downstairs and get a quick shot of the orange wall phone. It has been there since originally installed in the late 1960's or early 1970's I forget which. Dad installed that dark walnut paneling in his rooms and there was an orange shag carpet and this matching orange phone! The rotary dial still works and the cord is about 12-14 feet long. That was before cordless phones so when I was in high school I used to talk for hours on that phone and wander around the room twisting the cord and pulling it over obstacles. I found another 1970's tabletop phone with a rotary dial in a deep red last week at the antique store. This week my mother bought it for me as a birthday gift. It is now connected to my phone line with a jack splitter so I can use both: the wireless and the corded phone on the same phone line. When the power goes out due to storms in this part of North East Washington, and it did last week,  I have a hard wired line now I can use for some calls in the dark. I haven't photographed the red phone yet but it makes me smile and feel good to have a touch of the past around that still works. Technology has changed  so quickly a little touch of the past is a bit of reassurance that not everything is out dated. Another thing I saw on my way out the door this morning to write in the garden was a brown moth. It was in the corner of a window. I disturbed it causing it to fly off to the brick wall in the stairwell. Even brown is lovely next to pink and purple gray bricks which some people might call red. 

Well, I am sure I have written too much and loaded way too many photos for a normal well edited blog post.  I am seeing beauty everywhere all the time and photographing what I see is such fun that I would like to show you them all, but I can't.  I have so many photographs  I can't keep up and posting it is a real challenge. I am slowly loading some up on  Flickr.com to my new web gallery that Keith gave to me. I just added a slide show feature to this blog and it scrolls through all the pictures in the flicker gallery on my "orange explains it all" page.  Next perhaps I will develop a book of photos on some theme with one of the new web based book publishers. They print out books of anyone who wants to pay a new technology I want to try out!

 I love to hear your comments. Please drop over to the blog and look at the bottom of each post for the comments icon to share your thoughts or send me an email directly if that doesn't work. 

new day lily & Fuji blues

blue fuji morning glories

blue fuji m.g. with rainwater bucket

golden sunflower

white day lily

white day lily

white day lily

blue fuji morning glories

Today a new flower is blooming in our garden. It is the milky white day lily that Keith bought for me earlier this summer. He was ordering Rothschild's lilies for himself and asked if I wanted anything from the catalog. I was always interested in the white day lily and he got me two late in the season for a deal of a price. One of the lilies is in a pot and the other in the garden's ground. Each lily has had buds for a couple weeks but today one flower opened on each plant. How's that for synchronicity? Also this week we have my lovely Fuji morning glories that open one or two at a time on the vine with fuzzy green and white marked leaves. One of my favorite colors is that deep blue ever since I read book by Michel Pastoureau about the history of the color blue. I am excited today to discover the same writer is about to publish a book about the history of the color black. That will go on my wish list of books to read. We have sunflowers opening this week, tallest new flower in the garden. Sometime last night there was some rain which is glad news for me and the garden.

Tour de France is over and I have been watching daily programs over the last three weeks and Cor Windhouwer sent great daily Tour reports with photos to help me keep up and to get his take on the news of the day's race. I am a big fan of bicycling and regret not being fit to ride my slick road bike due to spinal problems the past 8 years.

My male figure drawing group had it's last night at the Warehouse Gallery last night. We have been drawing in their gallery since July of 2001. Friend and regular attendee Dan Murray brought us a huge chocolate torte to celebrate the finish or our great weekly entertainment. Now, I have a few Monday nights off until I find a new home for my drawing group.

Note: that the photos posted on this blog can be blown up larger by double clicking on the title or on the photographic image. Some of the details are amazing to see full size! After you get a close up view then use your web browser's back button to return to the blog page.

casablanca lily

The funeral is over the services are done and I am home. I have images of that whole experience but I am not ready to write about that today. I didn't want to leave the blog empty until I got my act together to write about the trip and the family and the ride down south so I decided to look for some flower to add here today. These lilies I first discovered back in the 1980's when I worked at the once famous NYC  florist Pure Mådderlake of the upper east side. Mådderlake used Casablancas a lot and I really liked the way they opened after being fully tight buds one could count on a weeks' worth of display and sweet perfume and pure white color. 

The Casablanca lilies were in bloom this week in our yard but I caught a few photos of them that make me very happy. We also had a bunch of beautiful white Casablanca lilies in the flowers sent to my family home which have a very powerful scent. Now a days I like to keep these lilies outside in our garden. It seems to me here in our small home it is too much to have these strong perfumes permeating the air. This lily like many others has bright orange pollen on the sexual parts of the flower which florists usually remove because if you leave them the pollen can fall off and stain fabric of table cloths or even clothes if you lean in to get a close sniff! The best way to get that orange pollen off is to dust it off as best you can, before you wash the cloth or skin.