Royal Ensign

The true-blue flower of Convolvulus tricolor 'Royal Ensign'.

Asian Melons

Gardening is not very interesting if I'm not trying something different.
I'm one of those people who ends up wanting everything marked "new" in the seed catalog, but I managed to restrain myself this year and only ordered five unusual melons. (That may sound like a lot, but the catalog had 16 varieties of Eastern and Asian melons that I'd never heard of before.)

This turned out to be my favorite. It's called Sakata's Sweet, and it originated in Japan. The description of fragrant, sweet, and crunchy was too good to pass up. And you can eat the peel!

Never having grown it before, I didn't really know what "ripe" looked like. I think it's actually a bit past this point - they get a yellowish tinge if you leave them longer. But it doesn't seem to matter much to the taste or texture.

One description said that they reach the size of a baseball, but they evidently grow about 50% larger than that in the Alabama heat.

They're green inside, and man oh man are they good. The taste is somewhat like a honeydew melon, only much sweeter, and very crisp.
The only problem we encountered was an extremely low germination rate. Out of about 21 seeds planted at three different times, we got one plant. (Still, it did better than the "Golden Sweet" melon, which produced no plants from the same number of seeds.)
Reading about another Asian variety, I was dismayed to learn that it only produces six - eight melons per plant. I hope that is not true of this type too, or else I've only got a couple more to look forward to.
The seeds came from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, a nice company who offered to refund the money for seeds that didn't germinate.
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I almost forgot to mention, if any part of the melon seems a little bitter, a day or two in the fridge (after cutting it open) will cure that.

A walk in the Woods and Ride 'em Cowboy

A rainy day was predicted but the Sun is shining so we go to the Park to do some hiking before the Rodeo at Crazy Horse this afternoon. Harney Peak is out of the question because it is quite windy. We have passed this sign several times so today we turn in.

Camp Bob Marshall is supported by South Dakota's 4-H and is open for special youth retreats and family reunions.

It is located on the edge of Lake Bismarck

Thetrail leads to Lake Bismarck and it's boardwalk trail

View of Stockade Lake from Lake Bismarck

The trail seems to end here so we stop and soak in the Sun and the beauty of the area.

Next we go to Legion Lake to hike the Badger Hole Trail

A walk in the woods

Brings us to Charles Badger Clark's Cabin. Charles Badger Clark was honored as South Dakota's first poet laureate. He lived in the park for the last 30 years of his life. The stories of Badger Clark, his life and poetry are stories of a man living an independent life.





Next it's off to Crazy Horse for the Rodeo



Ride 'em Cowboy!

Or not

Girl'sBarrel Racing

This Bull was totally insane a couple times he almost threw himself over the gate and almost reached the top of the announcers stand. I didn't get any bull riding shots cause my camera batteries died. But only 2 bulls were ridden and only for a few seconds. One rider decided not to ride his bull and it was calmer than this one! Needless to say this one went unridden.

Here are some videos of the events

I should have been a cowboy - learned to ride a horse and rope a steer . . .

Bronco Riding





Calf Roping - when they untie the calf it bounces right back up and trots back into the corral.
and Steer Wrestling


We meet some friends of friends for dinner at the Silver Dollar - good all you can eat fish fry (for a land locked area). This place always has fun signs though this one was supposed to read"babies not babes.

We go back to Crazy Horse for the Laser Light show - my camera isn't good enough to get pictures so I found these on the Internet



Hope you enjoyed the show!

Till later!

Meanwhile we keep on Trek'n

Melissa and Gary

Swashbuckling, Wood-chunking, and Bug-sloshing

"Swashbuckling, Wood-chunking, and Bug-sloshing" was written by Annie in Austin for the Transplantable Rose
The adventures may have been bloody but they were cinematic and the blood was not real in the new arthouse movie called The Fall. This visually compelling movie came with recommendations from both Roger Ebert and a trustworthy friend, so Philo and I went to see it at the Regal Arbor a couple of nights ago. We liked it a lot and were enthralled by the performances of a young Romanian girl named Catinca Untaru and by an actor who was unknown at the time this long-in-progress movie was filmed, Oklahoma's own Lee Pace. (Lee is now a favorite for those of us who have fallen under the spell of Pushing Daisies.) Lee's character is Roy, an injured stuntman confined to a Hollywood hospital in the 1920's. The wonderful Catinca plays Alexandria, also a patient, also injured, but mobile and so charming she has the run of the hospital. Roy tells Alexandria "an epic tale of love and revenge" - interrupting his story like Scheherazade in "One Thousand and One Nights". We see Roy's words inhabited by the kind of characters seen in old movies and visualized against some amazing settings. The hospital scenes were filmed first, but it took four years and location filming in 18 countries for Tarsem Singh and his brother Ajit to get this story on screen. The official site is here. A review by Reel Fanatic is here. If this looks like your kind of movie, try to get to it while it's still on the big screen.

The blood is real elsewhere. Mpst of us have discovered that deer, woodchucks, raccoons, squirrels and other animals don't share - they're able to turn an entire crop to compost by taking one bite of each fruit or tomato, or are willing to destroy a garden seemingly on a whim. Most of us just write posts in order to vent our anger and grief over lost crops or plants, but some people go after the varmints with everything from guns to hammers. Read all about it in the New York Times article on Garden Vigilantes. Philo saw the story first and brought it to my attention as soon as I woke up this morning.


Sometimes I read the paper right away with that first cup of coffee, but lately have been taking a quick run out to the tomato patch before breakfast to look for Leaf-footed stink bugs. I don't like to use pesticides anyway, but after reading the level of poison needed to control these bugs it would be out of the question - I don't want to kill off the bees, too! So I take my small bucket with a couple of inches of water in the bottom, lightly sprayed with something like Simple Green to break the surface tension, and in the other hand carry the Green Shears of Death, a pair of stainless steel garden scissors. The bugs are too fast to cut in half, but but by using the point to hold the insect's attention while stealthily moving the bucket underneath him, one jab forward and many a stink bug falls into my pail and drowns. As I scurry around the tomato frame in a nightgown, carrying a bucket and scissors and making triumphant little grunts as another bug falls to soapy death, the idea of me tending a front yard vegetable patch grows ever fainter in imagination.
Some adventures are best kept behind the garden gate.
There will be Flower Photos next time! I promise!

"Swashbuckling, Wood-chunking, and Bug-sloshing" was written by Annie in Austin for the Transplantable Rose Blog.

Gretton - Rockingham via plantation

With Eddie, Charlotte and Maureen. Led by me. Sunny, ground frozen, cold wind. 8 miles.





Same route as on Thursday 7 April





We started from the playground on Gretton rec, and followed the path between the new estate and the older houses. It goes by the hedge and continues straight on as far as the surfaced track. Just opposite there are a pair of stiles leading into a grassy field. We crossed this to another pair of stiles. After these the path goes right at about 45 degrees towards a wide gap in the hedge. There we turned right and walked with the hedge on our right, through a few gaps until we came to a stile through a hedge, and on to a track. over the stile on the other side and into a large field,where the path leads slightly right, as indicated by the footpath arrow. As we walked in this direction the metal gate and stile that we were aiming for came into view.





Over the stile to the Gretton- Corby road, and across over another stile. Here there is a short steep slope, which we descended. Then we aimed left at about 45 degrees towards a rather ramshackle stile into the wood.





In the woods, you go down a pretty steep short section of path, just after the stile, and go down to a wide grassy track. Turn left and walk along. There's a notice advising you to keep dogs on leads, and beware of snakes. Today, it was far too cold for any cold-blooded critter to emerge.





After a while the track arrives at a meeting of the ways, and here you need to take care. Not left, not left and slightly back, and not right. More or less straight ahead, with a slight bias to the right. Follow this track to a T-junction and turn left. Don't attempt to cross a quarried 'ravine' ahead. The left turn leads to a stile and on to the Gretton Brook Road. It may be possible to wend your way through the trees and emerge later, but it doesn't look very practicable, and is almost certainly not a public footpath.

From here, follow the Gretton Brook Road, carefully because it can be pretty busy, to the junction with the main road. Keep along this in the same direction until you reach Princewood Road. Follow the footpath/pavement/sidewalk here round through the industrial estate until you come to the area behind the Hampton by Hilton hotel. You can cut through to the main Rockingham Road. The verge is wide enough to walk on, or you can cross over to a surfaced footpath. The road goes past a hotel and the cemetery, and leads to the junction with the A6003. There is a roundabout at the top of Rockingham Hill.

Walk down Rockingham Hill as far as the footpath sign for Gretton - to the left. Continue if you fancy a coffee or more at the tea-shop just after the Sondes Arms.

Charlotte, Eddie and Maureen, ready to climb West Hill!

There is a longish section along roads, but the walks at either end of it make it worthwhile.





More later

Love This Bag!

Isn't this bag a hoot?

Garden Images

I went out this morning to water the Cosmos, and low and behold, there was a garden gnome waving at me. Isn't he cute?
Actually, he's my two-year-old grandson that I've been keeping while his mommy adjusts to feeding and caring for his twin sisters.
We had a small rain before sunrise which shook loose the yellow tea
olive blossoms. Now they're making a carpet on the back steps. The smell is heavenly. Too bad their blooming is of such a short duration.