Agapanthus

Agapanthus is a flower from South Africa. Here we see it everywhere. It is a favorite for roadway medians and minimall planter boxes as well as PUDs and apartment complexes. I think that is because they have long green leaves that don't die down so add green to the landscape all year long. My sister's back yard, she lives in a PUD, was edged with agapanathus bulbs. When her gardener thinned them she always had lots to spare so I asked her for some. She gave me all of three bulbs. It took several years but I now have a row of pots with these pretty flowers that I keep along the front of my house. I enjoy seeing them bloom at the beginning of summer every year.

Thunder Storm

We went out to view this big rainbow and it started raining. We sat in the rain and enjoyed seeing the rainbow...Then I ran in the house for my camera. The rainbow lasted for awhile. It was a complete arc and wonderful to see. The rain drops were big and warm and reminded me of the times my children loved to play in this kind of rain. They would splash the puddles that formed with their tennis shoes. And just have a fun time of it. I took the photos from my car port though my camera can stand a bit of rain.

Then I looked in the other direction and saw the orange sunset.

This evening we took our coffee out to enjoy the cool air, but my son was having some problems. He sometimes rants and raves and makes my life miserable. I took my coffee to my room and am waiting for him to settle down. He has schizophrenia.

I was reading that there are new meds for schizophrenia but then I read the side effects. My son will not take meds though he did back in the beginning of his illness. They made him feel very sick. That may be why he will not even take an aspirin when he has a headache. Anyway after reading about the side effects of the current meds I could never encourage anyone to take them. I do get upset but then the storm is over and my son settles down and I see what a great person he really is. So I let the anger of the moment flow over me and fade away.

The things some people do...

While I have not watched the trial daily, I have watched and read news about Casey Anthony. It is hard to miss. Husbands and wives that murder spouses, children doing in their parents, and parents that kill their children make the news. Everyone wants to know about and most of all to understand why. They said that Casey Anthony cried in court today. Casey has not been found guilty by the jury so I cannot say she did kill little Caylee. But to me whatever the jury says I tend to believe she did. And I wonder, why? Why do some people feel that getting rid of another person is what they need to do? Susan Smith, Scot Peterson, and all the others that ruined their own lives by taking the life of those that loved them must have something totally missing in their brains and hearts. They must be self centered selfish people. The rest of us see what these people do and we cannot really understand the why of it.

In our area we have had three family murder sucide cases. Bright beautiful children were murdered because the parents couldn't go on with their own lives. Things may look bad today, but there is always tomorrow. There is always hope.

Casey could have let her parents raise her child.

Pit Bull

On June 18th a seventy-five year old woman was the victim of a horrific bit bull attack. Her neighbors two dogs came through her fence into her back yard and mauled her. She lost her leg and suffered damaging wounds on her other leg and an arm. The dogs, along with eleven puppies, were put to sleep, but that doesn't help the victim of the attack.

Pit bull dogs are the creation of humans. They are bred for fighting and seem to revert to that at unexpected times. There is no reason to preserve the breed. There are people that say pit bull dogs are only dangerous to other dogs but too many children and people, often the elderly, have been harmed by these dogs. With so many other wonderful breeds of dogs to choose from why people choose to have pit bull dogs is beyond me.

Any large dog can be dangerous to children. I had lovely German Shepards at the storage when Hailey was little. They were not trained guard dogs and were totally gentle. I never once left Hailey alone with them. We did let the dogs out at night to wander the yard after the gate was closed. Hailey and I would walk with them when she was older. Still she never played with them alone.

Then we hear about people that let their children grow up with their pit bull dogs as if nothing could ever go wrong. Maybe nothing ever will but parents that take that chance with their children are not thinking. Unless the dog attack is fatal or very damaging to the victim we never even hear about it.

Smoky the Cat

Our kitty Smoky lay down and went to sleep today then passed away in her sleep. Smoky was born here July 5, 2006. We took in her mother and her mother's half grown kitten we named Fluffy Boots six months before. We named mama cat Stormy because she was not very friendly and growled at other cats including Fluffy. She got pg in the spring and had five little female kittens. Stormy went to the vet and didn't have any more kittens. We lost Stormy two years ago...she went out and never came home.

My granddaughter Megan was here and both she and Hailey wanted to keep a kitten. So we kept two. One was black and white and the cutest of the kittens. We named her Tuxie. Smoky was the runt and the one I spent the most time with. Her eyes needed cleaning twice a day until they were well. We named her Smoky because her fur was a dark brown.

Smoky is the kitten at the top.

When the time came both Tuxie and Smoky went to the vet. No more kittens! At the vet Smoky almost died. They didn't know if she would wake up and were very worried about her. They told me that she had a heart murmur. She seemed to be fine when we got her home and she lived an ordinary kitty life usually staying close to home. Tuxie was the wanderer and we worried about her a lot. Once she was gone for two weeks and we were sure we would never see her again. I know that some people think that we need to keep our cats locked up in our houses but they really hate that. So I know we take a big chance letting them roam, but I haven't the heart to jail them.

Pictures of Smoky

After my heart attack and my cancer op, Smoky began to visit the neighbors and not come home for days. More worry. When she came home she would sleep near my feet and seemed to want lots of attention. But soon she was gone again. 

Smoky was gone almost two weeks this last time and then one morning she was back. She was very thin but tucked into the food and began to put on weight. And she stayed home. Then this morning she seemed to fail. Our cats and other pets are like some people. Some are just not destined to live to old age. We put Smoky at the edge of my flower garden. It is a pretty place with all the flowers blooming.

Good Bye Smoky. You were loved.

First Admendment

I just read about the beauty contestant that tried to give a good answer to a bad question. She did not agree that the Quran should be burned as a right of free speech. Burning books whatever they are seems more like censorship than a right under the First Admendment. I also need to add that the First Admendment is there to give us freedom of speech not to give us the right to stop others from speaking.

I think she gave a very good answer to the question and the judge that was so pleased that she lost just doesn't get what the First Admendment is really all about. I wrote this as a comment.

Free speech is respecting the ideas of others even when we don't agree with them. Burning books is not free speech and while we do not make it a crime to burn the words of others, unless we start a forest fire, burning books is censorship and that has nothing to do with free speech. I never watch beauty pagents...that is just me taking advantage of my constitutional rights.

And if anyone wonders...some censorship is necessory...the best example of this is child porn. The beauty contestant mentioned lines we shouldn't cross. These lines are created by our society and make living together and living with ourselves possible.

Spring Flowers

Another trip to Summer's Past.

 Backlit sunflowers.

This is the dark sunflower backlit by the sun. On the seed package they are called burgundy.

Sunflowers

This year I managed to get sunflowers planted...several different kind. They are so cheerful.

These are black...well with a very dark brown flower face and yellow showing on the back of the petals.

 These were not photographed. I scanned them.

Memory

On the news this morning they were talking about a study on childhood memory. Guess it has been descovered that children remember better if their parents talk about things that happened when they were little. Then the news person said that is not memory but retelling the stories they heard from their parents. I've heard that before. I have memories from when I was very young and I've been told that they were not really memories but things I heard my parents tell and reminded me about. The thing is...parents cannot tell a child what they were thinking or feeling when the memory happened.

My mother mentioned years later when I was about 15 that when I was about three years old I would put big red tomatoes in our freezer. She said she would open the freezer and there was a big red tomato sitting there. Frozen tomatoes turned to mush and she would take it out and throw it away. My mother sold vegtables from our front porch so we often had lots of big red tomatoes. Any way she always wondered why I put them in the freezer. So I told her why. I thought they would turn white like ice cubes. I used to go back and check and they would still be red. Then they would be gone and I would get another one and try again. I never did see a frosty white tomato...

There could be things that I remember only because my mother talked about them but in reality my Mother seldom talked to us children about things that happened in the past until we were in our teens. I remember when she said that she was glad when we got old enough to have conversations with her. Then there were things that I remember that happened when my mother wasn't there. She went to work in an aircraft parts factory when I was still three years old. I know the difference between the things I remember and the stories we heard about our childhood. My father was supposed to stay home and watch my little sister and I but often he would leave us alone. My great grandfather and my great uncle Burt lived accross the road. Mama said later that Grandpa Clark, who was over 90 years old, would sit out side on the porch and watch our house. Mama was still pretty mad about that years later! Uncle Burt would check in on us when he could. One day Uncle Burt came over to find me on top of our electric stove turning on the burners. He got me off the stove before the burners got hot. I totally don't remember that.

When I was about a year and a half years old my Uncle Burt was holding me near our front door and I put my hand in the back of the screen door as it was closing. I can still see the gap in the door. I just reached out and stuck my hand in the gap. I couldn't resist. The screen door closed and pinched my fingers. It hurt and I cried. Uncle Burt said look at the birdy and he pointed toward the yard...to get me to forget about the hurt fingers. This memory is part totally remembering what I was thinking when I put my hand in the door and Uncle Burt telling me about it.

When I was three and my little sister was about a year and a half old, she was kept in a play pen made out of three old crib sides and the wall. Uncle Burt was worried that something would happen and I needed to know how to get my sister out of the play pen. So he showed me how to put one of our little chairs into the play pen and to push the other one up to the outside of of the bars. And he showed my sister how to climb out. So when we were alone my sister wanted me to get her out of the play pen. She would cry until I gave in and got her out. Then we got into even more trouble in the house. One time she pulled all the pots and pans out of the kitchen cuboard. I tried to stop her but she was too much for me. Then I tried to put them back in before my mother saw what we did. I couldn't figure out how to do it. Another time we took all my mother's books out of the bookcase. That was my idea. I thought we could put them on the floor and walk on them like stepping stones. When we tried to step on them the covers would slip and tear so I took them all off. I remember being upset because my sister couldn't walk on the books. Also I found out that books had blank pages in the front. My sister and I drew pictures on these pages with our crayons. I still have couple of the books. I got a good hard spanking for taking down the books.

The worst thing I did was climb that same book case to get the undeveloped film that my mother put at the top. She took our pictures and then took the film out of her camera. We didn't have alot of money so Mama would only take a few photos once in awhile and then when the roll of film was used up she would wait until she could afford to get the film developed. She told us that our pictures were on that roll of film. I wanted to see the pictures. She told us that we would have to wait. I didn't understand. So climbed up and got the box with the rolls of film.  I ruined my sister's baby pictures. I got a really hard spanking that time. I had been so happy that day because I was wearing my favorite skirt. It was blue with red and yellow embordered girls around the hem and I had on patent leather shoes that I also loved. When I outgrew those shoes I had to see my little sister wearing them.

The little chairs were oak and came with a small table. Uncle Burt bought them for us when I was still too young to sit in the chairs. I remember sitting in one of the chairs and my feet didn't touch the floor. I had to climb up to get into the chair. One day my mother was sitting in one chair and me in the other and she was feeding me lunch. She went into the kitchen to get some pudding. I was going to surprise her so I got off my chair and ran to hers. Then I changed my mind and got down and ran back to mine. Then I got down again and ran to get in the other chair. I slipped and fell and cut my upper lip on the corner of the chair seat. I cried a lot. Years later my mother told me about this and wondered what I was doing. She didn't know that I had changed chairs more than once. I also remember feeling bad that I didn't get to eat the pudding.

I wasn't supposed to touch the things in the kitchen. My mother worked swing shift and she was tired. One morning when she was still in bed, I pushed a chair up to the sink and I picked up a butcher knife. I knew I was not supposed to touch it. I cut my thumb on the blade. It hurt but if I cried my mother would know so I stuck my thumb in my mouth and never told her what I did. No one could tell me about this memory.

Second Look

A few more photos from WAP 09. The flight cage where the birds are is a mixture of sun and dark shade. It is hard to get the camera settings just right. The bird photos were taken in both jpg and in raw. The photos were very dark so I overlooked them. At the time was more interested in the butterfly photos. Going back to the dark raw photos I opened them in Photoshop raw converter. Using the sliders I found that I had taken some nice photos. Here are two of them.

Sleeping lions. At a later visit I got some better shots of this big guy.