Laughing Ravens

Signal-to-noise ratio , a measure used in science and engineering to quantify how much a signal has been corrupted by noise  -from Wikipedia     When the frogs start singing, it's usually the chorus frogs, calling to one another from midway up the trees in our woods. They can be loud enough to be heard quite a long ways away. I have yet to actually see a chorus frog up close. frogs in the pond   The leopard frogs and the green frogs in the pond however are anything but shy. They start their racket a little later into the season. Typically, once the weather has produced a few warm sunny days, they are more inclined to start their cacophony. A few days of rain seem to get them going too.  frogs in the pond   When the pond frogs start singing, they dont stop. They go all night some nights. They are so much louder. They can be clearly heard indoors. Luckily it only lasts a week or so. Once it quiets down, and the territorial disputes have been settled, mat...

Seeds are another gateway drug. Heck, I'd put dahlias into that category too. Seeds are definitely the Doritos of the plant world. You can't plant just one. Seeds are relatively cheap, easy to store, last a while, and when they grow, they make you feel awesome. I wish antidepressants made me feel as good. (Maybe you have to add water and warm soil to make antidepressants work?) Seeds are cool. For less than $5.00, you can get a pinch of seeds that let you attempt to grow a real plant. No guarantees. Chances are, you'll kill more than you grow. At least at first you will. In a perfect world, all those dead seedlings will teach you something. Either you should have stuck with accounting, or maybe you need to learn some basics about plant biology. I love folks who think gardening is easy.  Seeds come in so many flavors, shapes and sizes! I had a conversation with a friend the other day and we were talking about 'kid seeds'. Things that young kids (and newbies to garden...

 Most gardeners have a pretty solid understanding of which flowers bloom first. Expectations, you might say. For some, those first flowers come in the form of bulbs. But which ones? Like I said before, it is a slippery slope. This tulip was planted by a squirrel or chipmunk. In the lawn. Decades ago. the one, single, lonely tulip that we never planted   But then the bulbs start to transition into the early perennials and shrubs start to push up or leaf out. By the time the weather warms up, the rain stops, and the bugs come out... it is time for everything to suddenly become magically green. It can be an intoxicating green-ness, until the neighbor's mower shatters the reverie. Nothing ruins the daydream sunshine quite like the smell of exhaust and the roar of the lawnmower.    Purple smokebush, Cotinus coggygria 'Royal Purple' I try to get outside early in the morning. Before the sun, but after the birds. The birds get up absurdly early. The frogs stay up late partyi...

 This morning, before the rain started again, I took a walk through the garden. It has rained off and on, continuously for the last four days. The weather forecast is for four more days of rain. All of which made getting outside while the sun shone briefly this morning, so critical.   ant on peony bud   As I wandered around the drier spots in the garden, keeping my shoes dry for the moment, I was thinking about why we see the way that we do. Photography can be a fascinating glimpse into the mind of the photographer.  The choice of lens can provide insight into how one views the garden.  Walking around on our wood chip paths, I was contemplating how I tend to focus on the tiniest details in our plants. I am perpetually fascinated by the nuance. The tiny bugs and critters moving about the garden. Textures and patterns, changing almost before my eyes! Normally, we walk around at our human height... but I remember being a kid and walking around and seeing things clo...

  What the heck is this?  Anyone who knows me would agree that organization is NOT my strong suit. Curiosity, absolutely. When May rolls around (and in April too!) and I start looking at signs of new growth in the garden, one of the first things I say is: "What the heck is this?" Sounds funny when I write it that way, because as anyone who has been around me for five minutes knows, there's a whole lot of profanity left out of that question. Why is this an issue and why should anyone care? Organization is a very personal thing... on the same level of personal as what happens behind the bathroom door. Organization is what separates everything (see what I did there?).  Years ago, when I first started gardening, I could remember all the names of all the plants I put in the ground. My neighbor, Marge, told me the name as I stuck the cuttings into the South Florida sand/dirt and that was that. The plant grew. The name was the name. Done. Then I got old. I gardened in lots of di...