Merry Christmas, everyone! Hope your day is merry and bright!
http://www.clayandlimestone.com/
More native things blooming in a Tennessee yard
Peace and prosperity to all!
Happy Holidays everyone!
C ville, I just noticed your spinning top gourds
; ^)
Yes, you sent me one of them and Don sent a few more. I'm looking forward to planting some this coming year, thanks to you both.
I'm growing them again too, so I can get a lot to take and show to kids at the library where I work.
A library is an interesting place. Lucky you to work there!
you should see my pile of books to be read.
lol. I can imagine. I've always loved reading and books. I've not gotten to the library here as often as I should, but I have a huge stack of magazines piled up to read. In fact, they've now turned into two stacks. Help! They're multiplying!
What kinds of book do you like to read?
I read nonfiction, these days usually science or sociology topics, and general fiction, but not romance stories please. Need to mix it up a bit because one fiction or nonfic after another gets tedious.
Mary Roach, Spook, Stiff; anything epidemiology (science in a sociology setting?) like about Spanish Flu of 1917; Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks...
The Cooked Seed by Anchee Min
Under (In?) the Shade of the Banyan
Jodi Picoult writes fic, puts characters in unusual yet real life circumstances, and avoids the cliche developments- try House Rules or The Storyteller.
Not a huge mystery fan but I like Michael Connelly and Robert Crais.
I could go on....I almost always find something very interesting in every New Yorker magazine, used to be my go-to for reading material while waiting for kids in parking lots.
And you? Just yesterday I forced myself to throw away two new yorker magazines I had kept in the nightstand for years with a particularly good article. Egads. Internet changes everything. Pick a topic and I can find a zillion writings in seconds.
I was the same way with The Atlantic Monthly (I think it's now just called The Atlantic). I haven't subscribed in quite awhile (like decades) - gardening magazines took its place. ;-)
I do like mysteries. I mainly read the "classics" - Edgar Alan Poe, Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, Daphne DuMaurier ... I started out with Nancy Drew mysteries as a child a very looong time ago. But the first book that got me hooked was one my mom had in the bookshelf at home titled A Tree Grows In Brooklyn. Not far behind that came Pearl Buck's novels. I think I read most of them. Of course, The Good Earth has to be a favorite. I also enjoy poetry now and then.
I like lots of genres though and especially historical novels, biographies, and autobiographies.
Oh I loved some Agatha CHristie's back in the day, And Nancy Drew! I loved Tree Grows in Brooklyn!! Loved Good earth!! read those back in teens I think. I also loved Tolkein's trilogy and Hobbit back then, but have no patience for fantasy anymore.
If you want a book, I think you'd like The Cooked Seed by Anchee Min- memoir/autoboigraphy.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Cooked-Seed-A-Memoir/dp/1596916982/ref=pd_sim_b_3
She's also done several historical novels about CHina. She writes very well, especially considering she knew no English before moving to America in her late twenties.
I read sci fi as a kid but not much now. But I really liked Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake which I think is classed as scifi
Thanks for the recommendation. I'll check on it next time I'm at the library.
I'm happy to have a useful chat detour here while the garden is asleep for the winter. I'm not much of a winter person. I was searching the big Norway Spruce in the backyard with my binoculars yesterday and came upon a Cooper's Hawk that had killed and was eating a smaller bird. I know that's part of "nature" but not the part I care to see.
Are you going to grow anything new this year? I have so many seeds that I've bought or other DGers have sent me. I probably couldn't grow them all in my lifetime. lol. I'm going to try to get them half-way organized and then decide which I need to plant sooner rather than later. :)
I made a new bed out back this year, but I ended up making an "onion bed" out of it. I planted multiplier onions in there and I think I'm going to move my long-suffering leeks there as well. They've been in their big pot on the deck for several years - tough as nails, they are. But I'd like to get some of them in the ground. Maybe I'll plant a little garlic in the "onion bed" as well.
I always have wildflowers I'l like to sow. I already have a lot of asclepias for the bfs and agastaches are one of my faves. Also baptisias.
Garlic bloom
I apologize for encouraging the offtopic discussion. But I figured the thread was kinda long and you might just start a new one when things start to bloom.
I have seen blooms- dandelions which I think are not native.
I haven't made any plans at all, nor sought out new seed choices. My jobs have kept me busier this year.
I didn't mind at all, Sally. I do plant to start a fresh thread in 2014.
I belonged to the 4-H Club when I was a child. Sorry to see this.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/12/31/monsanto-4-h-programs.aspx?e_cid=20131231Z1_DNL_art_1&utm_source=dnl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=art1&utm_campaign=20131231Z1&et_cid=DM38121&et_rid=384665441
I wish the article had said anything specific about what the lessons involve that they claim are hijacking our kids.
THere's a very informative thread here- I think it is in Vegetable forum…called GMO OMG…I read this week.
I will hope that at least since there is funding going to 4H which might mean some more kids continue to careers in agriculture/ ag science. I was afraid it was going to say 4h was disbanding.
Yes, I've seen the thread. It's always good to look at both sides of an issue. And both are highly charged.
I'm pleased that there is a 4H in the highly suburban part of my county, there is a property that was a farm, now a park, and they have a few goats, pigs, chickens, turkeys, even two calves! It's great that people can casually visit and get up close to animals.
I agree.
Closing this thread and moving on to 2014 ...
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1346784/
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1346784/