More Non Sequitors

I got a call from Motoko-chan the other day. (See "Random Acts" 04/17/08) She wanted to send me *something-something* in the mail and wanted to make sure that I was still there, which is here, which is where I am currently. It is very difficult having a telephone conversation, as I have stated before, with someone who sounds like they are pronouncing the English in kanji. And is ahndoh, etc. However, I was able to understand these things:

1. Motoko-chan goes to the Senior Center once a week for English class and TaiChi. (I personally think the English teacher should be fired. If you know this person, tell them to look into some other program, please.)
2. When asked if she misses her homeland (near Hiroshima) she informed me that, no, people where she lives in the U.S. are very nice and friendly. People there smile a lot, and people smile at her. According to her - remember she is well over 60 years old - women who smiled too much when she was growing up were "loose women". NOT my opinion. Do NOT shoot the messenger. It just cracked me up. Especially since things have changed a lot, I think.
3. She is going to die sometime soon, and has no one to inherit her *something-something* that her mother made (I know it involves siruku or silk - she says siruku) and she wants me and my daughter to have it because we like Japan and things Japanese.
4. The above item was made before WWII. 1938 I think she said. or 1948. Which would be AFTER the war. Just in case you have trouble figuring that out.
5. I have forgotten all of the rudimentary Japanese I learned in two weeks. Unless I think about it for a few days. Sad. Very sad.

I received a package tonight. From Motoko-chan. It is a huge package and I thought she sent me her life's belongings in one go. Not so. Just the futon that her mother made. From silk (at least on the front sides). I could not believe she sent 2 futon. I didn't see the silk, the way they were folded and just laughed out loud. The way the Japanese say futon it sounds like spitting. Almost. Which is what I wanted to do after sleeping on 2 of them for 2 weeks.

The silk is very beautiful, though. Very beautiful. Hmmm.

Toad and Vole are GONE. Sad as well.

Something mysterious is breaking off the tops of our tomato plants and dill weed and even sunflowers and peppers. These are TALL plants. Hero-hubby has the idea that it is revenge plucking by angry grackles, frustrated that he changed to safflower seeds in order to discourage them from coming around. So he changed the seed back to what he calls "real bird seed" to appease any and all bird creatures that might have revenge as a motive for breaking off the tops of plants. The actual truth may lie in a number of STORMS that we have been having, but these things are GONE and not just green-stick fractured and hanging. So...

I think it's punk squirrels, up to mischief.

My nephew (37) thinks my son (27) is his nephew. He is the oldest grandchild of either set of grandparents. Logically, he is the oldest offspring of my sister. He could not possibly have a nephew 10 years his junior. I am seriously concerned for him. Seriously. Could have just been a Freudian typo, but it will still be fun to razz him for the rest of his life about it.

Speaking of water, my hero-hubby once again used his superpowers and not only figured out (during one of the above mentioned blinding rain storms) how the water was getting into the basement, but fixed it temporarily so that water has not been gushing in every time it rains. AND got another superhero set up to fix the problem permanently.

And now for something completely different...

Flora

This is virgin's bower. It is in the same family as what us tame people call "clematis". I had read about virgin's bower, but never seen it, and never knew that it is, in fact, wild clematis. How unexpected and delightful. More v.b. because I couldn't get enough photographs of it.

It's amazing how trees grow in the mountains. They find all sorts of ways to get around rocks, snow and ice. Hence the interesting shapes. They grow in and around solid rock, breaking it up yet cementing it together with their roots. There's a lesson in there somewhere.

This is bracted honeysuckle. Doesn't smell like honeysuckle, but that's what the book says.

Lupines. In the wild. Very thick up there this time of year, and beautiful. Everything was blooming, it seemed.

Lupines, gallardia, all sorts of different white flowers that are hard to distinguish in the photo (cow parsley, yarrow, wintergreen, pearly everlasting and bear grass were all abloom) and mallows are in there as well. And crane's bill geranium, let's don't forget them. And yellow columbine.


These are glacier lilies. They are nodding together with the common European dandelions, which are not to be confused with Japanese dandelions, which grow only in Japan and are white/yellow. Anyway, glacier lilies only bloom just after the snow melts away from the plant that has been growing under the snow. Like croci, only up higher. We were up high. Oh, yeah.

These are carpets of yellow monkey-flower, according to the pathetic Rocky Mountain Nature Guide I have. It says they are in the snapdragon family, and were all over these hillsides on the Loop trail.

I thought this was orange agoseris, but I'm not so sure now. I did see orange agoseris, but I believe I took this pic to identify the flower, and can't find it! HELP. If I don't name this flower, I will probably die trying, and that wouldn't be pretty, now would it?

And last, but definitely NOT least, bear grass. It's actually a lily. Blooms once every 3-7 years and is fragrant only when there are a lot of them. One on its own doesn't do much for the olfactors. There was a lot of bear grass blooming this year, much more than we've ever seen. It was just beautiful.

Just ONE More?

I can no longer promise that I will no longer do flower boards chiri-men style! I'm addicted. This and paper crafting could just do me in. Blogging doesn't help. Time, I need TIME. And energy. Time and energy.

This is my attempt at clematis. My neighbor has the most beautiful clematis vine growing outside our kitchen window, so I had to try to memorialize it in fabric.

For those of you who don't care about 5th quarter arm-chair quarterbacking, quit reading. For those of you who do, read on, intrepid ones:

I found steam-a-seamII. I mean, I re-found it in my quilt stash and used that to stabilize the backs of the "flat" petals and the tendrils. Worked pretty slick. I still need to get more depth in these, but I'm working on it. Stabilizing really, really helped. Maybe I will use Pellon or something for the gluing down bits. Dunno yet. I need to figure out how I am gonna do stamens/pistols and the whole re-generational bits of the flowers. But, I left them out rather than make it way too complicated.

More to come, I'm sure!

TREATS

I recently went to the Asian Market, where there are a LOT of items that I have no clue what they are. This is one of them. Sakura Denbu. I know what it is, I just don't know what I would do with it. But I bought it anyway, just because it says "seasoned codfish grinded" on it. And the idea of cherry blossoms and codfish together is rather intriguing, don't you think?

My Japanese food fetish continues. I found these YamYam made by Meiji at the local grocery. The crackers have cheese in them, so they are good for you, and there is a very sane amount of icing to dip (not scoop) them in. I love how languages have their own ways of describing animal sounds and animals in general.

Squirrels are not necessarily thought of as our best friend in the U.S. Especially stomping thug squirrels. And our lucky number is 7, not 8. But then, if I were an octopi, my whole world would revolve around the number 8, I suppose.

By and large, I just love these treats. I feel for the poor child of the transplants that counts on getting one of these when he/she goes to Hy-Vee and some gai-jin has been getting them all! Although, I wouldn't be the gai-koku-jin, would I?

Yellow Poplar

This is the flower of the yellow poplar tree, otherwise known as the tulip tree. It's Latin name is Liriodendron tulipifera and has a sister plant in East Asia called liriodendron chinense.

This tree must be a smaller version than the Smoky Mountains kind, because in the Smokies it only blooms when the tree is 60ft or more high and you can't see the blossoms until they fall.

This is only the 2nd year this tree has bloomed. Last year, we barely noticed it because there were only about 7 or 8 blooms. This year, it's loaded.

Yay.

Spring In The Tundra

Spring has finally come to Iowa. I hope to have more spring pics to publish after Mother's Day.
Our neighbor's Bradford Pear is beautiful. All the pear trees are blooming right now, and there are quite a few in the neighborhood.

Our bleeding heart finally plumped out. Funny flowers: they come out like butterflies from the chrysalis, all wrinkly and small. Then, they slowly inflate.I was pulling this thing out the 1st 2 years we were here, thinking it was a weed. Silly girl. It finally dawned on me last year that the leaves looked a lot like bleeding heart leaves and to leave it alone for a season.

A pair of American Robins redecorated the old nest in the serviceberry tree. The only reason I could take this pic is that serviceberries won't bloom probably until next week. When they do, the tree will be covered. Great camo for this momma robin and the eggs she is hatching.