Greener times

I found this photo I took in the spring and marveled at the greenness of it.  It's a Ten Petaled Anemone or a Texas Anemone (Anemone berlandieri ) which I happen to love but many people consider it a weed.  It comes in a blueish color as well as this white but I think they are so very special.  Right now the area where it lives in my back yard is brown and crispy.  Nothing alive there thanks to the over 100 degree weather and the drought.  I snuck a dribble of water in the area since my sage and my rosemary were looking peaked.  Hopefully we can get water and things will green up.  I always marvel at how quickly weeds bounce back.  As I look outside my window I see tiny wild petunias blooming with no additional moisture.  I'm always amazed at how no matter how stressed or horrible we think something is...nature seems to be able to produce beauty from it.  . 

Watermelon Summer

One of my favorite foods n the summer is watermelon.  How could anyone not enjoy the cool watery fruit especially now that the seeds are missing from it.  (Although we shouldn't dismiss the childish practise of spitting watermelon seeds at siblings).  My brother and I often had seed spitting contests and would manage to spit a great many at each other until my grandmother would catch us.  We were being vulgar -- one of her favorite words to denote lowness of character.  As children we ate the rattlesnake watermelons with the highly attractive green and white zig-zaggy stripes on them or the dar green it was almost black with a yellow spot on the bottom variety..  Now we eat the roundish seedless variety.  I've always wanted to grow them but they take a good deal of moisture to grow them and these days it's probably better to buy them from someone who grew them to keep the bills paid.  They never tell you the names of what you buy in the store - not like the apples or the pranges.  Everything is just watermelon-- seedless or seeded.  

Watermelon is also one of the fruits my SO will eat on a regular basis.  He even cuts up chunks for the fridge so they stay nice and icy. The rind that's left he takes and tosses it outside so the squirrels and the birds get some extra moisture.  The backyard squirrels hold and eat it like corn on the cob.  We find the dried up tough skins lying about the dead weeds in the back.    It's been so hot and rainless both of us worry about the outside wildlife.  We have bowls of water out, which unfortunately, the grackles view as a public toilet so they crap in it all the time.  We're constantly cleaning it out.  The other day I found a small headless bird floating in the water which makes me wonder if we have a serial killer of some sort.  I dumped the body out and when I went back to clean it up, it had mysteriously vanished.  (dun, dun, dun.) 

   It's been so hot the various small birds sit around with their mouths open panting (birds don't sweat so they pant.)  Well Gene couldn't stand it anymore and bought a cheap little circular sprinkler.  We hooked it up to the hose and hang it from the bushes around the house, dribbling enough to make a small waterfall for the birds.)  They love the shower - the cardinals especially.  I've been trying to catch one of them for a risque shower shot but they see me coming with the camera and run away.  I guess no one wants a picture of them in the shower.  I did manage to get a shot of the sprinkler in the bush.  I knew we have to be careful about water usage but we only water the bushes and that's only because our landlady is so proud of them.   If it helps the various birds - warblers, wrens, cardinals and the blue jay family - then I hope no one begrudges it.

Becoming a Sharecropper!

In my search to find new meaning in my life (ALO-after lay-off) I was paying rent to my landlady who happened to mention that she had a community garden plot that she was behind on and had received a warning that she needed to weed it.  I jokingly offered to make a deal with her and suddenly find myself with a farming job.

She wants tomatoes and peppers and I want some way of making sure I can continue living as long as possible at the house.  Plus I'm sure I could get peppers and tomatoes as well as other stuff.  So this afternoon I'm traveling with her to the spot to see what's up and will weed and water to my hearts content.  Maybe it will help me lose weight and get going on stuff.
Of course I could do it when it's in the cool of the evening.  We'll see.

Growing potatoes

Well my friend Hal had these potatoes in his vegie basket and he was going to toss them out.  I couldn't bear for the poor things to die trying to grow so I took them home and planted them in pots (two potatoes to a pot)..  I started slow and mounded dirt on top everytime they showed their heads.  I have no idea if I will get potatoes but it's fun thinking about it.  I need a bigger pot - or at least a taller one.

Here's a photo of one of them . I'm hoping I get at least one baby potato out of three pots.  I grow almost anything but have to admit I'm a somewhat lazy gardener and will forget them.  I used to be better at it but age and creaky joints are slowing me down a tad.  My avocado I raised from seed is starting to send out side branches and is looking good despite the Kitty Girls and Minerva eating the leaves when's the tree is inside over the winter.  Gene, my crazy SO bought a weird pepper from Fiesta and decided to grow it so after he ate it he planted the seeds in a pot nearby.  Yesterday I noticed that a few seedlings were coming up.  I have a sweet potato that hung around so long it sprouted (It ran away to behind the microwave which we never use).  I'm thinking about planting it. It's sorta fun to see what happens.  

Tomorrow is camera day....

I decided once a week to take my camera with me for a day and take photos to inspire me.  I'm sorta excited.  You never know what lies in wait for the amateur photographer who is trying to teach herself composition - something I'm ashamed of saying I suck at in my artwork.  Why paint three figures when one will work.  Still I think this will be a great good thing. So here is s photo of a steam vent in the back or back side of my building.  Not the most interesting but I liked the steam coming out of  it.   I took some others but they were pretty blah. 

Everyday when I come home from the bus I see this hole in the road.  It really looks like a heart so I had to take a snap. I want to sneak out and paint a heart in it for fun and see what happens. Right after I took it we had a rainstorm and the hole filled with water.  I'm going to run down and take another when it happens it was pretty nice looking. Camera Day is going to stick around - if for no other reason than to make me think of painting ideas.

On becoming jobless

So Tuesday I found out eight of us at work would be made redundant.  I was the only one from my section but honestly I knew it was coming.  How could I not.... even though they were trying so hard to be clever.  It's not hard when you and your new boss have totally opposite beliefs on compassion and such.  This blog stands in good evidence how disorganized and scattered I can be.  I've been here at the University for 15 years and am due to get my 15 year pin next week.  I think - to be fair to myself and to the others - I will miss that meeting.  I don't want to find myself shaking hands with one of the people who signed my dismissal paper.  Technically it's for restructuring the School, which is a fancy way of cutting back, keeping people who feel ideologically similar to the current bosses. I'm not angry at any one person in particular just the fact that they didn't try to keep us on somehow. That it was easy to let us go... that hurt... after 15 years told I wasn't needed or important enough to be kept on somehow.  Since then I've had instructors and co-workers go out of their way to check on me or let me know how much they will miss me. More than I thought would say things. LARGE EDITOR"S NOTE: I thought I'd stick this in... the above mentioned feelings as one could guess was based shortly thereafter my termination note. I want to add in that I was totally wrong about my supervisor.  We still think totally opposite from each other about some things (and I could be the one who needs to grow) but she was really supportative and compassionate about stuff.  She went out of her way to help me which I am really grateful. OKAY, so I make mistakes but I at least can admit them.

I do love my work.  I love the people I mostly work with.... students, faculty and staff.  (A few exceptions there.)  So now I'm a lame duck - so to speak since they are giving us dispossessed 60 days to find another job.  The University is trying to help it's dismissed population find new roots.  I attended a meeting on my rights and choices.  I can get help from them on resume writing, interviewing tricks and a slight hire preference request.  I'm working on my resume, my personal and professional references and trying to get going.

I'm choosing to view this in a positive way.  To think that an almost 60 struggling artist can be recognized for the skills and enthusiasms that keep her young and keep people happy to visit and will find a new job quickly and easily.  I will  miss learning the obscure knowledge of science, (hard since I'm an art major).  Early on, working in the Biological Sciences taught me that art and science are similar and satisfy the same need to create.  (I once did an art show with all the people in my section donating a piece of artwork they did for fun.  We had over 50 pieces)  I was amazed that so many scientists could do such beautiful and haunting work.  They were too.

Hopefully I will continue at the University in some other department and find new interests and new conversations.  I miss the people I found a bond with and hope to continue that friendship.  I will learn to forgive the people who thought my contributions weren't good enough to keep.

More on Freda, the mysterious grandmother.

As I posted much earlier, I have this grandmother named Freda who is a difficult hurdle in my genealogy.  Well I found an update on her and now I have to figure out how to get the info.  I might ask one of my Louisiana cousins who I have never met but seems friendly.
Anyway, I found a criminal court agenda from New Orleans from 1880-1918 and there on it were two cases against a Freda Wederstrand.  I couldn't find a date but since my dad was born in 1914 and put into the orphanage by 1920 I figured out that she had these cases from sometime between 1914 to 1918.  (Keeping in mind the cut-off on the list).  Anyway she's listed as having been pulled in (Freda Wederstrand et all) for having a bawdy house and /or a house of disorderly people.
I can't wait to find out.  What kind was it... I mean it could have been a saloon since Prohibition could have been going on.  She could have a honest story.  But I think she was a someone driven woman with a shadowy past.

Only time will tell.  But it's a little more history on her.