Ball Celebrates International Can-It-Forward Day + A Giveaway!

Last year about this time, I helped Ball and Jarden Home Brands celebrate National Can-It-Forward Day by hosting a giveaway of some of their Limited Edition canning jars. Well, this year the celebration has gone international!  There are all kinds of activities planned to make it a fun day and the giveaway here on my blog is bigger and better than last year!

In a special live event today, Saturday, August 16th, renowned chef and Bravo’s Top Chef judge Hugh Acheson will be on hand in Brooklyn Borough Hall Farmers Market, answering questions in real time as canning demos take place on a live webcast. You can participate here from 10:00 am - 2:00 pm EDT.

And you'll want to, because in addition to getting your questions about canning and preserving answered by Hugh and various demos, they're also giving away some really great prizes. I'd LOVE to win that FreshTECH Jam & Jelly Maker! Someone is going to and I hope it's ME! And if it isn't me, then I hope it's you! ;-)

In addition to the canning demos, there will also be segments on crafting, herb gardening and their new drinkware line. They will also be attempting a Guinness World Record for the World’s Largest Mason Jar Mosaic! Twenty-five farmers markets across the country will also be hosting Can-It-Forward Day celebrations.

Now, on to those great Ball products that make up my giveaway. Ball sent each of these things to me to try out and I honestly can't wait. I'm already a fan of Ball and have used their canning jars for my jellies and my pickled red beets for years. They've been providing America with canning supplies for over 100 years and they're a company I trust when it comes to preserving my own produce from the garden.

One reader will win all these things:

• The New Limited Edition Spring Green Heritage Collection Jars - These limited edition jars commemorate the 100 year anniversary of the Ball brothers’ “Perfection” Jar and come in a beautiful green tint. These are being produced only in 2014 and are available in both pint and quart varieties, and you'll get a set of each! (Pint retail value: $9.99 per case / Quart retail value $12.99 per case)
   


 


• Fresh Herb Keeper - Many new to gardening start with herbs as an easy first step. To savor the seasonings, Ball has developed a new product to keep herbs fresh for up to two weeks. (Retail value: $12.99)
  
  
  
  
  
• Dry Herb Jars - A perfect-sized solution for storing your dried herbs. Great for storing seasonings, spices and rubs too! Stackable, low-profile design makes pantry or drawer storage more efficient than old, mis-matched containers. This is a set of four 4-oz. jars with lids and labels. (Retail value: $4.99)
  
  
  
  
  
• Frozen Herb Starters - Preserve your fresh seasonings in ready-to-use cubes filled with butter, oil or other liquid for easy and flavorful meal starters. (Retail value: $11.99)
  
  
  
  
  
• 5-Blade Herb Scissors - Stainless steel blades gently cut and evenly slice herbs like basil, parsley and cilantro. (Retail value: $9.99)
  
  
  
  
  
• Ball Blue Book - Offering 125 pages that will guide you while you learn about preserving, this book provides information on equipment, instructions for the preserving method and recipes! (Retail value: $6.49) 

These items have a combined total value of $69.43 and should definitely help you get started with your canning, so here's what you need to do to enter to win:

1. Leave a comment to this blog post by midnight EDT next Friday night, August 21, 2014, telling me what your favorite item from the garden to can is. If you don't already can or preserve anything, just tell me why you want to win this awesome set of canning supplies.

2. Since I need a way for me to contact you should you be the lucky winner, you need to fill that information in on the Rafflecopter form below. Blogger comments do not automatically provide me with your name or your contact information especially if you use "Anonymous" when leaving a comment.  If your comment is randomly chosen and I can't figure out how to contact you, another winner will be chosen.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

If you want to follow along on social media as the day's activities are underway, be sure to use the hashtag #canitforward.

You can visit Ball's social media sites here:

www.facebook.com/BallCanning
www.twitter.com/BallCanning
www.pinterest.com/BallCanning

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Ball and Jarden Home Brands provided me with the above products at no charge for me to try in my own kitchen. No other compensation was given other than these products and as always, any opinions shared here are my own. I won't promote products or services that I don't like or wouldn't use myself, and in the overwhelming majority of cases, I do use them.

"Our Little Acre" - The Story Behind the Name

Monica Milla (Garden Faerie's Musings) and Brenda Haas (BGgarden) were having a Twitter discussion one day, talking about how their blogs got their names. I knew how Bren's had gotten hers, but Monica's story was new to me. They decided to ask other bloggers to share their stories of how their blogs got their names. Here's mine:

August 2004

Since 1977, we have lived in rural northwest Ohio on a small plot of land. We've always had a vegetable garden, but it was only since 2005 that I got involved with gardening in a big way, and started growing ornamental plants, too. Lots of them. As my passion for growing deepened, our older daughter Kara recognized that I needed a way to share what was happening in our gardens. She suggested I start a blog.

I gave it some thought and decided to just do it. Younger daughter Jenna had this idea that I sat around all day eating bonbons and watching soap operas on the days I didn't work as a dental hygienist. (I had cut back dramatically on my work schedule to just half a day a week.)

June 2008

Sometimes I wrote it as a story, and sometimes in journal form. Initially, it was started just to share things with family and maybe some friends. But soon there were comments from people I didn't know. I had a Julie and Julia moment. ("People are actually reading what I wrote!")

That was almost five years ago now; my first post was published on January 2, 2007. Much has happened in those years - so many wonderful friendships formed and opportunities presented. Writing Our Little Acre has changed my life in ways that I could never have imagined and I'm grateful for Kara's suggestion. I used to hate writing (seriously!) and now I have to write, much as a runner just has to run.

Oh...the name? We live on an acre, of course.

To read The Story Behind the Name of other bloggers, visit Monica's post at Garden Faerie's Musings.

#gardenchat Welcomes Year-Round Growers

Those of us who live in the north get to take a break from the hustle and bustle of spring, summer, and fall growing in the garden. Winter affords us time to circle the wagons and plan for the next year. But we do miss our green...

Conservatories and greenhouses make it possible to grow year round, and this coming Monday, November 14th, #gardenchat on Twitter will feature some gardeners who do just that. Brenda Haas manages and is the moderator of the hour-long forum for those interested in all things gardening and just happens to be one of those who grows year round in her greenhouse. She (@BG_garden), along with Glenda Duchak (@Tootsie_Time), Brian Elgin (@brianelgin) , and I (@OurLittleAcre), will be sharing our experiences from 9:00 - 10:00 PM EST. Those who grow  houseplants in their homes will no doubt benefit from the chat as well.

To participate, simply pop onto Twitter and use the hashtag #gardenchat to be included in the conversation. It does move quickly, but Bren always posts a transcript following #gardenchat on the official site here. You'll also find detailed instructions on how to join in on the fun.

You can submit questions ahead of time by sending them to Bren, although it's not necessary. All you really need to do is show up.

Hope to see you on Monday night!

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Read about my conservatory: The Best Little Hort House

Community Garden Projects : Coming to a Blog Near You!

Ginkgo Organic Gardens - Chicago, IL

Community gardens are a popular and good thing. For those that live in apartments or have no place to put a garden of their own, community plots of earth are a great way to exercise gardening muscles and grow your own food and flowers.

Gardeners also have local organizations they belong to, such as garden clubs and Master Gardener groups. But there's yet another larger community of gardeners - those who connect via Twitter, Facebook, and garden blogs. The internet has made it wondrously possible for us to communicate with gardeners all over the world, thus opening up our world to greater learning and relationships with those that share our passion for growing.

As the 2011 growing season gets underway, many have created opportunities for gardeners to connect on an even more intimate way, by joining together in community gardens of another sort.

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The World's Largest "Community" Garden - The Beekman Boys at Beekman 1802 and Williams-Sonoma are pairing up with gardeners the world over in growing the same 10 heirloom vegetables. You can sign up for customized e-mails that will help you every step of the way and you can share your progress on their site.

You can order the seeds at Williams-Sonoma online or you can purchase them in their stores. For more information, visit those Beekman Boys.

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Community Container Garden at Life on the Balcony - Fern Richardson has created an edible container garden and has suggested that we all plant the same thing, then compare notes as they grow. Her container recipe includes:

• ‘Spacemaster’ Cucumber
• ‘Better Bush’ Tomato
• ‘Sunspot’ Sunflowers
• ‘Purple Petra’ Basil
• Garlic Chives

To make it easier, she has partnered with Jayme Jenkins of aHaModernLiving.com, where you can buy all five Botanical Interests seed packets for $10.95. And you'll get 10% off your purchase (of anything at aHa! Modern Living!) using the code LOTBseeds.

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The Sunflower Project has as its goal to encourage us to not give up on the dream of world peace:

"Sunflowers sprouting tall across our Earth will remind us to trust in nature as our most important resource, and let others know that we, the people on the planet, want clean air, water and food, as well as peace in our homes, schools, and between nations.

The Sunflower Project vision is to see all people in every corner of the globe who are concerned about nuclear war, pollution, violence, injustice, and/or threats to the balance of nature, to plant at least one sunflower seed in a sunny place where it will be noticed."

For more information on participating, visit their website at www.sunflowerproject.com.

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The Great Sunflower Project is yet another involving the planting of sunflowers, but specifically the 'Lemon Queen' variety. They have chosen this particular sunflower because of its universal attraction to bees. Once the sunflowers are in bloom, participants count the number of bees seen pollinating a single plant for 15 minutes, twice a month. Data is then entered on the website, where it will be used to determine where pollinators may need help.


Renee's Garden Seeds have joined in on the project by selling 'Lemon Queen' sunflower seeds and if you use the code FR225A on your order, Renee's will donate a portion of the sales to the project.

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If you know of another such project that any gardener can participate in, please let me know and I'll edit this post to include it. Let's grow together in 2011!

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Reporting for Shirley Bovshow's "Garden World Report"

I first met Shirley Bovshow through blogging, then ran into her again on Facebook, and eventually we chatted with each other on Twitter. In case you've not had the pleasure of getting to know her, let me introduce you!

Shirley is well known in gardening circles as a member of the "Garden Police" (on Discovery Home Channel), and appears regularly on HGTV as a guest designer on "Outer Spaces." She is the author of Eden Makers Blog and is a speaker at home and garden shows around the country. Recently, Shirley has been creator and host of the Garden World Report, which features the latest news in the gardening world of the U.S. and other countries.

A couple of weeks ago, Shirley asked if I would submit a video about the Smiley Park Children's Garden in Van Wert. Shirley knew my mom was a driving force behind the gardens and she wanted to share the garden's story with the rest of the gardening world through Garden World Report. I spoke at length on the phone with Shirley, who is in Los Angeles, and after receiving my instructions on what to "show and tell," Mom and I spent some time in the Children's Garden last Monday with the video camera.


This was my first experience shooting a video like this, and Mom's, too. After several outtakes, due to passing cars, noisy motorcycles, our "assistant" speaking while the camera was on (We still love you, Dad!), and tripping over our own tongues, we finally got some acceptable footage to send on to Shirley. That afternoon, I e-mailed the video to her, along with some summer photos of scenes from the Children's Garden.

Garden World Report airs the current weekly episode as a continual loop, beginning late Monday night and playing through the following Monday night when a new episode becomes available. At that time, all previous episodes can be played on demand from this page.

This week's episode is entitled, "Plant it Forward," featuring the kindness of gardeners on behalf of others, plus "Shirley's Favorite Things for the Garden." Be sure to tune in this week to see Mom and me in the Children's Garden!

"Garden World Report"

Our Little Acre on Facebook

You may have noticed that I added what's called a "Facebook Fan Box" in the column on the right. It's likely that you've heard of Facebook before, and perhaps you're a registered user. Good for you!

I'm a huge fan of the site, though I wasn't always. When I first signed up, I wasn't sure it was something I would even use very much.

I was wrong.

Facebook has put me in touch with former high school and college classmates, friends I'd lost contact with, and people with whom I have a common interest. It's just one of many social networking sites available to internet users.

So what is a social network anyway? Here's a short video that gives a pretty good explanation:



I use several social networking sites and each has their own unique way of providing me with the tools to connect with those who share a particular interest. Like gardening!

Blotanical has put me in touch with so many wonderful gardeners around the planet, I can't begin to even list the people I've met there. Twitter is another social networking site that I didn't think I'd use much, and although I don't frequent it as much now as I did at first, it too put me in touch with a number of wonderful gardeners. I met Shawna Coronado (The Casual Gardener) on Twitter.

Then along came Facebook. I used it for staying in touch with people that I've known for many years - people that I've met and are relatives or friends in my personal life. Then I found some of my online garden blogger friends were there and some of them found me. My friend list grew.

I started posting updates to my blog on my personal Facebook page, then as more and more businesses and organizations began to have Fan Pages, I thought it would be nice if Our Little Acre had a Facebook page of its own. There I could post updates from my blog as well as photos from the garden and random happenings related to gardening without cluttering up my non-gardening friends' updates.





So the Our Little Acre fan page was born.








As of right now, the page has 100 fans and I'd be happy if that number continued to grow. If you become a fan, any updates to the blog or random comments and photos concerning the garden will show up on your Home page right along with your friends' updates.

Won't you join me on Facebook by becoming a fan of Our Little Acre?

Where Do My Readers Live?

You may have noticed the counter on the left side of my blog - the black one with a white number and a red circle with a stick figure in it. That's a fun little application that lets me see how many people are viewing my site at one time. But it also lets me see where all the readers in the last 24 hours live. (Click on photo to enlarge.)


There's also a heat map showing where the concentration of viewers came from. Interesting that I live in the Midwestern United States and that's where most of my readers live. This being the internet and all, I didn't expect to see such a graphic clustering such as that.


At the time I captured this screen shot, there were three active readers. But just look at all the other locations where readers live! Just a smattering of those shown here:

• 
  

Reykjavik, Iceland

Angra, Azores

Hanoi, Vietnam

Brezice, Slovenia


Kuwait

Nairobi, Kenya

Alexandria, Egypt

Viljande, Estonia

Tunapuna, Trinidad & Tobago

Soyapango, El Salvador

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Calama, Chile

Zanjan, Iran

* cue It's a Small World music *

If you're interested in getting this free application for your own web site or blog, just visit who's.amung.us.

My ISP Doesn't Like Me

I am posting this from my parents' house because my internet service has been down for going on three days now. We had some bad storms go through here and I suspect this is the reason for the down time. In any case, I'm chomping at the bit here, because I have blog posts I need to post, as well as other internet things to do.

You see, I live online. My heart beats wirelessly and when I'm not connected, it's like I've had a virtual heart attack.

Okay, so it's not that bad, but almost. In any case, whenever they get us up and going again, I've got stuff to post! And responses to your wonderful comments to make! I hope they get it going later today yet, because we're going to be at LilyFest this weekend and I won't really have time to spend online.

Maybe the very act of posting this whine about my ISP will subconsciously spur them to action. As if they care whether I get online tonight or not...

SPRING - Have It Your Way!

Is spring taking its sweet time in coming to your neck of the woods? Well, you can have it NOW!

Check it out!

Wayside Gardens Doesn't Want My Business

Warning: This is not a feel-good blog post. Not unless you've had the same experience I have and you're in the "misery loves company" camp. If so, read on. If not, my apologies.

For a couple of weeks now, I've been trying to complete an order with Wayside Gardens, and today I came to the conclusion that they would rather not have me as a customer. I don't think I've ever purchased anything from them before, mainly due to their high prices on most things I'm interested in, but they were having a sale, so I thought I'd go ahead. And the Very Special Thing that led me to make this attempt was Paris polyphylla.


Ever since I've laid eyes on this, I've coveted it for my own garden. There's just something about it that's attractive to me and I want it. Wayside Gardens is one of the very few places that has it. My attempt at getting it from there to here went something like this:

I received an e-mail from Wayside Gardens advertising a 30% discount sitewide. Oh good! Maybe I can get my Very Special Thing now, since it will be 30% off! To sweeten the deal, if you used their code, you'd get a free upgrade to express shipping!

Since I'm going to order the Paris polyphylla, I might as well see if there's anything else I might want. Sure, I'll take a 'Zombie' Amaryllis and an Agapanthus bulb. I dropped them into my shopping cart, went through the steps to complete the order and whoaaaaaaaa . . . look at those shipping charges! Even using the code, express shipping is $18.90 for three bulbs. And that's not all - there's a side note that due to an increase in fuel costs, there will be a $2.00 surcharge to all orders. Except that my order has a $4.00 surcharge added. So now we have a total of $27.89 for the items I want to order and $22.90 for shipping.

I. Don't. Think. So.

I abandoned my shopping cart for several days until I received another e-mail from Wayside stating they'd made an error on their website and they had it fixed. To compensate for their error, they were now offering 35% off sitewide. He who hesitates, wins!

I once again went to their site and my items were still in my shopping cart. (I'll give them a point here, because some sites empty your cart the minute you leave their site, even if you sign in. I hate that.) But the amaryllis isn't showing the sale price. Oh, look! They're giving me a free one instead!

I don't want two amaryllis; I only want one, and I want it at 35% off just like the rest of the items. If they want to give me a free one, then make it be free, instead of charging me the full price for one and throwing in another.

I decide to see what happens when I try to once again complete my order. Are you with me here? You know what happened, don't you? Still incorrect and exorbitant shipping charges. Now my total for the items is $25.91 and shipping is $20.90.

I shot off an e-mail to customer service, explaining my experience with trying to order and pointing out that even if the shipping charges are based on the original prices of the items I'm ordering (which is exactly what they do), the shipping should be a total of $10.95. It says so on the page where they state their shipping charges online and it says the same thing in their print catalog.

I got an automated response from them telling me they'd received my message and they'd get back to me within five business days, due to this being their busiest time of the year. And it was a full five days later when I received an e-mail from Barbara, apologizing for my frustration with their website and any inconvenience I experienced.

Barbara explained that the reason the price on the amaryllis showed up the way it did was because it was a daily special the day I tried to order it. She told me I could now order the amaryllis at 35% off. She said the shipping charges should be correct now, too.

So I went to the website and yes indeed, the amaryllis problem was corrected. Not so with the shipping fees. Still the same high price. I really wonder what they would be without the free express upgrade discount!

I once again e-mailed customer service and this time I only had to wait a day for a response from Barbara. She apologized for my frustration and inconvenience then went on to tell me I had failed to tell her what the subtotal was for my order and what shipping charges were listed when I tried to finalize my order. WHAT? I did too tell her what I was charged for the items and what the shipping charges were, but apparently Barbara had forgotten or she merely overlooked those details that were still showing in her response e-mail had she scrolled down and reviewed my initial complaint.

Now you would think that Barbara would try to do something here to help me with the placing of this order. But no, that was the end of it on her end. Barbara clearly isn't paid commission on sales, not that I would expect that, but it might be motivation for any employee to help their customers as best they can. More sales means more profit. More profit just might mean higher salaries or bonuses. At least I thought that was the way business worked.

I replied to Barbara that yes I did supply the information she asked for, in my initial e-mail, but I copied and pasted it once again for her convenience. Isn't it the job of customer service people to gather the information they need to properly respond to the problem presented by their customers? I really would be surprised if Barbara and I communicate further. I pretty much left it with her that I had already spent way too much time trying to order from them and that there were many other businesses just like theirs that didn't require such hard work to make a purchase and be charged the right amount.

One more thing - this fuel surcharge of $2.00 that they add to each order (except in my case, it's $4.00, for whatever reason). We all pay more for gas. If businesses need to charge more for shipping, then do it up front. People like to know what they're paying for without having to add this or that as an 'extra.'

It is probably not in my best interest to be posting this rant publicly on my blog about a specific business, although I did do it once before. That time was a rather comical error by the business and not really a rant, but this is downright irritating. It's not in Wayside Gardens' best interest to not take care of their customers either, no matter how large or small the order, especially when it's a first-time potential buyer.

I'm done. And if you've made it all the way to the end of this, let me give you a hug. Sometimes all people want is to be listened to. And Paris polyphylla.

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Photo of Paris polyphylla courtesy of UBC Botanical Garden website.

About This Environmental Thing . . .

I'm just a little more aware of environmental issues as I am political ones. Sometimes the two converge. But my level of commitment fluctuates, so when bloggers recently posted their thoughts on the environment on Blog Action Day (October 15th), I didn't post. But I did read. And it got me thinking, which was one of the purposes of Blog Action Day in the first place.

It's not that I'm opposed to green efforts or anything, it's just that I've never been one to champion any cause very forcefully. As opinionated and outspoken as I can be, this probably comes as a surprise to those who know me, but maybe it has to do with my lack of knowledge and understanding about "issues" and that my procrastination habit keeps me from reading and researching them.

In the last two-plus years, however, I've learned a lot about my outdoors environment as a result of my taking up gardening pretty much full-time. I've discovered much of it intimately and in a hands-on kind of way. Immersion, I think they call it. And while I'm still not totally organic, nor may I ever be, I'm certainly much more aware of the impact my actions have on the world around me.

Last Tuesday, my 92-year-old grandmother and I had a nice chat about some things along those lines. This proved to be interesting for many reasons. She and my grandpa made their living by farming and Grandma was a gardener of not only flowers, but vegetables and fruits that she preserved for her family. She has seen changes in farming over the years and they aren't all good, where the environment is concerned.

I don't remember how we started talking about environmental issues, but it may have been the Monarchs that led us to it. I told her about the one that was born in our house, then explained to her about the dwindling milkweed supply and how this is affecting the Monarch population.

Is it important that there are fewer Monarchs? Maybe. Maybe not. Certainly other species have become extinct over the years and we and the rest of the world have gotten along just fine without them, right? I'm sure the earth won't stop turning without Monarch butterflies. But that's not the point, is it?

Here's what it is for me: In all the time of existence of earth and everything on or in it, things have been in a state of change. Nothing stays the same. Some changes take place quickly, some take eras. Man had nothing to do with the changes that occurred thousands of years ago, for example, glaciers used to move over the very land where Our Little Acre now sits.

But now we're told that we're destroying the protective ozone layer that blankets the earth and if we don't change our ways, we're going to really mess up the equilibrium that exists in the environment. I've seen An Inconvenient Truth, and I'm not going to say that we aren't doing some very detrimental things nor that we shouldn't modify the way we do things. But I don't believe that what we're doing is going to have the monumental effect that the über-environmentalists would have us think.

What I do believe is that the present use of chemicals by the agricultural community, which includes gardeners like me, is causing diseases like cancer. (Grandma agrees.) I believe the world would be a better and healthier place to live if we did more recycling and used less non-biodegradable disposable materials. I believe if people lived with the rest of the world in mind rather than a "me first" mentality, huge strides would be made in making the world a cleaner place - cleaner air, cleaner water, cleaner land. I believe if more people had greater respect for all living things, it would affect life for all of us in a positive way.

So what am I doing now that I didn't do before? I've got a compost pile. I collect rainwater in a barrel for watering plants. As a geocacher, I practice CITO (Cache In, Trash Out). We continue to recycle aluminum, plastic, glass, and newspapers.

Being a Certified Monarch Waystation, we purposely grow Asclepias species for the Monarchs, that being the sole food source for the caterpillars. And because of all the butterflies and beneficial insects that live in our gardens, we don't use pesticides, other than Safer® Insect Killing Soap or Neem Oil, and then only when absolutely necessary. As a result, sometimes the foliage or petals on blooms don't look perfect, but that's okay. Our kitties appreciate our efforts, too.

So while there's more that I could do that would benefit the environment, I feel pretty good about what I do do, and I don't hesitate to advocate organic practices when the opportunity presents itself. At the same time, you won't see me look down my nose at anyone who doesn't consciously practice good green basics, because that once was me. And thank goodness living things have an incredible ability to adapt.

Don't look at the environmental issues as something so overwhelming that you don't think anything you do will make a difference. Every little bit helps. Just do something.

Once a man was walking along a beach. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day. Off in the distance he could see a person going back and forth between the surf's edge and the beach. As the man approached he could see that there were hundreds of starfish stranded on the sand as the result of the natural action of the tide.

The man was struck by the apparent futility of the task. There were far too many starfish. Many of them were sure to perish. As he approached, the person continued the task of picking up starfish one by one and throwing them into the surf.

As he came up to the person he said, "You must be crazy. There are thousands of miles of beach covered with starfish. You can't possibly make a difference." The person looked at the man. He then stooped down and pick up one more starfish and threw it back into the ocean. He turned back to the man and said, "It made a difference to that one."

A Garden Blogger Meet!

After having a tasty breakfast at our hotel this morning, I gave Kim (a.k.a. blackswampgirl) a call as we'd previously discussed and we all headed towards Strongsville to meet at the Petitti Garden Center there.

Kim had given me a brief description of herself so that I would be able to recognize her when we met, but I think I was too busy gawking at the wares at the entrance to Petitti's that when she said hello, it just didn't register with me who she was! I told her that I was quite surprised at how young she looked, because from her blog posts she sounds mature for her years. I won't tell you how old she is (although I know), but not only does she sound older than she is, she looks younger than she is, too! What a great combination!

I have to tell you that I thoroughly enjoyed browsing the aisles of Petitti's with Kim, discussing foliage, blooms, habits, and other characteristics of the various plants we saw. We spent about an hour and a half together and the time just flew by. It was as if we were old friends getting together instead of just meeting for the first time.

I purchased a few things here, one a recommendation from Kim - Hakone Grass (Hakonechloa macra 'Aureola'). I'd been wanting another grass that grows well in the shade and Kim assured me this one did. I also bought a hardy Fuschia ('Cape Horn'™) and I'm anxious to see how this fares through our zone 5 winter. To add to my green Santolina, I got a small pot of the gray. Astrantia is one of my favorite plants, so I had to buy 'Hadspen Blood' when I saw it here. And finally, Viola 'Fuji Dawn' made its way onto my cart. I could have bought a few other things, including some beautifully healthy Japanese Anemones and a Beautyberry shrub, but there was no room left in Mom's car to take them home.

This Petitti's didn't disappoint me either. It had pretty much the same plant offerings as the Avon store, although the Avon store is larger in size. The staff was very available and quite friendly and helpful. That means so much when you find a plant you're not familiar with and want to know a bit more information than the identification tag tells you.

Kim and I exchanged gifts, with Kim sharing a division of one of her hostas, 'Dawn,' as well as a rock she had excavated from her yard for me to put on my cairn. It had some clay clinging to it, which is not normal in her gardens, so she said it needed to 'go home.' It will feel right at home in my clay-ridden garden, which Kim knew, since she grew up near me. As we said our goodbyes, we voiced our intentions to visit one another's gardens and trade some plants.

Mom, Sue and I piled back into the plant-filled car and began the trip home, with a stop scheduled for the Schedel Arboretum and Gardens just outside Elmore, Ohio. That visit will get its own post, coming up next.

Photo Book - Volume II

I did it again! Published a Shutterfly Photo Book, that is. I did my first one earlier this year and while it was tons of fun choosing pictures, backgrounds, fonts, and colors for the book, it was extremely time consuming. I just know you're thinking since I only work half a day a week that I've got plenty of time for such things.

Maybe. Maybe not. It depends on how you look at it. Keep in mind that I'm The Queen of Procrastination. Don't you ever, ever forget that. It will explain a LOT, especially where time is involved.

There are about a gazillion other things that I actually need to be doing besides compiling photo books. Like cleaning my house. And digging bulbs. Planting bulbs, too. There are those insurance claims from 2006 that still need to be filed. And there is always laundry to be done and a dishwasher that perpetually needs to be emptied or filled. I really should be better at helping keep the litter boxes clean.

Those are just a few of the necessary things. Let's not even talk about the mosaic table top that was supposed to be my "winter project" last year. Or the cushions I meant to make for the cement benches on the patio - also last year.

I've got a half-finished scrapbook of our geocaching adventures. The cedar chest holds a counted cross-stitch blanket that is only one-quarter finished. It's been there since oh, about 1985. There are also a couple of canvases just waiting for me to paint on them, but I've got to get paints first. Our basement has boxes of things I've been meaning to get listed on eBay.

I have accused my mom of having ADD. It would probably be more accurate to say she's got ADHD. But maybe what we have here is a case of the pot calling the kettle black, and at least she finishes what she starts. The more I think about this, maybe she hasn't got AD anything. She's just being her usual workaholic self. I'm not really sure what my problem is.

But I've gone off on a tangent. (See now why I never seem to get anything done??) About that photo book . . .

The first time I did one of these, I took some of my favorite photos of flowers from my gardens, arranged them and labeled them, and called it botanica. That took me forever because I had to wade through hundreds, probably thousands, of pictures I've taken over the last few years that I've never gotten around to organizing very well. I finished that book with a whopping three minutes to spare before my free photo book coupon code expired.

This time around was much easier. To someone who procrastinates, easier means you can put it off longer. What made it easier was that I wasn't really doing a photo book. There are photos, but not many. I wanted to put a small collection of some of my blog posts into a book. Even though it's called a photo book, there is a text option under the layout tab and you can publish a book with only text if you want to. There are also good options for pages with mostly text and an added picture.

I chose ten of my favorite blog posts, uploaded the accompanying photos, kept the backgrounds and colors simple, and got my book submitted with SEVEN minutes to spare before the free coupon code expired.

Hey, I'm getting better at this!

A Blog Called "Sketch Life"

I love it when I come across a wonderful blog that I hadn't seen before, like I did today. Technically this blogger came across mine first. Lisa Mertins e-mailed me this afternoon to ask if I minded if she'd linked to my blog in her post entitled The Enchanting Gold Bug in her blog on the Orange County Register called Sketch Life. I visited the link she provided and was pleased and surprised to see that she had referred to my post about the Golden Tortoise Beetle.


While that certainly made my day, I was even more thrilled to discover her wonderful, charming, and sometimes quirky watercolor sketches. Her narrations are pretty good, too. In fact, I can't really tell if the illustrations came first, or the words that go along with them; they're both fun.

Watercolor is my first love when it comes to art. I actually did a watercolor of my own, once upon a time during an art class I took at Wassenberg Art Center in Van Wert. Well, it wasn't all my own, because I copied a watercolor print that was on the front of a Christmas card we'd received. Let me tell you, as someone who doesn't have an abundance of natural artistic talent, this was HARD! And that's why I only did one and may never do another as long as I live. I'll just admire the talents of other artists that do them, like Lisa.

Lisa is a journalist and illustrator for the Orange County Register in California and I've placed a link to her column in my list of Other Blogs I Read located on the left side of this page. I'll be enjoying her charming and amazing artwork on a regular basis. I mean, besides her artistic talent, she loves shoes too, and that alone makes us instant friends.

Lisa has also written and illustrated a children's book, Ginkgo and Moon.

From Canada, With Love

I built a cairn a few weeks ago and one of my fellow garden bloggers, Jodi of bloomingwriter fame, left a comment suggesting that those who'd visited the gardens virtually, send a stone for our cairn. She offered to start it off.

Jodi has the hono(u)r of being the first person to contribute a stone to our cairn. Last Friday, just before we left for the weekend, I received a package from Canada. It took eight days to make its way about 2200 kilometers (1367 miles).

The stone that Jodi chose was gathered from the path down to Scott's Bay near her home in Nova Scotia. It's made of granite and she chose it because it has somewhat of a heart shape. I've placed it on the cairn and it now greets me, the cats, and every other visitor to our gardens as they enter them.

The heart shape is appropriate, Jodi. It symbolizes the ties that we as human beings have on this earth to each other, including yours and mine. They form by various means. Some live next-door, some live next-country, and some live on the other side of the world. Something brings us together in a moment, and we are better people for having met, regardless of the vehicle that transports us.

Many people don't understand these internet relationships we have. And if you've never made a friend this way, it's hard to understand. But once you have, it seems as normal as it was when we were kids and had pen pals in far-off lands. We exchanged letters relating our lives to each other and hoped that someday we could meet in person.

The internet, like the world, can be a scary place and there are precautions to be taken. But at some point, you make the choice to refuse to be as cynical as some and take a chance that those friends you've made in this way are who they say they are.

My life has been enriched beyond description because of the people that live in my computer. I'll never forget the day many years ago when I found myself chatting with a student in Bangladesh - the world suddenly became very small. I've learned so much in this way and it has opened my eyes to new ideas and causes me to look at old ones in a new way. It has made me see that there are an awful lot of kind and caring people out there with good hearts and it inspires me to become more like them.

In my idyllic world, I have this crazy idea that if people bothered to get to know people from other places, whether it be in your own country or around the globe, we would realize that although we live in our own delineated spaces, we are all inhabitants of Planet Earth and this alone ties us together. The internet makes this so much more possible.









World peace via the internet . . . it's got to start somewhere!

You Just Never Know Who'll Read Your Blog

Last week, I received an e-mail from Diane Mapes, a journalist with MSNBC.com, requesting an interview for a piece she was doing on tanning. She'd run across my blog, specifically my post from May 3rd entitled "Protect Yourself." I e-mailed her back, after checking her credentials (you just never know), and within an hour, we were speaking to one another on the phone.

Once again, I'm amazed at the power of the internet to bring people together in so many different ways for so many different reasons. Over the years, I've met some of the most interesting and wonderful people that I otherwise would not have met. This includes fellow gardening bloggers, of course, but also people like my friend Kat.

Probably those that I've met through geocaching are evidence of the largest network of friends and acquaintances that the internet has made possible for Romie and me. We've attended caching events and stayed with fellow cachers in their homes, as well as being the hosts ourselves, over the last three years and we not only share this hobby with them, but like our friends here at home, we enjoy just spending time with them. Were it not for our computer and the internet, we would have missed out on knowing some awfully nice people.

The internet gets bad press from time to time, and occasionally it's deserved. But used appropriately, it opens up the world in a brand new wonderful way. I remember when we first got online, my mom said to me, "Do you really need that?" At that time, we had dial-up and had a second phone line put in that was dedicated to the internet so that our regular phone line wasn't tied up by our internet use (which was a LOT of the time). The cost per month was something like $40, which included the second phone line. Now we have high-speed wireless and no telephone lines at all.

I imagine this kind of reaction was similar to when the telephone first became available for widespread use. People had gotten along without it for years, so was it really a necessity or was it a luxuriant convenience? While I don't think my computer and being online are necessities, I consider the use of it akin to using the telephone and having a television. I can use my connection to conduct business as well as for pure entertainment, and its research capabilities are invaluable.

I've always described the internet as being a book that never ends. Probably more like a magazine, with its infinite and varied subject matter. Because of this, I can sit down at the computer and be astounded later when I look at the clock and see that several hours have gone by. It's those darn links that are the culprits! One thing just leads to another - how else could you start out reading about how to prune an apple tree and end up finding out that in 2006, your first name was the 146th most popular baby name?

Like this:

• How and When To Prune Your Apple Tree
  
• Ohio Lavender Festival
• First Ladies National Historic Site
• The US Government's Official Web Portal
• Popular Baby Names

Start with the first website and you'll find yourself at the last one by clicking on links posted on each of the listed sites. And I'm easily distracted, too, so going off on tangents while online is a way of life for me. You learn the most interesting things that way though.

And now I've gone off on a tangent in this post, so back to what I wanted to say in the first place: The tanning article has been published! And while Diane didn't promise that she'd use anything from our interview, she gave me both the lead-in quote as well as the wrap-up one at the end.

There's my fifteen minutes of fame.

And here's me in 1974, after tanning by the pool at Disney World. What was I thinking?

Far Away Friends

Kat and I met online about ten years ago, through our mutual interest in vintage Winnie-the-Pooh. I can't remember who contacted whom first - I think it was Kat who e-mailed me - but it didn't take long for us to realize we would become more than mere acquaintances. Over the years, we e-mailed, telephoned, snail-mailed, and visited each other several times. We even spent a couple of our meetings at her parents' home in Arkansas.

It's an interesting friendship that has to be maintained in such a long distance way. But when you have one like we do, it doesn't matter how long it's been since you've seen each other, you just pick right up where you left off.

Kat likes to say we are twin daughters of separate mothers, with me being the older twin by 58 days and some-odd minutes. Heaven help either of our parents had we truly been born into the same family. I have no doubt we could have wreaked some really good havoc together during our growing up years.

I went to Kat's home in Zephyrhills today. I've never been here before. She got married in January and she moved to Timmy's house. It's on a fabulous property that I could have tons of fun landscaping and planting oodles of those tropical wonders they grow down here. Kat says she has a brown thumb (that's one thing we don't have in common), but I doubt if that's true. Gardening just isn't one of her things. She is, however, very artistic and creative. She's even left-handed. Last year for my birthday, she surprised me with this:


We had a wonderful visit in her screened-in porch, where I'd spend all the time I could if I lived there. It was so cozy sitting in the wicker chairs and catching up on things. I watched the video of her wedding and we walked down to the property she owns but will be selling shortly. Again, a fabulous piece of ground. There was a house, but I was drooling over the vegetation.

I spied some more of those in-the-ground amaryllis and once again, I was the lucky recipient of bulbs. I plan to put them in the ground up north for the summer, then pot them all up together in a large pot for winter bloom inside. I can see it already... And when I am enjoying their crimson loveliness, I'll remember the day I visited with my friend.

Free At Last!

I'm exhausted. And if I'm exhausted, I can only imagine how my two favorite tech support guys feel. We just spent a marathon geeky tech weekend holed up in our house, only going out twice for needed equipment. Jim and KC arrived here late on Friday night, and after a good night's sleep and an omelette breakfast, work began on setting up a wireless network here.

Now that might be a simple thing for most, and it would have been for me, were it not for the screwy internet connection I have. I feel certain if I had a 'normal' setup here, I could have done my own networking. But it's not normal. It's just weird. My next-door neighbor has the same ISP that I do, because I referred them to him. So why doesn't he have a problem with setting up a network? He just signed up with them last year. I've been with them for nearly four years. He has new equipment. Mine is old.

We have wireless internet through a company out of Omaha, Nebraska, and this is one of two options we have here for high-speed internet. The other option is satellite through DISH Network or DirecTV, which I don't want because it's not very reliable. We know this because we used to have DirecTV, and any time it rained or snowed, we had no service. Our current wireless internet service involves a transmitter that's placed atop a grain elevator eight miles away, which broadcasts the internet signal through the air by line-of-sight to an antenna mounted on our roof. Our antenna then transmits the signal to my computer via coaxial cable. And there is the problem. That coaxial cable. No router accepts a coaxial connection.

Neighbor Tim's signal gets transmitted by way of CAT5 cable. I'm jealous. I want CAT5 cable. My ISP says they'll trade their new CAT5 connection for my old coaxial connection for $400. I say that's not right, since they own my equipment anyway. They say my equipment still works, so if I want the new equipment, I have to pay. Not fair, I say. I referred my neighbor, he subscribes to their service, and he gets the new stuff? Hmmmmph.

You see, my dream has been to actually be able to use the laptop computer I got last year from Dell while sitting by Romie in the family room while he watches TV. I have used this laptop a total of five times since I bought it, and none of those times has been in my own home. All because of my internet connection from hell.

So after hours on the phone with Jim and a previous visit by KC and still not being able to get me networked, these two technological angels decided to coordinate their schedules and come from Cincinnati and the west suburbs of Chicago to go head-to-head with my nightmare. And my nightmare quickly became theirs.

I can't begin to tell you what all transpired in our dining room, where my desktop computer is located. I just know that they put in a total of 50-60 combined hours of work, while I kept the food and drink coming. There was a lot of tech talk that was flying back and forth between them. I did hear a few familiar words every now and then, such as the and and, but I don't know what DHCP stands for.

We made one trip to Ft. Wayne to Best Buy on Saturday and another to Office Max on Sunday. The first time was to purchase a different router than the one I had. Lots of configuring and programming went on with that, to no avail. So by the time they got to Plan F (or was it G?), another trip to Ft. Wayne produced a new 100GB hard drive. They had read in an online forum that one person had done all the things that they had done, but only a fresh install of the operating system finally allowed the wireless network to be established. I only had 7GB left on my original hard drive, so it was decided that adding another drive and starting over with the new one just might work.

Jim had to leave at 3:00 PM on Sunday, so KC started work on the new hard drive and used all the knowledge that he and Jim had gained through their combined effort. He worked late into the night last night, and got up this morning and started in again. And this afternoon, around 2:00 PM, I was sitting on my couch, reading and sending e-mail WITH NO WIRES! ON MY LAPTOP!

I am one happy girl. And grateful to two caring, giving people who drove hundreds of miles and spent an entire weekend doing this thing out of the goodness of their hearts. Of course, they refused any compensation, but if they think I am going to let this go unrewarded, they've got another think coming.

It's good to know that chivalry is alive and well in the world though.


*Picture of coaxial connection by Matt Myles.