Pale Pink Wigelia

Just found a wonderful new gardening site via twitter

I follow quite a few gardening advice sites on twitter and today I clicked on this wonderful site that tells you how to save money and propagate plants already in your garden. Sharing it and two more all at @Gardening2009 with you.
First is Free Gardening Plants
Second site Flower Garden Know How
Third: Gardening Picture Gallery

Monsanto about to release their GMO corn, Satan responds

Dear Friends at Monsanto,
I am pleased by the dominion your company has secured over planetary agriculture. Your recent courtroom triumph over small, organic farmers is a good start to extinguish the hopes of people in their quest for healthy sustenance. The organic activists will not back down easily, so I advise you to stamp out efforts of those who seek to label foods that contained genetically modified organisms (GMO), for this will slow your ascent to the top of world’s financial markets.
I have been a fan or your creations ever since you delivered the science and components for the A-Bomb and Agent Orange. Your Roundup herbicide (Glyphosate), combined with your numerous patented and genetically engineered (GE) seed creations, will make humans and their livestock weakened and infertile for generations. The greed that drives your company to experiment on the natural world has made you an enemy of the people, but a friend to all of us in power.
You are changing the face of creation in short order, the likes which have not been witnessed since the beginning of time. You have helped satisfy the excessive demand for soybeans and corn to produce livestock feed, processed foods and ethanol, resulting in an accelerated destruction of life giving top soil on the Great Plains of the US. If humanity woke up and saw the chemical soup you are feeding them, and the pollution in their air, water and soil, they could not stop the coming tide of tears.
You have altered HIS PLAN of natural selection by adapting soy, corn, sugar beets, cotton, rice, canola, sugar beets, and alfalfa with the insertion of foreign genes that enable weed and insect resistance. Products like your impressive Genuity® SmartstaxTM corn with eight added genetic traits, have helped bring on the recent and rapid demise of vulnerable pollinators like bats, birds, butterflies and bees. Your numerous (GE) seed crops and arsenal of associated crop chemicals have created a growing number of super weeds and super bugs. This situation has created a new market for an ever stronger cocktail of chemicals, all of which you will supply. Indebted farmers must buy your patented seeds, which they are not allowed to save. When farmers do save seeds, or when the GE pollen drifts, you sue them for illegally using your patented products. Farmers who buy and plant your seeds must fertilize and spray insecticides and herbicides ad infinitem. I commend you for putting profits before people, ensuring the downfall of innocents and bringing them to me.
Using your wealth to infiltrate the US government was pure genius, and your recent success in getting the USDA to accelerate your product introduction is gratifying. You obviously have minions in high places, including the White House, and this collusion with governments has helped you to spread your demon seed and chemicals around the globe.
You are in good company with other biotech firms that pervert the natural cycles of life with their products such as Bayer Crop Sciences, DuPont, Aqua Bounty Technologies, Dow, and Sygenta. All do my bidding to bring misery to the human race and their short lived livestock, who suffer greatly. The profiteers of the biotech industry have gained my gratitude.
For all your excellent work Monsanto, you are welcome in Hell as honorary demons.
Yours in demise,
Satan

Garbo, my adored little MaineCoon kitty has departed.

Garbo got put to sleep last Wednesday and once I made the decision the tears didn't stop until the whole process was over. I created a beautiful altar for her in my office and kept her there until Friday night due to the smell of decay setting in.
Saturday night my husband Victor gave me a birthday party and my grandson and my son-in-law dug the hole in my garden for me to bury her before they joined the party.

Yesterday was the momentous birthday so I decided to just indulge myself while I was home alone and not be sad putting her into the ground. That job get's done today. The book "Weep Not For Me, In Memory of a Beloved Cat" by Constance Jenkins is so consoling and comforting. It is written in the voice of the cat and you are asked to grieve but a short time.

So I must get out into the garden and actually have a ceremony as I bury her. Her death is definitely the end of an era in my life.
I feel relief that she is no longer struggling with advanced kitty age and I kept her alive as long as I did as she seemed to totally still enjoy going outside, drinking water from the pond and eating. The final two days of her life were spent behind the TV in the den lying on bunches of cables. I took her for a walk outside and she followed me around as always. She will remain to live on in my memory. RIP sweet, precious, beautiful, sassy Garbo.

Hot Savory Delicious Vegetarian Soups

A close friend asked me to join a recipe exchange and I declined but I did send my basic soup recipe to her and thought it would be a good addition to this blog. I do make soup a lot. All my soups have the same base.

SOUP BASE

Chop up two whole bunches of CELERY stalks.
Chop up one/two large yellow or white ONIONS or about 6/8 mid size onions.
Saute celery and onions together with olive oil until soft and gently browned.
In another pot add 2 to 3 cartons of VEGETABLE BROTH and blend in 1/2 cup MISO PASTE (any kind).
You can add less or more of any of the ingredients, still taste great.
Add sage, oregano, savory, parsley, tarragon, rosemary, chives and my favorite, thyme, depending on your taste and the
soup. I also use Herbimare instead of salt with pepper for seasoning.

PEA SOUP
Add 1 packages of washed DRIED PEAS that have soaked 2 hours to vegetable broth mixture in large pot and all the browned celery & onions.
Add cut up POTATOES (depending on size, about 2 cups)
Add cut up CARROTS (about one cup)
Chop 2 large springs of thyme and/or Rosemary or you can use 1 to 2 tbs dried herbs

MIXED BEAN SOUP- cooking time 2 hours.
Using dried beans soaked several hours and exactly same soup base as above using your choice of herbs

CORN CHOWDER cooking time 1 hour - S
tart with base above and add about 6 cherry peppers from a jar
2 large bags of FROZEN CORN, (mix white and yellow corn)
Corn chowder can be served with shredded cheddar or any cheese on top) cooking time 2 hours

Welcome

Bonnieview in color.

if you notice,it's the tinted picture of Bonnieview in the logo but taken from the opposite side of house. The hot pink Azaleas were planted over 40 years ago. Most of the plants in front of the property were planted by former owners, but not sure when since house was built in 1890. I would love to find old pictures of when the house was an actual carriage house. Maybe a visit to the local historical society could be useful. Adding it to my To Do list.