April Fool!

You thought there'd be a new post for the Blogging from A to Z Challenge, didn't you? First thing at the crack of sparrow's fart. Well, ha ha! April Fool's Day.

So I'm off to a rough start, but that's okay. The key is that we get out of the gate and start the ride. This month, I'll be blogging about all the themes related to my romantic suspense trilogy, which begins with a prequel I'm finishing up this month. Right now, that novella is too hot for readers to handle. My male protagonist took over and likes sex with his heroine. Imagine that! If I don't wrap this book up soon, they'll have to grow new body parts and this will become an erotic sci-fi story. I'll leave it to your imagination.

An interesting twist in this book, and one that was completely unanticipated, is the inclusion of musical themes. I'm not a musician, and never have been, but this year I'm particularly drawn to powerful music and unleashed passion in the voice. So here's an A+ singer - A is for Amanda - who exemplifies exactly what I mean. My heroine can belt out a tune like this. Someday, maybe I'll be able to unleash my inner singer the same way. I think I just need to believe in me.

Today's word count:

Move Those Hips

Now that it's snowing in the mountains (yes, snowing!) I can get in some more vigorous exercise!

Tabby Tuesday

The Cat of Cats

I am the cat of cats. I am
The everlasting cat!
Cunning, and old, and sleek as jam,
The everlasting cat!
I hunt vermin in the night-
The everlasting cat!
For I see best without the light-
The everlasting cat!

William Brighty Rands

Beautiful and Good Things

“Luxury is not a necessity to me, but beautiful and good things are.” ~ Anaïs Nin

 

And the Gardening Continues

The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings. - Masanobu Fukuoka

At last things are moving along a little in the garden. The weather has been so up and down, and I thought we'd never get any blooms. Instead we got a better flush than ever. It was truly glorious!

First here are some pictures from the new front garden bed which gets a nice curved picket fence to set off the butterfly habitat which we are just laying in.

Pippin helping out a little. When do we get to paint, Dad?

The purples and blues were glorious when the blooms popped. I'd thought I'd lost the irises in the last big snow on May 5.

And in the vegetable department, finally some salad greens, spinach, and from last year, monster parsnips!

Well, you can see from the weather map - it's up and down and up and down, even dipping down into the 30s at night.

How are things growing at your house? Any new and interesting projects? What kind of homegrown vegetables are you eating?

Gardening

Happy Mother's Day

For all the mothers out there and especially my own! Happy Mother's Day!

For me it was another day of gardening and trying to catch up with a very late winter. Two weeks ago we had snow. Tomorrow this is what we expect:

Yep. Already into the nineties, which means the gardening will have to happen in the mornings, because it's just too scorching hot after lunch.

Here's a bit of our newest project - a butterfly garden, which means tearing up 1/3 of the front yard. I'm using Barbara Damrosch's Theme Gardens book as a guide for the many flower and flowering bush plantings.

There'll be a white curved picket fence in front of the wishing well that will help define the actual flower plantings around the bird bath, stretching to the walk on the left, and road to the right. More photos when things start to grow, and I'll include a list of the plants as well. Wait until I paint the wishing well with a full palette of colors! I can't believe it's mid-May and the cottonwood tree behind the bench has barely begun to leaf out.

The flower boxes have been planted, but I still have to paint all the white trim. This is part of the springtime ritual  for me, sort of a "right of passage" into summer most people would just as soon avoid.

After a nice chicken dinner that hubbo cooked, we had homemade vanilla custard ice cream with raspberries soaked in St. Germaine elderflower liqueur. Very nice indeed!

All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his. - Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

Z is for Zilch

Which is almost the way I ended the A-Z Challenge! Yikes! I was out-of-town on a mural installation and got home way too late last night. I'm fried, and I wish I could do Zilch today, but I have to finish reading Eric Maisel's new book, Making Your Creative Mark: Nine Keys to Achieving Your Artistic Goals. It's a terrific book meant for professionals in all the arts, and you can read my review tomorrow at the Blood-Red Pencil blog.

I also have to plant Zinnias, because I just found another huge bag of seeds. Apparently, I had Zinnias on the brain when I ordered seeds last autumn and this spring. Which is okay, because I love them. I plant California Giants from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds up the centers of each of my raised vegetable beds, and they not only look colorful and gorgeous, they shield the tender lettuces planted on either side from too much sun. I love those hot colors - these are the colors of my youth - groovy man!

I'm off to Zip through the day, my friends. It's going to be a Zoo around here today. Thanks so much for visiting me during the blogging challenge, and I'll continue to add your names to my special list. We can keep visiting each other, right? Just leave me your blog link in the comments and I'll continue connecting with you.

Y is for You

I'm embarrassed to admit I've written just under 1,000 words of my 30,000 Camp NaNoWriMo goal. I have written about 10,000 blog words just for the A-Z Challenge. What about you? How did your month of writing go in April?

X is for Xeriscaping

Definition of XERISCAPE

A landscaping method developed especially for arid and semiarid climates that utilizes water-conserving techniques (as the use of drought-tolerant plants, mulch, and efficient irrigation).

 

But contrary to popular belief, it doesn't mean zero-scaping. There are many ways to plan a water-wise garden and still create the visual beauty all gardeners love to see. It's all about clustering different textures, colors, and heights in a visually attractive manner. Here are some examples:

 

What do you think of this look? Do you live in a dry area and grow drought tolerant plants in your garden? What's your favorite flower, grass, or shrub? 

Here are some links you might find useful:

Colorado State University Xeriscaping Factsheet
Denver Water
Plant Select