Happy Halloween – Boooo!

It’s a few days early, but I wanted to share this with Mosaic Monday. I think there is a wee bit of blue showing so let’s include Blue Monday over at Smiling Sally’s and also Creative Every Day Prayers go out to all you folks on the East coast in the path of hurricane Sandy. Please stay safe!

The pictures of witches and warlocks, gypsies and goofballs are my husband and I in the mid-’90s. Those were the good old days when I was still working as a medical transcriber at Stanford Hospital. Everyone in our department dressed for Halloween – what fun! After work my boyfriend and I (now my husband) would make the rounds of the piano bars, which were still popular in the Bay area in Northern California. I’ll never forget one year, the Stanford students were throwing a big Halloween haunt in a wooded area where Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford were buried in a big mausoleum in a wooded area on the Stanford campus. The rock music was blaring unbelievably loud and everyone was dancing (it’s not easy to dance holding a broom!). Well, it wasn’t too many months later when the enormous oak tree the students were dancing under died. I felt very remorseful for taking part in this – but was told that the tree probably was on it’s way out anyhow because there was some sort of beetle infestation in the oaks. I hope the kids back East can have a belated Halloween if the hurricane messes up the 31st!

Potpourri Monday ~ plus a few haiku

Rolling hills of green
Vast expanses of blue sky
Where is my putter?

This is the golf course at the Laughlin Ranch in Bullhead City, Arizona.   Laughlin Ranch has a golf course, spa, restaurant and banquet rooms. When we were in business we held our annual Southwest Artisans Cooperative Art Marketplace here. Beautiful surroundings! I’d like to share this with Sally on Blue Monday and Our World Tuesday.

Petals of bright red
Anthers awaiting for touch
Bees will do the rest

 

 

I guess you could say I like flowers, since my posts seem to have a lot of pictures of flowers!  And it’s funny, as much as I love flowers when it comes to painting them they are one of the hardest things for me to paint – or draw.  Someone told me they learned how to paint flowers when they were taking a tole painting course.  Once they learned the basics of painting a flower through the tole method they were able to branch out into other styles.  If you would like to see more macro photos of flowers and many other subjects visit Lisa’s Chaos at Macro Monday and mosaics at Mosaic Monday.

Oleanders

Out-of-the-Garden II and a tanka too

Here is a mosaic of some of the vegetables out of my gardens from the past.  I simply can’t wait until the weather cools down and work can begin on my square foot gardens. I’m chomping at the bit – raring to go! When I look at these fine vegetables I wonder how and why I ever stopped gardening in the first place.

Well, I really know why – the dearth of growth the last two seasons because of the hot weather coming too soon in the season, like two seasons ago it was over 100F for two weeks in April!

And just when my tomato plants were starting to produce like crazy the Japan earthquake hit and then I started worrying that the Fukushima radiation may possibly be drifting into this area and affecting our gardens.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had set up monitors in different states where it was thought radiation might blow in with the Gulf Stream coming from Japan across the Pacific and into the United States

As I was preparing this post, I decided to double check some of my facts (like the monitors) since it’s been seventeen months since the meltdown in Fukushima, and what I came across dampens my spirit again and reminds me anew why I stopped gardening.  This article is in the VC Reporter and it indicates that there is really no USA or Japanese government investigation presently going on into the effects of the radiation coming out of the plant and the waters around the plant that are still traveling across the Pacific Ocean on the Gulf Stream currents.

Once again, human nature’s way of dealing with problems, if they are really big ones, ignore them, hide from them, pretend they are not there, deny them – until catastrophe strikes and the problem cannot be ignored! Oh well, now how do I segue into a better more positive frame of mind? How about a tanka?

Earth and ocean shake
Trouble brews across waters
As man bravely fights
Poison spills on land and sea
God and nature will redeem

This post is being linked to Mary’s Little Red House for Mosaic Monday and Smiling Sally for Blue Monday. Thank you Mary and Sally for allowing fellow blogger’s to link and share with one another!