Everything's Coming Up Roses

Picked my first boquet of roses from my "own" yard today. It's too wet to mow the lawn and the roses were drooping. Oops! The photo is sideways. I think the water will spill all over this blog! Sorry I don't know the rose's names....one is a yellow climber, one is an old fashioned pink, and one is a cherry red. I'm going to name them "Sunny", "Aunt Harriet", and "Spot". They all need some attention. They seem to have been neglected. I can't wait to get organized enough to read up and see what they need.

And today is the openning of Portland's Rose Fesitval. Portland is the "Rose City" in case you didn't know. There are a bunch of neighborhood rose gardens, besides the huge official Rose Test Garden. Even the man-hole covers and other metal caps along the sidewalks have a rose embossed on them. The number one Rose for the Festival this year is one called "Dream Come True". It was hybridized by an "ameteur" individual, which hasn't happened in ages and only the third rose bred by an ameteur to win the AARS (All-American Rose Selection). And to top it off, "Dream Come True" was bred by Dr. Pottinger from Delhi (not Delhi, India ... the Delhi, Ohio next to Cincinnati, Ohio). Delhi was my first home away from home where I went to college. All this I learned when Lady M was here. She knows everything! Blue and I went over to the East Rose Garden in Ladd's Addition, where "Dream Come True" grows. There are lots of roses in bloom, but not this one. I guess it was the last to be planted so might be the last to bloom. Anyway, when it blooms, I'll try to put its photo on here.

What else have I been up to? Finding things that are blue! BLUE like green minus yellow equals BLUE. Right now it's my life quest. I love having a mission. This particular mission came from an idea Nimblethreads and The Conquistador had. So far I have two boxes full of little blue things for them! And that's not counting several blue things SIE decided he really needed for himself....like a blue Teradactyl and a big blue tow truck (named Lofty for those of you in the know) . I've hit every thrift shop I can find, and some of them more than once. It's fun to have a focus when you want to take a break and wander through a thrift shop.

Besides buying blue, I finally found a soft chair for the living room...and....it ... is ... white! I love it. But you know how long a white chair would stay white for me? I have animals! And visits from short people who might need to climb up with smudgy shoes on or whipe their noses on the chair arms. But I got it anyway. It is so comfy to sit in and it has rockers so it's like a padded rocking chair. It definitely will get a cover pronto.

The only other thing to report is a l o n g walk Blue and I took last Sunday. There's an "urban wilderness" area near here called Oaks Bottoms. We really needed a dose of the country, but with gas prices so high I didn't want to drive up to the Farm. I thought we'd just take a quick walk and started off along the bike trail. There was a path that cut off from the bike trail and into the woods, so we thought we'd take a peak. It seemed from the map that the path would circle back to the bike trail quickly. So into the quiet woods we went, crossing over a couple little streams and admiring the well-kept wooden bridges. There was a sign that said, "This trail has been maintained by such and such junior high school". Then a split in the path - we turned right. Turning left would have taken us on that quick route back to the bike path. But we didn't know that until we walked for miles and hours. We walked so far that all my joint lubrication dried up and my joints started clicking. Yuck, I hate that! Blue was pulling at the leash for most of the walk, which really was a good thing because I would have given up and sat down and been there still. The water was really high and our path looked like we were deep in the bayous. We could hear geese and saw a lot of ducks nesting in the reeds. I kept hearing a splash that sounded like someone in a canoe. I was really glad we don't have alligators - it turned out to be Nutria sliding into the water out of our way. Blue really wanted to catch one. At one point I stopped just to look out over the water and saw two very tiny hummingbirds cavorting around, tumbling through the air, and landing gracefully on water grasses. The path finally opened to a meadow, then under a train tressle, then at least a mile along the "Springwater Corridor Bike Trail", past two eagle nests, then back to the origional bike path and up a hill to the parking lot. Whew! Good exersize!

One funny thing about this path is that nearby is an amusement park. Through the wooded wetlands you would hear the screams from the roller coaster. What a strange combination of senses.