Chickens & Lous

For those of you interested here are some photos of my Lous & Chickens also know as my parakeets.

Left to Right: Nostradamus, Tippy, Sinclair & Nina. I got Nostradamus and Sinclair the Boston MSPCA and Tippy I found abandoned just walking around a parking lot. Nina I got at a pet store.














Tippy and Sinclair:

The Sunflower Experiment

For years I have tried unsuccessfully to grow sunflowers in my back yard in Andover. Every year I grow the most perfect little seedlings and despite tonic bottles, saran wrap you name it I have been unable to deter those chipmunks and rabbits from nibbling my little seedlings down to the nubs. One year I even bought pregrown sunflowers at the nursery hoping they wouldn't taste as sweet as baby seedlings. They got munched right down. For whatever reason I managed to grow sunflowers this year! They were wicked tall and looked awesome. Check it out:

Andover Garden Summer 07'

This Summer in Andover was an interesting one as it marked both my best and last (at least for a while) Summer @ 24 Granli Drive. I'm not sure if the greatness of the Summer was something of a blessing or just plain luck, or more likely a perfect combination of the two, but no matter I couldn't have appreciated or enjoyed it more. Lots of great things happened this Summer: I saw three shooting stars, one of the stars when I happened to wake up in the middle of the night and go to the window to look out (can you believe it) and the other two driving down the highway during the metor shower. I went for a jog on a trail that I have jogged a million times if not a hundred, and coming around a bend found myself about ten feet from a giant doe, she was as surprised as I was and made a great leap away from me into the grass - I've never seen a dear in those woods before , and never seen one that close up except at a zoo. At the end of possibly the best gardening day ever in my life, as I was standing there just thinking how great a day it was a hummingbird flew right up to and past my face. I saw two seperate nests of baby robbins hatched and raised. I saw a whole flock of robbins, parents and fledgings gather on our lawn for a couple of nights as they got their final practice in before flying South; it really was a sight. I saw what at least was a humungous hawk and at best I think a bald eagle teaching her baby hawk, or bald eagle to fly; she soared through the air way high up and he followed behind both in great acrching circles. I got to go on a whale watch, have the best dinner I've ever had in the North End (possibly ever at all), take a trip to the Cape: stay in a great house, won my first ever round of beer pong and go to a great beach. I got to take a private tour of Boston Harbor, go to Newbury Port a bunch, found a really great used bookstore there that I'd never been to before and finally, I got visit my favorite beach in Marblehead three times. Really, it could not have been a better Summer. It was also my best gardening Summer ever I think. I'm not sure why, maybe because this time I didn't try to shoot for all sorts of crazy plants and seedlings and just stuck to what worked. In anycase you can see the great pics from my garden below.






























The plants shown are as follows: Morning glories, blue and pink, butterfly bush, coreopsis, calladium aka elephant ears, iris, bleeding heart, hanging petunia, zinnia, snapdragons, hens & chicks, geranium, yellow snapdragon and marigolds.

Little Miss Fancy Pants

Most of You have already seen these pics --- I wanted to put them up any way, lord knows when I'll be this dressed up again and it is worth cherishing. The ocassion was a dinner at the Four Seasons in Atlanta. I'm kinda psyched at having had the opportunity to dress up, it was fun.