observations

What Plant Is This?

In front of our house is a large bed of perennial plants and flowers, mostly lilies with a couple of hostas, some violets, and chives mixed in. When I created the bed a few years ago, I thought of it as a rain garden, a place for water to fall off the roof of the house and flow into a space that would soak it up. Grass would never properly grow in that spot, on…

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design observations thought fodder

Spelunking Online

Spelunking is the term used for exploring caves. Urban explorers in London have been spelunking in the underground structures of the city and documenting what they find because most of these areas are off-limits to the public. People love mucking about in hidden places. On a planet that seems to have had every square inch explored, what might there be left to uncover? As London’s urban explorers have found, human beings have created hidden and forgotten…

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art observations

Can I Just Say …

… that I love the theme of my blog? I have never been so enamored with the look of a blog as I have with this one. The theme is called Saga and, in case you don’t know, I’m using WordPress as my blogging platform. I have long adored WordPress’s ease of use, great statistics, and stylish themes, but the Saga theme seriously has me agog. I often call up my blog just to look…

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observations thought fodder

What’s Wrong with Being Defensive?

I’m sure you’ve heard this comment, or perhaps even said something like it yourself: “Why are you being so defensive?” This is normally said in a way that makes it very clear that defensiveness is a bad thing. I want to know why defensiveness is so awful. If someone is being a jerkface to you, what’s wrong with defending yourself? I asked my husband this question tonight. He said, “There’s nothing wrong with being defensive. Usually, the…

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observations

Peonies and Ants

The peonies have been blooming in central Minnesota. When I see peonies in bloom, I think of ants. My mom told me that ants are needed to open peony flowers. How cool! A symbiotic relationship, like little sucker fish on bigger fish. But, it’s not necessarily true. A little online research on a couple of websites (peonies.org and Iowa State University Extension) featuring an early-style web layout (which certainly helps date them) shows that peonies…

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