And It Rained, and Rained, and Rained. . .

~ Highlight of the Day: Sleeping in and waking up to rain! ~

Our float down the Brandywine river was canceled today. . . it's just not as appealing in the rain. Instead we drove out to the Jenkins Arboretum for the iris sale. I have never seen so many iris' in my life, it was fantastic! They had a room full tables of them, sorted by color, which was great because I was on a mission for the perfect yellow iris. Here's what I came home with:

They wrote the cultivar right on the foliage, how brilliant is that?! I will have to remember that if I ever run an iris sale :) The cultivars I got were 'Red Skies', 'May Debut', 'Kentucky Derby', 'Again and Again', and 'Indian Chief'

After neatly cleaning out the sale we walked around the arboretum for a bit. Apparently their thing is azaleas, because they were everywhere. That, combined with the light mist-like rain and mossy paths made me feel almost right at home - honestly it was so much like Washington I could almost fool myself into believing it. . . I think I'm going to design a pond with lilly pads in it for my parent's yard. And I need to try and grow a pawpaw tree there too.

Oh yes, I harvested my Brandywine tomato, the one that could feed China for a week it's so big:

And just in case you haven't noticed yet, the uke seems to pop up in pictures where ever. So of course I included my ukulele in a picture of my tomatoes.

Speaking of tomatoes, I am still on a quest for a reasonably priced dvd of "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes". I must watch it. soon. So if you stumble across one, let me know!

Anything For Air Conditioning

~ Highlight of the Day: going to the Washington D.C. Temple ~

I like cars, and driving, and long road trips. I am perfectly content to drive for hours and just look out the window, and when it comes to what I drive the bigger the better :) But recently cars mean only one thing to me. Air Conditioning. Oh sweet air conditioning!

Today was especially great. I got about 6.5 hours of air conditioned driving in, and then several hours in a lovely, air conditioned temple. The Washington D.C. temple, by the way, is huge and absolutely beautiful, with well designed, extensive grounds. Rarely will I admit the grounds of a temple come even close to the Seattle temple's grounds, but I think Washington D.C. scored a pretty close second.

 

Korea, Followed By Bluegrass!

~ Highlight of the Day: listening to bluegrass group Highway 111 and Sierra Hull. Go mandolin! ~

I ended my work day today by experiencing this:

124 degrees Fahrenheit is officially the hottest temperature I've ever endured. Luckily this was just a greenhouse I needed to pass through. My destination greenhouse was only 110 degrees :)

After work I went to a Korean Market with my Korean roommate. It was so odd not being able to read most of what was there. I mean, at least with Spanish or German you can sound out the words and try/butcher the pronunciation. I can't even begin to imagine what any of this says (unless it's in English :)

Look! Acorn starch! This reminds
me of the acorn flour my roommates
and I made last fall. . . good stuff :)

I felt I should try something, so I got a BB Big Popsicle. . . It's made of red beans I think. . . It tasted beans mashed up with sugar. . . not too bad actually.

Then the nice Korean lady at the store gave us these also. I liked them a little better because they were closer to ice cream. It was an interesting flavor, but good.

And then I wrapped up the evening with a little bluegrass in the Open Air Theater. Very inspirational. There's currently an F style mandolin on craigslist for a good price. . . I've been waging a battle in my head over getting it or not. This amazing lady did nothing but aggravate the problem :)

Uh-MURica. And Freedom.

~Highlight of the Day: sitting in air conditioned housing for two movies straight ~

I love this country. I appreciate deeply what our founding fathers did, and the vision they had of what this country could become. I believe the constitution is one of the most important documents in existence, and that it was divinely inspired.

There. That's about all the 4th of July-ing I've done all day. It's hot outside. And inside for that matter. . . fire = chemical reaction = heat. It just doesn't have the same appeal here as it usually does in Washington.

I really am proud to be an American (even though I cannot say/type that phrase without getting that one song stuck in my head). I remember distinctly how one morning during my senior year of high school I was saying the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of 2nd period, and as it got to the end I said, like I do every time, " One nation under God, individual, with liberty and justice fur all". With wonder and amazement I realized I had pronounced, and had been doing so since who knows when, the 'for' like any redneck hick out there. And it was then that I truly identified myself with America and the odd subtleties of our culture. :) Yep. I'm uh-murican. fur life.

So ironically today I recieved a lovely gift from a fellow intern for watering his garden while he was away at a conference in Canada.

What makes it really funny is that my college friends call me Canadian. I'm not sure why, something about me not knowing what the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade was and some other obviously American thing I somehow didn't pick up in my youth. . . anyway. I can't wait to use this next time I'm in Provo :)

Happy Fourth of July!

I'm meeelting, meeeeelting!

I've had a pretty good life, weather-wise, these past two years. I enjoy the mild, maybe-a-bit-rainy-at-first summers of western Washington, and then I move to Utah in time for their beautifully warm, sunny fall and sunny/snowy winter. I don't have to deal with the 3 months of winter rain in Washington, or the hot summers in Utah.

So for the first time in, oh, eight years I'll be experiencing heat this summer, and I got my first real taste of it today. Here's the thing. I work in greenhouses. Old ones that are as much a part of the history of Longwood as they are a place to grow stuff. There isn't a lot of air movement in them. Greenhouses are designed to hold in heat, which is wonderful in the winter. It's just horrible in the summer. One of the greenhouses got up to 110 degrees Fahrenheit today.



By the way, here are my standards in training!
 The twins are Hamelias and the tall one (below) is a yellow Chrisanthemum.
I'm not sure how I'm bringing them on the plane home. . . :)



I'm growing them in a greenhouse we call 'the Church' (for it's shape)
It's where we grow most of the standards, which
I think is very fitting :)

And who knows what the adjusted temperature is after factoring in the humidity. That's probably what scares me the most about this summer. Humidity. It changes everything. It can take a happy little temperature and either plunge it into the frigid depths of nasty cold, or work it up to a boiling rage. But I am going to do it. I will survive this summer humidity, just like I'm going to survive four more months of Jerusalem heat :)

Bring it on Pennsylvania summer.

"I Start To Complain When There's No Rain. . . "

It hasn't rained in a while. But was rainy at one point a week or two ago - the wonderful, cats and dogs kind of rain that would drench you straight through if you were out in it :) So of course I dropped everything I was doing and sat on the porch to watch.

Now that it's been several days since precipitation, I'm starting to get antsy. And today as I was walking along in Philly, contemplating all the lovely things about rain ( the smell, not needing to wrestle with the hose to water my garden, cooler temperatures, a chance to use the word "petrichor", etc) I remembered I'd taken pictures so I could post about how happy I was that it was raining! So here they are. From my front/back porch to you:

That tree in the middle ( the big awesome one) is my favorite. It's big and green, and looks like the perfect climbing tree. As soon as I get over my fear of ticks I may just climb it :) It's a Castanea sativa, or chestnut tree. The edible kind, if I'm correct. Not Aesculus hippocastanum, or horse chestnut. That one's definitely not edible.

Just look at how beautifully green and cool everything seems. . . *sigh*. I suppose this is good for me, learning to live in a hot place. . . not that I'll be in a desert place for Fall semester or anything crazy like that. . . ;)

So until this (above) happens again, I'll be depending on this (below),

It was rescued from our closet by my roommate - yay for finding and using old stuff and not paying lots of money! It makes me think of the Brave Little Toaster. . . which is only minimally creepy. . . not creepy enough for me  not to use it :)