Monday, August 25, 2008

Catching up...


I've been quite busy playing catch up after being under the weather for a couple of weeks...weeds, paperwork, more weeds, housework, blah blah blah...will be back soon to post regularly....but, until then, I wanted to post the pic of this giant swallowtail that came to rest on the Chaya tree by my window. What a gift.
Posted by Picasa

5 comments:

GreenJeans said...

I love this picture!! I'm SO looking forward to cooler weather so I can get out there and start "gardening" again. :)

HelloPame said...

Thank you so much! You always lift my spirits! I remember once in your blog you sorta apologized for posting so many pics...I have been meaning to tell you that I used to feel like that but then I thought: "This is my blog/diary of my garden...I do it the way I want, and if someone does not like it then all they have to do is not come visit again and that's that..." My thinking is that people come visit because they want to...not because I am spamming them or anything like that. That helped me feel better about it and also helped me re-focus on what I'd like to remember years from now about the garden. The other aspect of my blog is that every now and then I try to post about practical stuff (what worked, what did not work, etc.) so that other gardeners may capitalize from someone else's experience...

BTW, I am going out there right now to weed and pull out the "bush" yardlong bean...which was not bushy at all! Three seeds spread like a monster groundcover over six feet each way...delicious but crazy! I was postponing doing this because I saw a snake go under the bean vine a few days ago...ugh...

Sorry for such a long reply & keep your daughters muddy and happy, they will always remember these happy times!

GreenJeans said...

"This is my blog/diary of my garden...I do it the way I want, and if someone does not like it then all they have to do is not come visit again and that's that..."

So true!!! I'm new at this game so words like these are good to "hear". I love reading your blog because of the beautiful pics and the wonderful advice.

About the possibility of a snake... take a hoe with you and beat the ground with it here and there, around and through the plant. That should scare out any snakes. I have a huge plant that I do this with because the sneaky snakes are under there sometimes. I haven't grabbed one yet (fingers crossed!) 'Course there was that time I was standing under my palm tree trimming fronds and I realized there was a snake RIGHT ABOVE MY HEAD!! I check that tree carefully before trimming it now. :-)

HelloPame said...

Awwwww! Go on! ☺

You are coming up with INCREDIBLE pics in your blog! I breezed through the other day (taking a super short eye candy break from work) but I'll go visit your blog again soon!

Thank you for your kind words! Oh, and yeah, I do move any bushes now...I did have an experience similar to you and the palm tree snake...posted about it a few weeks ago, I was pruning my Bolivian sunflower giganto bush and -same as you- heard a hissy noise, looked up, and sure enough there was the longest biggest black racer snake I had ever seen...they won't harm us (other than maybe a little bite) but it sure is low in the etiquette department to just show up like that, ain't it? ☺

HelloPame said...

GJ, I was in your blog and saw you joined Blotanical...ugh, I wish I had caught you earlier...hopefuly my bad experience was an isolated incident.

Pros of Blotanical: you get to see blogs of gardeners all over the world & your blog will also get more exposure. However, you are still able to browse their site without being a member and can gain exposure even without their 'help': each time you 'speak' with someone who has a blog you like you open the door to post their stuff as your fav and vice versa. The concept is good but many of their features still need tweaking.

Cons: You will get a lot of mail both on your blog and also within their own mail system...as little as I know you I can tell you are very nice and care about other people's feelings a great deal. This will make you a slave to people saying "hi" everyday and literally ASKING you (a soft way to put it in some cases) to go to their blog.
Many of the people who have joined are terrific folks, great gardeners and have a life.
Sadly, my experience is that most just need constant reassurance and want at all cost to have their blog listed as the "most popular."

Then there is a points system where Stuart, the founder & owner, fights hard to keep the site as active as possible with different rankings (can you believe you will get featured if you have been the most active member in a day?!?!?!)...

Funniest part of it all is that members win nothing. Stuart however does, as the traffic on the site increases, so does his revenue. Which is not inherently wrong, trying to make a profit is fair...as long as you are not trying to fool poor souls into it.

People will "tag you" whatever that means, endlessly and I felt constantly bad about not tagging people back...frankly, if you want to talk with someone you talk with someone...tagging seems a bit odd for adults...but maybe I am missing something...

Lastly, some of my personal info from their site somehow got compromised. I mean there was a quote that was private and MY FULL NAME that got out there into another gardening site without my permission. I was the dumb one for trusting his site was safe...but, when I wrote him a polite email saying to please take me off his site here is what Stuart whose middle name is NOT "great customer service" wrote to me:

Email #1: "WHY DO YOU NEED TO CANCEL? I NEED MORE INFO THAN THAT."

When I replied that somehow my info was compromised he sent me this reply which I am copy-pasting from his email:

" Please let me inform you that NO blog gets listed on Blotanical without the owner's permission. ***his listening abilities are poor to say the least as I have never told him that someone added me to his site*** You submitted your site. You logged in. You take responsibility.
I'm sorry that Blotanical hasn't worked out for you and for whatever reason you're bitter about your experience here. This site has been developed with one intention only - to support Garden Bloggers. I put adverts on my site because it costs for bandwidth, features, hosting etc etc and I hope to offset these charges so that I can offer more. And before you say that I'm probably earning more than my expenses think again. This site costs me money, time and a bunch of effort so if you want to sit on your high horse then all I can suggest is that you enjoy the view.
Your site will be taken down immediately. Stuart"

Needless to say that he kept lurking in my blog daily for a long time AND it took one full month of my follow up emails (that went unanswered) for him to take my info down.

I don't mean to scare you but I think it is good to know as much as you can about where you are going...I am sure you'd have let me know if it was otherwise.


Sorry for the long writing...but I thought this was important.