From the Files: Tree Bark

Today is a nice day with temperatures in the 40's and no rain - a good day for a walk in the woods. I find the woods beautiful this time of year with the varied silhouettes of the leafless trees. However, I never noticed much about actual details of the bark and branches until a few years ago. Below is a post I did a five years ago looking at the bark of trees in my yard. 

I better get going if I'm going to take advantage of the weather and do some bark examination. 

Until next time.

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A Second Look--January 21, 2015

When Aunt Martha was in college, she was studying to be a naturalist. One day I overheard her talking to a classmate about identifying trees in the winter and using the feel and look of their bark to help with that. My ears perked up because that was a new concept for me. I thought that all bark looked basically the same--gray/brown and rough. At least it did until I took a Second Look. And by golly, there were a lot of differences. However over the years, I still haven't paid much any attention to trees and their bark.  So decades later during these gray days, I thought it was time to take a Second Look at some of the trees in my yard.

Here are some trees and their bark that 

I saw this week  during a Second Look.

Dogwood

Holly

Oak

Juniper

Silver Maple

Pine

Theodore did the bark investigation with me and took some of the pictures.

Merry Christmas

 

Merry Christmas!
It's been a hard year for all, so I'm wishing
that for at least a little bit that your day today will 
feel as carefree as I did this day.

Terrariums

 or A Few Cat Proof Gifts

Lucy trying to climb a plant.

I have tried over the years to have house plants without success because of my cats. First, many common house plants are toxic to cats who seem to have this irresistible urge to chew on them. Not good. And I have found even if the plants won't hurt the cats, the cats will hurt the plants. Many a day I have found parts of our houseplants strewn about the house.

I tried planting cat grass just for them hoping they would get their plant fix from that and leave the other plants alone. Nope, they still bothered the other plants along with leaving dirt and grass here and there because they would pull the grass up by the roots. 

Then I started to put the plants into an extra bedroom keeping the door shut at all times. Well, almost always. Occasionally, the door would become unlatched and the cats would have their fun with the plants again.  The main issue with keeping the plants behind a closed door was the "out of sight, out of mind" problem. The plants became neglected and didn't always survive.

Now, enter the terrarium. My kids got me a large cookie jar with some plants a couple of years ago for Christmas, hopefully finding a way for me to have some live greenery indoors. And it has worked! The terrarium is out where I can see it and watch the plants grow. The plants have outgrown the container a couple of times, but I just cut them back and watched them grow again. That has been the only maintenance required. 

So this year in one of the name drawings when I got someone's name who has a cat and likes plants, I decided to make him a terrarium. Then I added a couple of more for my kids and a few just for the fun of it. Below are a few pictures although trying to get pictures through glass with moisture droplets on it wasn't the easiest, but you'll get the idea.

Here is part of my terrarium garden. They move around the living room to different places depending on whether Ward is using the room for exercise. The containers range from the cookie jars I mentioned to jars found in my parents attic to plastic pretzel containers.

This is the inside of one of the gifts. I dug up and planted volunteer begonias out of my yard. They have been growing nicely and had to be trimmed a bit. I added an additional plant that I purchased. The glass mushroom and bee were made by a friend of mine.

This is a terrarium that Theo made in middle school as part of a Boy Scout project. He has had it ever since.  All of the original plants have died except some moss/algae. I put some new plants in and cleaned it up a bit but was careful to leave the imprints of the ferns on the side of the jar that were part of the original planting and grew for many years. The coleus came from one of our outdoor planters and I used new growth that was starting at the base. I purchased the other plant.

This jar came from my parent's attic. We spray painted the lid because it was rusted, but otherwise it has worked well. This was another volunteer begonia that has out grown the container. I plan to replant it soon.

This is a volunteer fern that I dug up out of the yard. It is planted in a plastic jar that pretzels came in. It has been very happy in here and is quickly outgrowing the container. I'm still thinking about what to do next with it. 

This one is for Wally and is filled with more begonias from the yard. It's in another pretzel container that Wally actually gave to us. It was full of peanut butter pretzels from Costco.

And the one that started it all. It houses a combination of things I got out of my yard along with some purchased plants. It's hard to see from this angle, but there are some small, blue, glass birds among the plants that I got from my grandmother.

The Anticipation of Christmas

or Childhood Christmas Memories

Kris suggested in the comments a couple of days ago that maybe I could write about some childhood Christmas memories when I said that I was finding it hard to post every day. Below I'm rerunning a post about just that. This was written after a trip to my mother's house. She had passed away only a few months earlier and we were in the process of going through things. As many of you know, it was a bittersweet process.

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I am thankful for childhood 
Christmas memories.

Our Christmas socks hung on our steps
 since we didn't have a fireplace.

As we have been going through some of the Christmas decorations from my mother's house, I've been thinking about Christmastime when I was a child. Christmas was a magical then. The anticipation of Christmas was very exciting and the whole idea of Santa was so grand it was almost more than I could handle.

The excitement of the Christmas season began after Thanksgiving when the stores started to decorate and the Sears Wish Book came in the mail. I would study the catalog thinking about what I would ask Santa for. Santa was very busy so he didn't always make it to my town, but I would write him letters. When I did get to talk to him, I really did believe that his reindeer were parked behind the store as I was told, although I never saw them.

Each year, I watched the evening news on Christmas Eve because they would report a strange object on their
radar that looked like a sled being pulled by flying reindeer. I did this every year even long after I knew the truth about Santa because that blip on the radar still held its enchantment.

After watching the news and knowing that Santa was on his way, my sisters and I would start preparing for bed. We would take the toaster and bread and butter with us upstairs so we could have breakfast in the morning without going down to the kitchen. We were not allowed downstairs, where the tree was, until my aunt and uncle arrived. As soon as we caught the first glance of their car, we would rush downstairs to see what Santa had brought. He always left one unwrapped present for each of us.

Even though Christmas celebrations have changed over the years and my excitement has mellowed, I can still remember how I felt when I was six years old. And for that, I am thankful.

Christmas Disappointments

 or a Look into Christmases Past with Kris

Kris is a friend to many of us as she is frequent and interesting commenter on our blogs. Today she is my guest blogger sharing with us some of her Christmas presents from the past that didn't work out quite the way everyone had planned. Take it away, Kris.

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Christmas Disappointments

 

Hi, I'm Kris, one of June's long-term readers.  I had suggested to her that she could write about a disappointment she experienced at Christmas and somehow that evolved into my making a guest appearance on her blog. 

 

Childhood disappointment:  I was very young, probably around four years old, when I saw a toy on tv that I had to have.  She was called Tumblin' Tomboy and she was a beautiful blond doll who could do acrobatic somersaults.  I was fascinated and she went on my Christmas list.  On Christmas morning, amid the flurry of wrapping paper, I opened the pinnacle of gifts.  Yes, Tumblin' Tomboy was mine.  My parents added the batteries and she performed her first tumbles successfully.  I was ecstatic.  The second time, however, things didn't go so well.  By the third attempt at a tumble, she clearly wasn't performing like she did on tv.  No matter what my dad (who could fix almost anything, or so it seemed to me) did, she remained without any tumbles.  I don't remember what ultimately happened to her but my Christmas dreams suffered from technical difficulties.

     

My mom's disappointment:  I was probably around 8 or 9 when I decided that I really wanted a Lite-Brite for Christmas.  On my list it went.  I didn't really think much more about it until one day when I came home from school.  On our mailbox was a box, and not just any box.  No, this was a giant-sized box that said "Lite-Brite" on it.  I brought it, as well as the rest of the mail, into the house, grinning from ear to ear.  "Look what was on the mailbox, mom!" I called.  "What?????  I can't believe the mailman left it there.  Well, you're not getting it until Christmas".  While I know my mom was disappointed that the surprise was spoiled, it didn't ruin the pleasure for me.  In fact, I still have it, and my daughter and I have had fun with it in the recent past. 

     

Averted disappointment:  In my teen years, I was poking around in my mom's closet, looking for cleaning rags, when I uncovered a purse.  This was a leather purse that I hadn't seen my mother using.  I suddenly realized that the purse was meant for me for Christmas.  I quickly covered it up, and although it was inadvertent, I felt guilty for discovering it.  I knew how disappointed my mother would be if she knew I found a gift, so I never told her about my discovery.  I received a nice purse and my mom was pleased to give it to me.  Sometimes silence is the best response. 

 

The first two stories have made it into family lore.  What seems disappointing at the time can seem funny in later years.  Have you had any disappointments during the holiday season?  Please join me in sharing your memories.  Thanks for reading and thank you, June, for the opportunity to write. 

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That was fun, Kris, and you've given me an idea for another post about how my mother kept us from finding out what we were getting for Christmas. Thanks for sharing and you're welcome here anytime.