18 July 2010: Fire Lilies

I know I have taken photos of these lilies before but I love them and I think they look like fire, particularly in HDR!

16 July 2010: Tiger Showing His True Spots

Here is a real tiger lily as opposed to what I thought were tiger lilies in my yard. Really we just have common orange daylilies as opposed to the old fashioned lilies with spots (like tigers). This one is from my neighbors garden.

10 June 2010: Lonely

The straw flowers are back for the summer baskets on our house! These are the best flowers because you really have to try to kill them!

18 May 2010: Garden Beautiful

I bought some Gerber daisies for the garden or the deck...haven't decided where to put them yet so they are getting a little bath to keep them going in their little pots for now.

25 October 2009 Photo: Pumpkin Pops

I started making the latest version of cakepops last night. I always forget how exhausting and time consuming they are to do so I finished them this morning when I got up. I still have the ghosts to finish, but here are the pumpkins. If you haven't seen them before you can see where I made them the first time here: http://wide-angle-lens.blogspot.com/2009/04/30-april-2009-photos-you-can-have-your.html

21 October 2009 Photo: Ghostly Trees

So I took this picture through some orange sheer material that is on one of our fall decorations. It sort of made this ghostly image that I thought appropriate being so close to Halloween.

14 October 2009 Photo: Wearing Your Heart On Your Gourd

Bill went and bought gourds for our fall decorating. Doesn't it look like a heart on the front gourd? Unfortunately I am still not at capacity to do the outside decorating. Hopefully by the weekend, I will be mobile enough!

8 October 2009 Photo: Spooky Season

The fall season is a favorite in our house. I love the fall leaves...Bill loves Halloween. The house will be transforming over the weekend with decorations for fall and spooky season and here is just a taste.

29 June 2009 Photo: Prolific Posies

The daylilies are blooming. These prolific flowers are bright and plentiful on our property. I am always excited when they start to bloom in the yard because the bright orange haze of daylilies glow against the green grass!

24 May 2009 Photo: Burn Baby Burn

One of the perks of living out in the country is being able to burn yard waste. Does that make me sound like a pyro? Anyway we had some large tree limbs come down last week in the wind storm and what the town didn't take away we burned up in our fire pit. I love watching fires (controlled ones) burn. This fire was was going good because we had a lot of VERY dry debris.

13 March 2009 Photo: The Luck of the Orange

It is another month with a Friday the 13th but again in Central NY, it was not an unlucky day. The Syracuse Orange basketball team won in the wee hours of the morning on Friday the Thirteenth.  It took over 4 hours and 6 (SIX) overtime periods for the Orange to beat UCONN and to continue their dance to the Madness.  Get your brackets ready and start your trash talking!  Today's pictures was taken this morning on my way to the gym.  The Carrier Dome is the home court of our local team and with St Patty's Day approaching, Syracuse is celebrating the Luck of the Orange.

2 January 2009 Photo: Oh my darlin' Clementine

Clementines!!! I am not really sure when I first discovered the juicy sweetness of a little clementine but I know I look forward to the season every winter.

What is a clementine, you ask? Well even if you didn't...too bad. Thanks to Produce Pete for this excellent description.

"Clementine's are the tiniest of the mandarins. Imported from Spain, Morocco, and other parts of North Africa, clementines are a cross between a sweet orange and a Chinese mandarin. They are small, very sweet, and usually seedless. Most people think of clementines as small tangerines, but they're a different variety entirely, with a distinctive taste. Clementines have been available in Europe for many years, but the market for them in the United States was made only a few years ago, when a devastating freeze in Florida made domestic oranges scarce and expensive.

The origin of clementines is shrouded in mystery. Some attribute their discovery to father Clement, a monk in Algeria, who tending his mandarin garden in the orphanage of Misserghim, found a natural mutation. He nurtured the fruit tree and subsequently called it "clementino". Others, like Japanese botanist Tanaka, believe that clementines must have originated in Asia and found their way through human migration to the Mediterranean. Whatever their origin, the fact is that clementines found their natural climate and soil in Spain, where they developed their particular aroma, sweetness and taste. "

I was l lucky enough to be in Spain during clementine season a few years ago and happily ate several of these delectable bursts of citrus that I bought from the market in Barcelona . This year I had to depend on Wegmans for my clementine fix. In fact I think I will go have one right now!