Dappled Things

Visit from the fam!

I'm still recovering from the visit from my family last week! My mom, sister and niece came down from Virginia last Monday and stayed for the week with me. It was great to have them, and of course, we tried to fit a lot of activity into a short time. On Tuesday I had planned for us to drive down to Abbeville, a sleepy little place with a quaint town square.

My plan had been to have lunch at Yoder's Dutch Kitchen, a really neat home-cooking kind of restaurant,  BUT I didn't realize that it was open only Wednesday through Sunday. Boo-hoo! We found another diner to have lunch at, but it just wasn't the same. We did visit a cute antique store while were were there, but no one bought anything. On the way back to Greenville, we stopped by Park Seed Company in Greenwood. Although it was neat to browse among all their seeds and to see the experimental gardens where they were testing new variations, it seemed they were more focused on their mail order customers than on those who stopped by in person. In fact, some of their plants and flowers needed watering!

On Wednesday we drove to Asheville, about an hour away, to visit the Biltmore House. The home of George Vanderbilt, the Biltmore House was modeled after three chateaux built in 16th-century France and was officially opened to friends and family on Christmas Eve 1895. The house features four acres of floor space, 250 rooms, 34 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms and 65 fireplaces. The basement houses a swimming pool, gymnasium and changing rooms, bowling alley, servants' quarters and kitchens. We each took the audio tour through the house, wandering through rooms on four floors of the mansion. It was pretty amazing. No pictures allowed inside, however! :(

The gardens were unbelievably beautiful (the original 125,000 acres of grounds were designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, who also designed Central Park in NYC.) Although the early spring flowers (tulips, daffodils, etc.) were gone, the azaleas were in full bloom along with a lot of other gorgeous flowers.

If you want the more detailed version of the week, you'll have to visit my sister's blog. She is doing a day-by-day account.

We had fun! 

 

The family arrives

My mom, sister and niece arrived yesterday for a few days' visit with me. Hooray! What fun. I spent most of yesterday getting ready for them. :) But it was worth it--when they arrived, they were duly impressed with how I have been trying to eliminate clutter. I still have a ways to go, but I'm making progress. We toured my backyard where I've been making landscaping improvements. I had to get Gardener Deb's reaction. I think she liked it! Pictures to come. We're off to do some gallivanting today--maybe stopping by some antique shops on the way to Greenwood and Abbeville.  

Whew! Exams are over, and grades are turned in!

Woohoo! Posting will resume now.

Seriously, during the week of final exams, most things fall to the wayside. I look forward to spending the rest of the week preparing for the visit of my sister, my niece and my mom! Good times on the way.

That's determination.

Barney loves playing "donut"--basically tug of war with his plastic donut. He doesn't want to let go, but he doesn't want you to stop trying to take it away from him. He got to play donut a lot this weekend, because his buddy Rusty came to see him and to help me out with some yard work. I'll have pictures of the accomplishments in landscaping later--the rains came before I could get some good photos of my new osmanthus fragrans bush and of my Autumn Alice Autumnalis cherry tree (I hope I'm spelling those correctly). Ha! I think I like my first spelling better than the real version.

(Note the polka dot neckerchief---it's my favorite of the four that Hannah made for Barney. I'm not sure Barney has a preference.)

Pansies' days are numbered

With a few more 80 degree days, the pansies won't be lasting much longer. Here's one container of pansies being threatened by a little bunny. It's more likely the heat will get them and they'll be replaced soon. This is my old wooden box I got when I was visiting my sister last summer, I think. The clay terra cotta bunny came from Country Boys last year. (I have more bunnies--you might even call it a collection. I'll have to take a few snaps of some others I have scattered around, mostly inside.)

Enjoy your spring day wherever you are!

Spiffy spring outfit for Barney

You can see a glimpse of Barney's new spring green neckerchief that Hannah made for him. Cute, huh? It's a clever little design--it slips right onto his collar so you don't have to tie it on. And it stays pretty well in place and far enough away from Barney's mouth so it doesn't get chewed up!

links for 2008-04-24

• A sad post on Martha's Blog
  Have you been reading Martha's blog? BTW, it's a Typepad blog! :)

Dappled Things by Gerard Manley Hopkins

GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him. Happy National Poetry Month!

links for 2008-04-20

• Bottle Maker to Stop Using Plastic Linked to Health Concerns - New York Times
  Dangerous plastic? I have two Nalgene bottles that I'm still using.....
• NALGENE CHOICE
  The new Nalgene..... I'll be looking for one of these soon.
• Sticker Shock in the Organic Aisles
  Prices continue to rise for organic foods--especially dairy. I've noticed--since milk is one of the organic products that I buy. Ingles has the best selection of organic products around here.
• Bake-Off® Contest Winners Announced from Pillsbury.com
  Million-dollar cookies. These sound pretty yummy to me.

Random post

My students are constantly using the word "random" to indicate that something has no real context or is just out of the blue or something like that. They'll say, "That's so random" or "This question is random." So here goes: this post is pretty random.

1. I made these oatmeal cookies last week, and my mom says they are better than Little Debbie's. :)
2. I've been digging out from under a LOT of grading of last-minute papers and projects. Exams start a week from today! Actually I was being optimistic: I'm still pretty well buried.
3. Lately I'm being very good about checking books out of the library instead of buying them. So the fact that I just paid $5 in fines is still better than spending way more than that on books, right?
4. The battery in my pedometer died! Wahhhh. I'm not getting all my steps counted. I don't remember where I put the box or the directions. I think there might be a little tiny battery screwdriver in there.
5. When I talked to my mom yesterday, she'd had a visit from my cousin who informed mom that I had not posted anything on my blog since April 9! At least someone noticed. This post is for her. :)
6. The farmers market had lots of flowers this morning. I bought some to put in some pots I have--haven't decided yet what to plant out by the mailbox. The pansies are almost ready to be pulled up and replaced. Maybe salvia instead of vinca this year.
7. A week from today final exams start!
8. I'm in the mood to rearrange furniture. Too bad just about everything I want to move is too heavy.
9. Did you see the recipe for Blueberry Sour Cream Coffee Cake at my sister's blog? Looks yummy. I'm definitely going to try that one sometime soon.
10. This is a catch-up Saturday around here: paper grading, laundry, cleaning, etc. After spending last weekend in Virginia, I got behind on everything. I mowed the backyard last night--good thing, since it's raining today.