Keeping the Bonsai Plants Alive!

I’ve had the worst luck with my Bonsai plants.  I buy the cute ones at the nursery and bring them home.  In time, they’ve all died.  However, last years attempts seem to be working out and most are doing pretty well, even showing growth.

I water my Bonsai plants faithfully and have learned they do better outside, they aren’t meant to be houseplants even though that’s what most think.

The other day I noticed a new bud on the rockspray cotoneaster plant.  I had bought it because of the red ball-like bud you see on the backside. 

Suddenly, it now has a pretty little flower but the red ball-like bud is still there, maybe it’s what the flowers become.

     

Since I’m on the subject of the Bonsai, here’s a couple of others I’ve been tending to.

This is also in the cotoneaster family and is called a wrenetting bush. 

I’ll have to try my luck at trimming the plants and see if they still thrive.

This was one of my first that I bought last year, it’s a small pine tree, sorry I don’t know the actual name but it’s really done well.

 The pine tree has done so well I have even taken a few cuttings from it and started some new pines from the cuttings.

 The cuttings haven’t died off on me yet and I’ll replant them in their own little Bonsai pots soon.

I love Bonsai plants but have never been very successful with keeping them alive.  It looks like I’ve got the technique down now!

I should make a whole special garden just for them but then I’d have to kick out some of my other plants.  The Bonsai are now located in the planting area under the living room window out front of the house.

The green ground covering you see around the plants is baby’s breath plants.  I fell in love with their delicacy years ago when I saw the ground cover at one of my husband’s uncle’s home.  It’s taken me years to get the ground cover to fill in.  The problem with it not filling in is that it also made a very cool summer place for our dog Maggie to lie in.  She’d dig out a little spot for herself every year and in the process took out some of the baby’s breath plants.  Now that Maggie is in doggy heaven, the plants are able to thrive.  I miss Maggie a lot but I’m happy that the plants in that area are now thriving.

Not a Big Winner

Well the trip to Reno or more specifically, Sparks, Nevada was pretty nice.  We drove up shortly after noon.  It’s a two hour drive from where we live so I got to see the landscape of the mountains again.  The part of the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range that we drive through is always very pretty.

There’s still patches of snow on the ground.    This is a shot of Donner Lake.

In the winter months the mountains are completely covered in snow and it’s a popular place for snow skiing.

Here’s a shot of the city of Reno with a few of it’s many casinos.

The John Fogerty concert we were going to see was actually in Sparks, Nevada, just a couple miles east of Reno.  It’s smaller than Reno but still a popular gambling town.

The concert was at the Nugget Casino. 

That’s the famous Nugget gold miner outside the casino.

While waiting for the concert to begin we also walked out to explore Sparks, at least what we could see on foot.  It had a few other small casinos and an outdoor arena on the main street.

We did spend some time dropping coins in the slot machines.

 

I had brought $24.00 in quarters I had saved for just such a trip.  Once I get going though, if the slots just eat my change, I give up easily.  I did come home with $20.75 in quarters so it wasn’t a total loss.  I’m just not a big gambler but I do enjoy the slot machines.  Every couple of years we head up that way to make a deposit in the slot machines.

The John Fogerty concert was great!  I even knew all the songs! :)  Of course it was filled with people mostly our age.  Fogerty and his group Creedence Clearwater Revival were very popular when we first married.  In fact my husband recalled that one of the first albums we bought as a couple was a Creedence Clearwater Revival album.

Fogerty performs solo these days, the group is no longer together.  However, the music still rocks!  I couldn’t get any pictures both because the stage was too far in the distance for the camera and also because photos weren’t allowed.  I did buy a cute John Fogerty shirt though!

Of course we had Moonbeam two rows ahead of us who insisted dancing in the aisles until the ushers told her to go back to her seat.  Then we had Sunshine directly in front of us who would get up and stand to dance.  Do these people not realize they are now blocking the view of others behind them?  I think not.  Old Hippies never die.

Oh yeah, we also had Wolfman Jack’s cousin right behind us that howled through the first half of the concert.

Anyway, John Fogerty was great.  The man is so talented judging by all the songs he wrote.  We had a great time.  It’s fun to see my husband enjoying the music, I don’t think he stopped tapping his feet and slapping his thigh keeping the beat of the music through the entire show.

Just Stuff

This afternoon and evening we’re driving up to Reno to see John Fogerty in concert.  John Fogerty was famous as the leader of the Creedence Clearwater Revival band popular in the late 60s and early 70s.  My husband listened to Fogerty perform on our local public television station and said he was really good.  We used to listen and dance to his music back when the group was new.

While in Reno we’ll get in a little action with the one-armed bandits (slot machines!).  It’s been awhile since I dropped off any cash in Reno but I love the place and I enjoy the slots.  I never lose or win very much but as long as the machines pay me back enough to keep playing, I have a good time.

I’m sure the concert will be a lot of fun with lots of good music to be heard.  I hope our seats are good enough and that I don’t have some tall person with big hair in front of me.

There’s one other thing to look forward to while in Reno.  Reno has been experiencing earthquakes for about a month or more now.  They aren’t the type of earthquake that causes a lot of damage, most have been in the 3.5 magnitude range, it’s more like a rolling of the ground.  I wonder what’s going on up there?  The earthquakes are strong enough to be felt in a few locations in California in towns located in the Sierra Nevada mountain range.

I’ve only felt an earthquake once back when we lived closer to Sacramento.  I was pregnant and napping at the time when I felt the cushion of the couch I was on move.  It was definitely a weird feeling.

Now that we’re up here in the foothills, earthquakes are rarely felt.  I think they get blocked by the hills.  Anyway, it will be interesting to see if we feel the earth shake while we’re up in Reno.

On another sad note, it looks like I’m out of luck on repairing my Canon Powershot S5 IS camera.  I did send it to Canon for warranty repair but they discovered that it had liquid damage and was too badly damaged to repair and it was returned yesterday. :(  I really liked that camera too.

Well I still have my Digital Canon Rebel when I need a powerful camera.  The smaller digital cameras will do fine for the quick shots.  I also have a Canon Rebel SLR camera for other times when I want to use film.

Damn, I’m going to want to get another camera soon.  Oh well, what else do I have to spend my money on?  I’m really trying to cut expenses but a good camera is a must.  I’ll hold off purchasing another for now.

The Beautiful Catalpa Tree

Spring is flowering time for the catalpa trees in our pasture.

We have two of the catalpa trees and the flowers are just beautiful when they are in full bloom.

The flowers resemble orchid flowers.

I think these are my favorite trees in the pasture.  It’s a shame they don’t blossom year ’round.

The flowers are already falling off and will be replaced with the seed pods.  I really should attempt to start a tree on my own.  These two trees were given to us by our friends several years ago and you can see how they’ve grown!

The Clematis Report

I know you’ve all been waiting with baited breath to hear how my clematis plants are doing.  The first one to bloom had a lilac colored flower and it’s loaded with more buds.

 Just about every day new flowers open on the clematis plant.

The clematis I bought and worked to keep alive last year is coming back this year but only has one stalk when last year it had three.  I think I’ve learned more about caring for these beautiful plants and I added two of the lighter purple clematis plants to the garden at the end of the summer.

In these parts the clematis is expensive so I waited until the end of the season and bought new plants when they were on clearance.

This is my original clematis with the gorgeous deep purple flowers.  It too has a few more buds on the plant so I can look forward to more of these lovely flowers.

 Another flower that always brings forth beautiful blooms is the Gebera Daisy.  The first flowers on it this year were pink and some orange flowers.  This time a white gebera daisy opened.

The gebera daisy plant has more blooms and each one will probably open with a different color.

Spring Update

One by one, new flowers are emerging in the garden.  I’d like this time of year more if the weather were constant but we’ll be up in the 90s one day and then back to the 6os the next. Oh well, it’s spring and it’s supposed to be like that I guess.

Anyway, I’ve captured a few of the most recent blooms on camera.

The clematis is going to be fantastic once all the flowers are opened.  The first batch to open are more of a lilac color.  I think my original clematis will still produce the deep purple flowers but while it has the buds on it, none have opened yet. 

This is the first of the clematis to bloom.

My fanfare blanket flowers are adding new flowers almost daily.

The bachelor button flowers are in a planter on the patio and this year they are also opening new flowers almost daily.

I love the geraniums and all the different varieties I have planted around here.  This deep fuscia colored plant is especially pretty.  Geraniums are so hardy and return to bloom again each year.

The other day while watering the plants out front under the living room window I noticed a pair of eyes looking at me.  It seems Mr. Toad didn’t want to be drowned out of his hole!

That lovely vine in the photo is a wild plant.  It returns in various places on the property and I think this year it will even produce flowers again.  The first time I saw it a few years ago it had a lovely lily-like flower on it but it’s never gotten enough watering to flower again.  This year I have oodles of the vines in the garden and out front and they are watered regularly so I should see the flowers again.

Spring is here!

Second Half of the Weekend

Well if it’s not one kid, it’s another racing in yet a different type of event.  For Sunday, it was Joel’s Vorra off road truck races at Prairie City OHV in Sacramento, CA.

At the last race, Joel’s truck’s rear end and drive line gave out.  He found the parts he needed to rebuild his truck in the Speedway catalog and arranged to have the parts delivered to our house.  Talk about calling it close, the parts arrived on Thursday.  As soon as they were unloaded from the UPS truck, my husband put them in his truck and drove them down to Tuna’s Buggyworks where Joel works on his truck as well as builds trucks and buggies for others.

My husband would have stayed to help with the rebuilding but several of Joel’s friends had already shown up and dismantled the broken parts and were there to install the new parts.

The rebuild sure made a difference and the truck ran great giving Joel one of his best races yet.

 It’s always fun to see all four wheels leave the ground and come back to continue the race.

 In the second race he was able to pass the truck that beat him in the first.  

Only two to pass and he’s about to pass the next truck. 

Joel finished third in the first race and second in the second race.  I guess that actually gave him first place because the truck who finished first in both races wasn’t really in Joel’s race but there were no other vehicles in it’s class so he raced in Joel’s race.

This is Joel and some of his friends and other racers gathered after the first race at Joel’s trailer.

The second race was quite dusty but hey, dirt washes off!

Time to load up and head for the trophy presentation.

By going to the Jetski races on Saturday and then the Vorra truck races on Sunday, we did miss our daughter’s soccer game.  Well you can’t get to them all!

Weekend Happenings

Well it was a busy weekend for us.  It started on when Saturday our son-in-law raced in the Diablo DJSA jetski races in Antioch.  Antioch is about 100 miles from our place but it’s not a bad drive down there.  Mostly it passes along the Sacramento river and deltas.

It was a LONG day especially since it was one of our first 90 degree days.  We sat patienlty in the sun while the race officials set up the races.  They put buoys along the course and the jetski riders have to follow within the course outlines.

At least we had the entertainment of a lizard doing his push-ups on the bank in front of us.

 

 

 Derek’s race was the second race of the day and he did well, he won his first race.

    

 

 

We didn’t stay for his second race as it took them all day to get the second race underway.  It was about 4:00 p.m. when we left but we did call on our way home and found that Derek also won his second race.

We decided to take a slightly different route on the way home.  It ran totally beside the river on a two-lane road and it was very pretty to see the sights.

About fifteen minutes up the road we passed a fire burning alongside the road.  We thought about calling the fire in but there was a house just past the burning grass and a boat harbor across the road, I’m sure firetrucks would be on the scene soon.

We only drove a mile or two more when the cars in front of us just stopped.  We figured possibly there was an accident up ahead.  When there is a wreck, you can’t get past it, all you can do is turn around and  head back the other way.

We stayed in the line though and watched.  There was a full-sized pick-up ahead with it’s wheels facing up.  That’s not a good sign.

Not long after we stopped we could hear the sirens and an ambulance pulled up just in front of us.  If you look closely, you can see the tire of the truck just over the white truck, that’s that tire from the truck that flipped over.

 

While waiting to see what would happen, the local Life-Flight helicopter also showed up.

  Now that was interesting to see a helicopter land right in front of us.

Soon other rescue firetrucks, a sherrif car and a highway patrol car showed up in the opposite lanes and we had a small firetruck next to our car as well as a larger one just in front of the ambulance.

 

  It took about an hour before we were able to go on our way.  Before we left a woman who had been the first on the scene stopped as she was leaving and told us what had happened.  She said this pick-up had just flipped over when she came upon it and she called 911 for the rescue crews.  She also pulled a little girl from the truck who appeared to be scared but unhurt.

The driver of the vehicle, possibly the child’s grandmother, wasn’t so lucky and had a bad head injury.  The woman was taken to a hospital by the helicopter and the ambulance took the child.

Just as we were allowed past the clean-up of the scene we came across a firetruck and crew that were holding traffic in the other direction.  They asked us if the road was open since we were the first car through.  We told them it was but hoped they’d use their radios to talk to the emergency crews back where the accident scene was and not just take our word for it!

Sunday is another story and I’ll write about our son’s Vorra off-road truck races tomorrow.

Interesting Camera History

The other day my husband brought home his old Kodak Brownie box camera that was stored at his parent’s house.  It’s the same style of camera I had as a child.  His Kodak Brownie is different than mine was though, his was the special Kodak 50th Anniversary edition distributed free in May of 1930 to children who were born in the year 1918.  Those lucky children would have been 12 the year of Kodak’s 50th anniversary.

My husband had thought that his grandmother gave him the camera but perhaps it was originally given to one of his aunts who was born in 1918 and grandma gave the camera away to clean out some things. 

I did a little online investigation and discovered that it’s really not worth much right now but it is a good keepsake of his childhood.  I don’t know what happened to my own Kodak Brownie box camera, it’s disappeared over the years but my husband’s is special with that 50th anniversary seal on the side.

If you’d like to learn a little more about the 50th anniversary edition and how they made this limited edition and distributed the cameras free to children born in the year of 1918 you can read about it here.

I took a few photos of the camera last night.  They are interesting early cameras.  The view finder is on the top of the box and you look down to see the scene you want to shoot.  Of course they took the old roll type of film cameras did back at that time.

     

Photography and cameras have come a long way since then!

Pulling for Tech Support

When I arrived in Oahu, Hawaii I discovered that my Canon Powershot S5 IS wouldn’t work.  The lens wouldn’t open.  The first thing I did was replace the batteries.  That didn’t help, I’d still get the “Lens Error Restart Camera” error message.

I didn’t know what I’d do without my digital camera.  I had three other digital cameras but they were at home of course.  I knew I should have brought my back-up camera a smaller Canon but I didn’t want to have any problems going through the security check at the airport.

Here i was in Oahu and without a camera!  Grudgingly I purchased a couple of disposable cameras and took a few shots with one of those.  I wasn’t a happy camper.  You don’t have the control you do with a digital camera and there’s no zoom feature on a disposable camera.

As a last ditch effort to save my trip in photos I purchased another Canon Powershot camera, this time one of their Elph models.  It worked great and it still took 8 mp sized photos and had a zoom.  It took me a few days to justify the expense but I’m glad I did.

My Canon S5 IS is still under warranty and yesterday I decided to bite the bullet and send it off to Canon to have the lens replaced.  I have a feeling the lens damage won’t be covered under the warranty but I’ll give it a try, who knows, I might get lucky and not have to pay any additional fees to have the camera repaired. 

It’s going to take a few weeks to get the camera back but I really liked the Canon S5 IS.  It was a good size to travel with and not nearly as heavy as my Canon Digital SLR Rebel.