Category Archives: Arts: In The Yard

The Fall Floral Festival is Afoot In The Yard

Lyon Park in autumn is no match for Flaming Vermont. But In The Yard, we’ve still got lots  of seasonal Carolina color. Pause for a moment and breathe it in . . . .

First Up — This is Old Fashioned Weigela, which has been blooming off and on since spring. On it is one our resident bumblebees, who are a disturbing lot to watch: slow, befuddled, forlorn and feeble. This one didn’t seem to know which end of the blossom had the hidden nectar they were seeking. Is it just their time, or are they like Russian army conscripts, exhausted by years in the darker gulags, just waiting to be fed to the drones?

This solitary bloom of a Butterfly Bush is coming off a summer scarred by multiple droughts, in this case a near-total desert of butterflies. Didn’t used to be that way.

Japonica is the yellow-and green leafed centerpiece here, one of the first entries in our new free-form space. It was a threefer: with both green & yellow leaves, and a color combo that stayed year-round with little care. They’re Japanese originally I think. And they seem to get along fine with our China Rose close by, also a sturdy & prolific survivor.

Brown-eyed Susans have just come out and are keeping low in a corner.

The Zinnias are also past their peak, but are holding on for a big finish.

The other Japonica bush, largely yellow, stands with our wildlife habitat sign, which is our main token of respectability.

One more: another pitiful bumblebee is still searching for the the business end of this Weigela bloom. Some bee experts say many species in the US are declining and under threat.

A Hump Day Threefer: Catching Up With Spring, Before It’s Gone

Mormon Leaders Demonstrate  “Continuing Revelation” on LGBT issues

Flunking Sainthood

Just over three years ago, Mormon leaders touted a controversial LGBT policy as revelation. Now its reversal is also being presented as revelation.

April 4, 2019
By Jana Riess — Religion News Service

(RNS) — In a stunning reversal, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has announced that it is walking back a controversial 2015 policy that affected members in same-sex marriages and their children.

Continue reading A Hump Day Threefer: Catching Up With Spring, Before It’s Gone

To The Young Dude In His Dancing Duds – May 16, 2023

Cue The Byrds:

(And the rest of you,
open your Bibles to Ecclesiastes 3):

To everything,
(Turn, turn, turn),

There is a season,
(Turn, turn, turn),

And
a time for every purpose
under heaven.

A time to build up, a time to break downA time to dance, a time to mourn . . .
YES–tonight is the big 8th grade dance at grandson’s school, and he, usually a stay-at-home, wants to go. So here he is, spiffed up in his new 2023-style dancing duds, and ready to hit the floor. I’ll explain all the sentimental chitter-chatter around this photo to him later. Including what a boutonnière is. (Or was.)

To everything
(Turn, turn, turn),
There is a season
(Turn, turn, turn),

A time to buid up, a time to break downA time to cast away stonesA time to gather stones together
To everything
(Turn, turn, turn),
There is a season
(Turn, turn, turn),
And a time to every purpose
under Heaven . . .
A time of love, a time of hateA time of war, a time of peaceA time you may embraceA time to refrain from embracing
To everything
(Turn, turn, turn),

There is a season turn
(Turn, turn, turn),
And a time to every purpose
under Heaven

A time to gain, a time to lose

In The Yard: this pair of roses looked like just the thing for an artisanal boutonnière . . . .But when I was ready to bring it in and pin it on, he was already on his way. Whatever.

A time to sow, a time to reap,A time for love, a time for hateA time for peace, I swear it’s not too late . . .

 

In The Yard: Our Flowery May Day Demonstration

In many parts of the world, May 1 is Labor Day, a holiday, and observances typically have a noticeably leftwing or socialist character.

But the U. S. Doesn’t recognize such subversive notions, preferring its very tame beer-hotdogs-and-baseball version in September. (That’s Labor — excuse me, Labour Day — in Canada also; I mistakenly thought that was their Thanksgiving Day, but they’ve slotted that in for the second Monday of October. I’ve also long believed that occasion is secretly focused on giving thanks that Canada’s long southern border remains yet unbreached from below since the War of 1812, which, by the way, they won.) Continue reading In The Yard: Our Flowery May Day Demonstration