INSIDE: He's My Man

Although this is an Austin garden blog, once in awhile there’s a movie to talk about. When it’s one hundred degrees, week after week, sitting inside a cool, dark theater is one way to stay sane.
Are there any other Leonard Cohen fans out there? The Arbor in Austin is showing Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man, which both Philo & I greatly enjoyed. This movie is part tribute concert, part interview, part biography, and part history. The film includes old home movies of the child Leonard growing up in Canada as well as recent images.
In the clips from a tribute concert in Sydney, Australia you can watch Nick Cave, Beth Orton, Teddy Thompson and longtime Cohen backup singers Perla Batalla and Julie Christensen interpret Cohen songs, along with Cohen songs sung by the extended Wainwright family – Rufus himself, his sister Martha, their mom Kate McGarrigle and their Aunt Anna McGarrigle. Back in NY, it’s fun to watch Bono & company drop phrases of praise while trying to remain cool behind the wraparound glasses. It’s even more fun when Leonard himself casually takes the mic and steals the film back from the tribute-givers.

View from my porch this evening

What a life.

A Very Pretty Garden

The houses in our little village are a complete mix of styles and sizes. So are the gardens.

Our own garden is a mixture... some pretty areas, lots of vegetable and fruit growing areas, dog friendly areas, and dog-free child-friendly spaces. Definitely practical rather than decorative!

One garden which I pass regularly on my dog walking route is very beautiful and belongs to a friend of ours.



How cute is that little island!

It has a table and chairs and a lamp, I have no doubt that young Harry will be desperate to play 'pirates' there next time he visits.



She has a great eye for detail, which even extends to the grassy lane outside the garden which is only ever traversed by (dog)walkers and the occasional tractor.

A bench is provided for the weary to rest a while!

Refuse to be Killed

These words are the antidote for when people don't affirm you as a person or the things you make or do. They come from a book by T.D. Jakes called Woman, Thou Art Loosed. I found the whole book very helpful in combatting my insecurity and seeing my worth through Christ.
Here are some excerpts from the chapter entitled Refuse to be Killed---It's time we say to those in our family-both our natural family and our spiritual family-"I love you, I'm related to you, I care about you...but I won't let you kill me."
You had better adopt that attitude toward every person in your life, including your husband, your children, your friends, your boss, the people you work with, the members of your church. You need to say to them, "Jesus died for me. That's all the dying that needs to be done. I'm not going to let you kill me. I'm going to hide myself in Him. I won't let you kill me."
I'm not talking about the body. I'm talking about your resisting those who will attempt to kill something in your spirit and soul. I'm talking about people who will come at you to try to kill something in your emotions, your attitude, your inner life.
Others might say to you, "Nothing is going to get better. You might as well give up and sit down in your ashes, because nothing is ever going to change and nothing is ever going to be right in your life."
You need to say back to them, "No! I refuse to let you kill in me what God has birthed in me!" Get your praise out. Start praising God for what He has done for you. Celebrate the life He has given you. Declare to God and to every person who talks death to you--"My life isn't over. There's still more that God has for me to do and to say and to be. I'm choosing life. I refuse to go back down the road of death."
I hope that the next time I encounter a negative person that I'll remember what to do and what to think. I can't afford to waste any more time being depressed because I let someone bring me down. If I'm a child of the king, and I am, then I need to start acting like a princess.

Trail Condition

This week I have been riding the road bike. Weather has been great. Couple days with some wind - but learning to ride the "roadie" in the wind.
With the rides (and side rides to the river boat landing) it was cleat that the Missouri River is dropping. It has dropped about 2 feet or more in the last couple weeks. Still its gonna be some time before the trail dries off. What I have heard, much of the dirt trail is accessible and rideable - just can't ride through. Hope weather cooperates so our trail crew can get the trail open before the snow.
Re-paving reported in the previous post has started. As you can see from the photo here, the old asphalt paving is being removed. Thursday the machine was seen on the Western Historic Trail. The section of the Veterans Memorial Trail has been stripped. Hope they get right on to pouring concrete.
Hit the 1600 mile mark for the year with second ride around town in the week. Will make another 100+ miles week.

Not Berry Many

Many northern bloggers posted photos of their berries weeks ago - an idea that seems to have started when Lisa of Greenbow made a comment on May Dreams Carol's post on Beautyberries. After the challenge to display our berries was taken up by Mr McGregor's Daughter photos of beautiful berries appeared on garden blogs everywhere.
In my garden the yaupon hollies and Burford hollies are still developing their green berries - they won't turn red for weeks. Birds stripped the beautiful purple berries from my Beautyberry a month ago. I'm tired of waiting to post! I found only a few berry-like subjects to photograph and for some of them the definition of berry needs to be a fuzzy one.
Above are berries on what is called a Japanese Yew here in Austin. If you live in other places that name usually refers to some cultivar of Taxus japonicus (as in the famous Green Moustache) but my young shrub belongs to Podocarpus - maybe Podocarpus macroplyllus. Another name for this plant is Buddhist Pine.

I've seen related plants at the Hartman Prehistoric Garden - their plant list calls them Cephalotaxus fortunei - Chinese plum yew and Cephalotaxus harringtonia - Japanese plum yew. On our first visit to the Hartman Dinosaur Garden I fell in love with the place and I've tried to recreate the effect with similar plants in my garden.
Even if they weren't growing at the Hartman I'd have wanted a 'Little Gem' magnolia. It's made flowers in the 3 years since we planted it, but didn't make seed cones until this summer - they sort of look like berries glued together so I'm counting it.
I found a few berries left on the liriope edging in the Secret Garden. The birds aren't giving them a chance to turn dark this year.
Can you see the St Augustine grass in the background at right? That might give you an idea of how small the leaves on this plant really are. It's called Dwarf Greek Myrtle, Myrtus communis 'Nana'. I first saw this plant growing in the garden of one of the Divas of the Dirt. Buffy's pair of myrtles were already medium size shrubs when I saw them around .. and the tiny neat leaves were attractive. After we moved to this house I added three 10-inch tall plants of these compact Greek myrtles in the back garden, thinking they might have impact at some future date.

When we met at Buffy's house for a recent Diva project I was stunned to see that her compact myrtles had reached 8-feet tall. They're planted to shield the view of her Secret Garden from the gate and do their job well. Mine are less than 18 inches high, but I'm keeping an eye on them!
Buffy had beautiful berries in her garden - produced by a shrub I've already killed once but will probably buy again. For a look at the luminous blue berries on Buffy's 'Spring Bouquet' viburnum see the October 12th post at the Divas of the Dirt Blog.

Pawty, Pawty!!!

Here was the invitation I passed around to everypup pal I know at McInnis Park. (Note from Mama: notice that the invite reads: "No pressies please..."). That's enough Ma.
(My pup pals have been asking for my blog address, so that is why it is on the invite!) The first thing Ma did was to put out all the party stuff, of course. Doggies were already there! We had non-toxic tiny containers of bubbles for all pups to take home after the fun. The humans had more fun with that activity. Then the guests began to show up. We passed everydog a hat - this pup wore her hat so stylishly that it never fell off, even when in serious playmode.
Chasing my new kong that I really like, if only other pups like Tully would stop herding me!Love the bubbles! Provided great entertainment for some pups. Below, you can see how well Bear and Lucy (dachschund) get along! Lucy, 7 mos. old has absolutely no fear!
OKAY! It was time to get this party really started! Everypup and body sang a song and then... we all got food! I never had food like this before - it was scrumptious! I had the first bite and then it was a free-for-all.
We passed everypup's mom, dad or younger peeps some portions of yoghund and some pupcake and you can see how dogs stopped playing for a while and came to investigate the good scents!
The word got out quickly and dogs were eager for seconds - even thirds and maybe more! We had plenty.
This is Miki with my pup-pal, Tucker.
And here's a collage of the general feeling of the pawty. Humans seemed to have had as fun a time as we did - there were a lot of humorous things going on - doggies smiled and humans laughed too.
For an hour, us doggies played, ate and slurped up goodies and there was never even a scuffle.
Awwww - very cute! The older peep is going to start a dog blog!
I'm very tired, but had a pawsomely good time. It couldn't have been a happier event and the guests were very polite... well... a little disobedient regarding one thing:_________________________________________________________Remember that one phrase in my invitation? Many of you pups disregarded that, to add rosiness to my-already-reddish coat. But I want to graciously say huge thanks for the amazing pressies that came from you. If you are reading this and I've omitted anypup or made any boo-boos, please let me know and I'll correct. Mom and Dad also got me a Brick, about which I'll have to consult Dexter.
I have one more image before I try to practice my howling (see http://whosaysdogsdontblog.blogspot.com/ ). Khyra made a super suggestion in her comment yesterday, so before Mom lit the candle for my pupcake, we lit another one - for Laska: this one's for you when you come home. We hope to hear the good news imminently.
Pee Ess: I want to say huge thanks to Sierra Rose's mom for taking most of these pawsome photos - I wouldn't have had many pictures without Kristin!

What kind of bow is impossible to tie?

Another great ride yesterday, resulting in 181km in the Tweed Valley. The most notable thing yesterday was the huge southerly wind. It had the effect of clearing a lot of the views, but also making progress in that direction rather slow. It did, however, make the first magpie of the year a little less than tenacious. The funny thing about pedalling slightly more slowly is the number of things one sees that might have been missed before.

The turnaround some indeterminate distance south of Uki is where this ride really begins. Taking the dirt of Cadell Road, and some challenging climbing, before descending spectacularly into Mebbin National Park. Riding this dirt road really is a pleasant experience. It's almost invariably deserted, yielding great views on the climb before passing through one of the most beautiful and varied forest environments in the country.



The return to Uki continues along a creek through more forest, before opening up. Yesterday the dirt road provided some unusual difficulties with a quicksand-like surface. This is something the Tweed Shire Council have been doing occasionally over the last couple of years, and it's more than a little annoying. It did slow me down a little, but the scenery kept turning things over.

I tired a little on the final ride home, the southerly wind that was supposed to be with me now decided it didn't want to help me anymore. I suppose these things happen from time to time. As it was I just went for a consistent rather than a flat-out pace, and after riding out the initial fatigue, things started to feel better, and I was even able to sprint for some traffic lights toward the end. The final tally was 181km and 1,788 metres of climbing, a rewarding day all round.