Another lovely challenge from XingfuMama:
Well, of course self would post a picture of flowers.
Fourth of July Rose, This Morning
Why There Are Words (WTAW) launches its Betty imprint, dedicated to publishing books by women for everyone, today. Read more about it here.
The journey is about to begin! Exciting.
Matthieu Aikins, his friend Omar, and a last-minute addition, Malik (“Malik was the shy neighbor whose father had lost his mind”) take a taxi — a taxi! — through the empty streets.
We were headed to a neighborhood on the western edge of the city called Company. It was the starting point for travel south along the national ring road, Highway 1, which curved down to Kandahar, and then back up to Herat. Company’s main drag, its asphalt shredded by truck traffic, was lined up with cheap hotels called mosafarkhana. Behind them were feedlots and slaughterhouses for livestock, a maze of mud walls by a ravine running with offal.
— The Naked Don’t Fear the Water, pp. 80 – 81
I allow myself ONE new rose a year. Last year’s, Moonlight Romantica, was a hit!
This year, I chose a Golden Opportunity rose. I bought it bare root, but couldn’t plant it until over a month after I’d bought it. By the time I planted it, half of it had snapped off from a storm. It looked pretty scrawny. But today, it has one huge bud. Can’t wait for it to bloom!
Posting for Cee’s Flower of the Day.
This book, which I began reading a few days ago, is about a Western journalist, Matthieu Aikins, who accompanies his Afghan translator on the refugee trail from Afghanistan to Europe.
They set off in 2016.
When the news came on, the headlines that summer of 2016 was no longer about people in boats, but about the British voting to leave the European Union, about the Republican Party nominating Donald Trump as their candidate, and about a truck crushing people in the boardwalk in Nice.
Self was in Golden Gate Park today. She always pays special attention to the flowers, saving for future Flower of the Day posts.
Anyhoo, these shade plants were growing behind the Japanese Tea Garden, lining the steps to Stow Lake. And she thought they were pretty. And darn, she doesn’t know what they’re called. Lilies of some sort? She did some searching through her Sunset Westen Garden Book, but it was taking too long.
Her Frida Kahlo rose, which self bought from Cloverdale Nursery ages ago, is finally coming into its own. This year, it’s been blooming continuously since April.
The pictures she takes of her front yard roses are taken on the fly: her street is a very busy street, cars zoom by starting at 6 a.m. (and this despite a “traffic calming project” that’s taken two years to complete).
To take a picture of her front yard roses, she has to crouch in full view (She really should build a fence, have to save up for it). Hence, they’re never all that sharp. You take what you can get.
The blooms have the most delicate stripes, which you can only fully appreciate from the side (and aren’t even all that apparent in this photo).
Posting for Cee’s Flower of the Day.
Usually, this rose is the only one blooming in my front yard. This year, because of the rainy spring, it has plenty of competition from the roses around it.
Nevertheless, it is performing like a champ.
Posting for Cee’s Flower of the Day.
Nothing can beat the red of a Fourth of July rose. It’s almost overwhelming, to look at that section of the garden (hidden behind a magnolia tree and thickets of overgrown holly).
For today’s One Word Sunday — RED — I picked the bloom with the deepest red and went in for the close-up.
I bought a new flower (geranium) for a hanging planter in my backyard. The hanging planter’s been empty for years, I don’t know why I suddenly felt like I wanted it filled today.
Posting for Cee’s Flower of the Day:
Kanlaon 