Today’s word is: puke

“Aunt Michelle! Run in a circle!”
“I can’t! I’ll puke.”
Waitress: “Can I get anything for you?”
“Aunt Michelle is gonna puke!”

I’ve spent a great deal of time planting flowers and flowering shrubs in my yard, because I like flowers, and I like seeing them (there are a lot of flowers planted along my driveway, so I can see them every day, getting into and out of the car).

We had a flowering broom behind the house, but it died when we put in the parking space (it affected the drainage) we now have a Flowering Dogwood (Cornus florida L.) which has survived in the spot.

The WV state flower: Rhododendron

Of course I have Virginia bluebells (Mertensia virginica)

This Japanese Andromeda (Pieris japonica Compacta) was Michael’s pick.

Tulips aren’t generally my favorite, but I love the color of this one:

This flowering quince (Chaenomeles speciosa) isn’t in my yard, but all along the alley behind my house.

The trillium bloomed, but isn’t particularly photogenic after the cold snaps. My lavender didn’t survive the winter, nor did the heather, which I planted when we first moved here. The white bleeding heart didn’t come back, and although the pink bleeding heart came back, the late freezes killed the buds–so no flowers.

There are several other plants I’m watching, but I fear didn’t survive this winter.

Today’s word is: trillium

Saturday we biked along the rail trail, but stopped to hike through the Arboretum. There are an insane number of flowers out.

White Trillium (Trillium grandiflorum)

There were also lots of red trillium, but all the flowers were closed.

Trout lily (Erythronium americanum)

Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis)

Dwarf larkspur (Delphinium tricorne)

Bluebells/Cowslip (Mertensia virginica)

If you walk along the rail trail, the woods of the lower arboretum are covered with bluebells. It’s pretty amazing.

We even found mutants!

Friday was “Spring Holiday” for WVU, so Michael and I drove out to Coopers Rock for a hike. We hiked along the Rhododendron Trail and the Clay (?) Run trail.

My favorite: Water

Future Frogs!

If you’d like to find the wet spot with these frog eggs, the GPS coordinates are with the pictures. It was pretty close to where we parked, if you weren’t up for a long hike to possibly see peepers.

We hiked 4.8 miles according to the GPS, and our ascent was 949 feet. Which was the first part of how I got “100 flights of stairs” yesterday.

Let’s see if this works–here is (theoretically) a GPS map of our hike.

(I THINK IT WORKED!)

It’s spring! Sunday temperatures were in the 80s, and Tuesday, we had snow and freezing rain. In other of this, today’s word is: mother

Cherry blossoms are blooming on the riverfront!

Also, we spent time Saturday cleaning up flower beds and, essentially, starting over with the herb garden. I lost a lot of plants this winter, so I decided to add in some new things, including raspberry bushes.

Here’s how things looked on the rail trail early this morning:

Here’s how things look at my house.

Forsythia were one of Grandmom’s favorite spring flowers. She had a giant bush outside her front door, and every time we’d trim it, we’d get lectured not to cut it back too hard, so it’d still bloom the following spring.

She also loved daffodils:

It looks like only one bleeding heart made it through the winter.

But I planted some new blubs around the bleeding heart, so perhaps next year it will have more company than the ferns.

The recent anniversary of the Rwandan genocide reminded me of a discussion from years ago.

Sometimes I desperately miss those discussions, because it seems to me that if I don’t try to see why others believe the way they do, then my mind becomes stagnant, and I end up possibly holding wrong beliefs, because I can’t be bothered to stretch my brain.

The question that came to mind was:

Should we, as a society, use medical discoveries made during genocide & atrocities, ie, discoveries made by Mengele and others like him?

My opinion? I definitely fall into the Kantian category, but I’m perpetually curious about what other people think, and why, and of course I always like arguments that support my own belief.

Well, I suppose I can do another for Dr. Phil.

Today’s word is: physics

I saw more flowers than I expected to. Of course there were daffodils–including ones that had naturalized and were the only signs of houses that are long gone.

But I also saw Anemones and even a couple bluebells (most were almost ready to bloom–there were only a few open flowers).

Telling secrets:

These were easy to spot from the trail riding by:

Which led me to find these:

Now that we’re getting to outdoors weather, I fully expect to start reading less.

Now that I’ve said that, it’ll rain continually for the rest of the month.

Mystery

The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag (2010) Alan Bradley (Flavia de Luce) (8/10)
Sebastian St Cyr
What Angels Fear (2005) C.S. Harris (8.5/10)
When Gods Die (2006) C.S. Harris (8/10)
Why Mermaids Sing (2007) C.S. Harris  (7/10)
Where Serpents Sleep (2008) C.S. Harris  (8/10)
What Remains of Heaven (2009) C.S. Harris  (8/10)
Why Kings Confess (2014) C.S. Harris  (8/10)
Still Life (2005) Louise Penny (Chief Inspector Gamache) (7/10)

Supernatural Fantasy

The Grimrose Path (2010) Rob Thurman (Trixa) (9/10)
The Monarch of the Glen (2004) Neil Gaiman (8/10)
Night Broken (2014) Patricia Briggs (Mercy Thompson) (8/10)

Fantasy / Romance

For Camelot’s Honor (2005) Sarah Zettel  (6/10)
Under Camelot’s Banner (2005) Sarah Zettel  (7/10)

Books read in March: 13

Paperback 3
Trade Paperback 2
eBook 6
Hardback 2
Re-read 8

Most of the non-ebooks were re-read. And two of the ebooks are books I also own in paper format.

Again, these genre totals are more than 13, because some books fall into multiple categories.

Fantasy 5
Mystery 8
Romance 2

I only read two male authors this month, however, seven books were written by women who were masquerading as men–or at least working with the foolish assumption that if it isn’t a female name, then it’s obviously a male author.

Male 2
Female 4
Initials 6
Male Pseudonym 1

I’m still a little male weighted so far this year, which is somewhat problematic, because now that I’m aware of it, I’m consciously picking books by female authors, which isn’t necessarily the right way to do it either.

In re the pictures yesterday, yes, Dorsey Knob park does, in fact, have a goat. Jules called him Mister Goat which I found delightful.

So, in honor of that goat, today’s word is: eat