We’re about to get another deluge so I wanted to interrupt the weather interruptions by returning to the Arboretum. There aren’t enough pitcher plants to hold all the water we’re going to get.

Here’s what happened on Canyon Crest this morning.

Dear friends –

if, perchance, you are in Chicago I hope you will visit “From the Center: Now!” at Woman Made Gallery. Sponsored by The Women’s Caucus for Art and juried by Lucy Lippard, a well-respected critic who helped put women’s art on the map during the 1970s, this national exhibition focuses on what women artists are doing right now. The show runs from January 22 through February 25.

If you will not be in Chicago, please visit the show online: http://womanmade.org/show.html?type=group&gallery=fromthecenter2010&pic=1

I have one piece in the gallery and online — “Arroyo Seco Watershed and Surrounding Area” — and a second online — “Porte bonheur” — I hope you will check out the work!

Is that a happy face, or what? Jim Nuccio and his brother still run this family business, the last remaining nursery in Altadena. Once this area was nothing but nurseries and wilderness. Luckily the Nuccios and their acres of azaleas and camellias are still nurturing the community.

No parking. No dumping. No class.

These were left at the side of Chaney Trail just before the locked gates. What’s wrong with The Salvation Army? TheGoodwll? Calling the trash collector?

I’d love to see this train engineer smile once in a while. He has the most fun job ever–driving the miniature train around Descanso Gardens.

But maybe after doing it a million times–especially as a volunteer– it loses its charm.  I’m just grateful he’s there because it’s sure fun to take a spin around the park.

Next week we’re getting a deluge.

https://donate.doctorswithoutborders.org/

I can’t add widgets to this blog so please use the link if you haven’t already donated.

It’s amazing to see how fast this relief effort has spread through texting and the web.

Remember NetAid? The first major internet based fundraiser with concerts in three countries?

Look how far and how fast we’ve come.

Camellias on "Mel's Garden" bench

The Faded Flower

Ungrateful he, who pluck’d thee from thy stalk,
Poor faded flow’ret! on his careless way;
Inhal’d awhile thy odours on his walk,
Then onward pass’d and left thee to decay.
Ah! melancholy emblem! had I seen
Thy modest beauties dew’d with Evening’s gem,
I had not rudely cropp’d thy parent stem,
But left thee, blushing, ‘mid the enliven’d green.
And now I bend me o’er thy wither’d bloom,
And drop the tear – as Fancy, at my side,
Deep-sighing, points the fair frail Abra’s tomb -
‘Like thine, sad Flower, was that poor wanderer’s pride!
Oh! lost to Love and Truth, whose selfish joy
Tasted her vernal sweets, but tasted to destroy!’

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Well, that my be Coleridge’s opinion. I see this beautiful arrangement as a tribute, a nod, a reminder, to take a moment and breathe.

This is the first of a series of photos from Descanso Gardens in nearby La Canada. I have had a little fun with the developing the first few. Enjoy.

 Poem found at the Poem Hunter