Book recommendation: Nature Noir: A Park Ranger's Patrol in the Sierra

What? Angela doesn't only read gardening books? Ooh, she's so multi-dimensional.

Nature Noir is a great read, folks, and is northern California and nature-related so I can justify recommending it on my Northern California nature lovin' garden blog. This book will make you want to hug a park ranger.

This particular park ranger, Jordan Fisher Smith, writes with a lyricism and level of compassion I don't think many of us could muster after spending years guarding a river facing damnation, finding tree-studded hills dotted not only with native wildflowers but with modern-day armed outlaws, and having pastoral moments snatched away by bureaucracy and the random call of the dispatcher.

To be a park ranger: Must enjoy life and death, guns and flowers, boredom and terror, paperwork and budget cuts, beauty and ugliness, rafting and hiking, solitude and brotherhood.
----------------
NPR Interview with Jordan Fisher Smith

A garden panorama and time-lapse flower clips from still images

Photo by Mike Posehn

Garden bloggers, check out this super-cool interactive panorama shot of a garden in Loomis, CA. It's called Loomis Labyrinth. Mike Posehn of Granite Bay Software made the photograph. His website, Dog's Leap, offers panorama prints. Mike's panorama images are also part of U.C. Berkeley's Worldwide Panorama Project.

Granite Bay Software also sells a program called GBTimelapse for creating time-lapse video clips from still images and it's compatible with most Canon PowerShot and EOS digital cameras. Mike's timelapse clips can be purchased here.

You can even download the GB Timelapse free trial before buying the software for $49. Imagine the flower and garden applications for this software--- showing flowers bursting into bloom, showing how sunrise and sunset wash over your garden. You might even be able to show your garden going from unpruned to pruned! Click here to see if the software works with your Canon camera. Mike even tells you how you can sell your own timelapse clips through TimeLapse Digital.

Halloween ideas from Sunset

(Photo by Rob D. Brodman, Sunset Magazine)

Flower Fun





Even more super cool Halloween ideas from Sunset...

Little Field of Flowers Rug by NANIMARQUINA

Were you just thinking, "I love flowers soooooooooooo much that I wish I could buy a flower rug... and not just a flower-imprinted flat rug but a super-cool 3D-ish shaggy flower rug I can lie on contemplatively in my flouncy matching dress and pumps."?

Yes? Me too! OMG, what are the odds? Well, our wish has been granted.

In Sacramento, you can buy this rug through Room & Company. Bay areans, try Design Within Reach in Berkeley or In Your Element in San Francisco.

Thanks to Inhabitat for blogging this. Now if only IKEA would manufacture a knockoff we mere mortals could afford...

Hey, daylily fans

Keith Miner, a Monterey Bay Nursery plant salesman with a passion for hybridizing daylilies, has updated his daylily website with 2007 New Introductions and 2006 seedling photos. Check it out and let me know if you order anything or which varieties you'd put on your wish list!

http://www.picturetrail.com/perennialist

This just in from Roto-Rooter

Valued Customer,

Millions of pounds of pulp is scraped from pumpkins
throughout the Halloween season, resulting in yummy pies, creative
jack-o'-lanterns and... plumbing nightmares.

Every year, plumbers get
lots of calls to repair garbage disposers and kitchen sink drains that have been
clogged with slimy, stringy pumpkin pulp and seeds.

Follow these tips to
guard against Halloween drain disasters...

Never put pumpkin pulp or
seeds down the toilet, sink drain or in the garbage disposer.

Carve
pumpkins on a thick bed of newspaper.

Wrap up the pumpkin-related
materials and throw away in the garbage can.

Or you could compost it. ;-)

Peeping Pets

This just makes me happy on so many levels. It's funny... it's crazy... it's sweet... it's a guaranteed laugh for passersby. At only 30 bucks plus shipping and handling, I'm about this close to ordering one.

Hey, why not? If you're in prison, you want a cell with a view, right? Let's at least let our imprisoned, er, uh, domesticated, pets see what's on the other side. If you have, say, a German Shepherd, it will also let prospective burglars see what they're up against.

What will they think when they see my Pet Peek... mounted about 10" off the ground, with two badass Chihuahua/Rat Terriers staring back at them like mutant goldfish.

"I'm gettin' out of the crime business and am going to start marketing crazy inventions to sappy dog owners," is what they'll think. Or maybe that's just what this sappy dog owner who installed trellis on the bottom of one section of fence so our old dog could see through it thinks a burglar would think.

Looking for a Pumpkin Patch?

pumpkinpatchesandmore.org
San Fran - Sacramento area of California's Pumpkin Patches, Corn Mazes, Hay Rides and More

One of life's great questions has been answered

An answer to a jarring question
How woodpeckers avoid headaches wins prize for improbable research
By Carrie Peyton Dahlberg - Bee Staff Writer
Last Updated 12:53 am PDT Friday, October 6, 2006
Story appeared in MAIN NEWS section, Page A18

That's a big'n

Squashing the competition
Record 1,280-pound pumpkin wins Elk Grove festival
By Christina Jewett - Bee Staff Writer

Last Updated 12:08 am PDT Sunday, October 8, 2006
Story appeared in METRO section, Page B1

What: Elk Grove Harvest Festival

Where: Elk Grove Regional Park, 9950 Elk Grove Florin Road, Elk Grove.

When: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. today

Cost: Free admission with a $5 charge for parking

If you miss this one, there's always the World Championship Half Moon Bay Art & Pumpkin Festival on October 14 and 15. Winner will be announced October 9.

Jack-O-Lantern ideas from ExtremePumpkins.com

http://www.extremepumpkins.com/

It's pumpkin time at COHN-STONE STUDIOS!

I want to go!

(photo and announcement from Cohn-Stone website)

You are invited to visit our Garden Showroom and Glass Blowing Studio
THREE WEEKENDSOctober 14-15October 21-22October 28-2910am - 5pm

A most unusual Pumpkin Patch with hundreds of colors, shapes and sizes of Hand Blown Glass Pumpkins and Squash Miniatures to Giants in fantasy forms guaranteed to enchant your home or garden.

Plus - Glass Acorns, Pomegranates, Fire, Vases, Bowls, Paperweights, and more...
Glass Blowing Demonstrations - Hot Apple Cider and Cookies too.

At this event we will feature our experimental pieces, prototypes, color tests, discontinued pieces, and lots of

Unique and unusual pieces - you must attend the event to purchase - no phone orders.

COHN-STONE STUDIOS
560 South 31st Street
Richmond, California 84804
Phone 510-234-9690

Directions:
From San Francisco take either the Bay Bridge or the San Rafael Bridge and follow directions below:

From Berkeley or Marin County take Hwy 580 to Richmond and Exit at Regatta Blvd. turn left onto Erlandson/Regatta Street and continue to the corner of South 31 st Street.

From Sacramento take Hwy 80 West, exit Cutting Blvd, turn Right onto Cutting and then left onto South 31 st Street.

Within Richmond South 31 st Street is off of Cutting Blvd