I was Going to Blame the Deer

All of the flowers that have bloomed have disappeared.  The buds that are unopened are still healthy.  Upon close inspection, it was apparent that something was eating all of my flowers!  Deer regularly cross my yard fairly close to the location of this flower bed, so the logical conclusion was that the deer were responsible even though  I was a little confused when my brand new “deer resistant” purple coneflower disappeared overnight.

Chewed Off Daylily

However, when I was taking this photo, the real culprit revealed himself.  Or herself.

The Flower Eating Culprit - Groundhog

Now what do I do?

Randers Pride First Bloom Already

There is already a flower on our Randers Pride daylily!  The color of the lily is exactly as I remember and the flower is very large.  It does look a little odd though, the flower stalk should be much taller – it is only about 18 inches tall.  I think that it should be twice that.  I imagine that as the plant grows larger, the height will come along.

First Bloom Randers Pride Daylily

This phot was taken on a rare sunny day here in northeast Ohio!  We took advantage of the nice weather, and put Katie to work.

Katie Tending the Flowers

Randers Pride – Heirloom Daylilies

Over the weekend, we bought some day lilies today from Heritage Farms in Peninsula, Ohio.

Gazebo at Heritage Farm

These extra special flowers are called Randers Pride. My family bred lilies up until the late 1950’s. This flower was named after my maternal grandfather, who’s surname was Randers; I believe that he was the one that developed the flower.  It was registered by Libis-Cheetham. Libis was my maternal grandmother’s maiden name, so that would be my great grandfather, but unfortunately, I do not know who Cheetham was. This flower is extra special to me because it was registered in 1957 – the year that I was born. It helps that it is a quite tall plant with beautiful large yellow flowers.

Randers Pride Daylily

Here are the three Randers Pride plants nestled into their new home, along with 2 friends named My Kia.  You didn’t think that I could possibly only buy what I went to purchase, did you?  My Kia was described as “quite prolific with red flowers”.  Oh, the human is my daughter, Katie.

Katie with Lilies

Spike, the dog, thought that she was quite camouflaged while hiding behind the bee-balm. She was a good helper too.

Spike, the Camo-Dog

A Visit to Lake Erie

I have lived in Northeast Ohio my whole life and I had never explored this wonderful resource that we have – Lake Erie.  I took a class recently at Grand River Beads to learn how to drill glass, and we used Lake Erie beach glass.  The glass is beautifully etched by the waves and washes up onto the beaches.  Well, I decided that I had to go collect some of that glass myself.

We decided to go to the Headlands Beach State Park and it was great fun finding the glass.  Most of the pieces were small, but we did find some nice pendant size ones.  Just being at the beach was a new experience, with a nice cool breeze and moderate waves.  I know that people swim there, but the water was still too cold.

Headlands Beach State Park, Ohio, Lake Erie

There were birds there that I don’t see in my backyard.

Lake Erie Beach Bird

My kids were surprised at the vastness of the lake itself.  Although only the 4th in size of the Great Lakes, Lake Erie is the 10th largest lake in the world.  It is 9940 square miles – which is larger than any one of these states: Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, or Rhode Island.

We were there early in the day, there weren’t too many people there.  We had “hard time” finding our car. [/sarcasm]

My Lonely Car

So, is it a Frog or a Toad?

I am not sure how to tell the difference between a frog and a toad, but we found this little beast (and a whole army more) on a hike yesterday at Hinckley Reservation.  (A group of frogs is an army or a knot.)

Frog or Toad?

In my limited world, if it was brown, it was a toad.  This cutie is brown, but my best guess is that it is not a toad and is a frog. Here are some frog characteristics from Answers.com:

• Frogs have finer bodies with narrower waists while toads’ bodies are broader.
• When on a flat surface, frogs lie flat, but toads tend to sit upright.
• Frogs have feet which are specially structured to act as suction caps to enable them to climb trees and other surfaces.
• Frogs have slimy, slippery and delicate skin, but toads have drier skin with warts.
• Generally, frogs live near water. Toads tend to live away from water.

It was more slender than most toad that I have seen.  It did hug the ground, and the toes seemed to have flat tips.  It didn’t have a warty skin.  It was right next to the reservoir.

Did I mention that it was really tiny?

It IS Tiny

So, are you with me?  Is it a frog?

Rosemarie Hanus makes beads in her home studio, but has never made a frog bead.  See these “not frog” beads at Etsy,  Art Fire, or her Spawn of Flame website.

Just a Walk in the Park

We went on a hike on Friday at the Hinckley Reservation;.  It was what we call a glorious Akron day – overcast, damp, and cool.  This is typical weather here in Northeast Ohio, and I guess that I have learned to appreciate this type of day.

I disturbed a Great Blue Heron.  I must have taken just a little too long for his comfort to frame the shot.  He indignantly flew to the other end of the reservoir.

Aggravated Great Blue Heron

The dampness brought many tidbits to my sense of smell.  The woods smelled of freshly decomposing leaves.  It was a clean, earthy smell – quite pleasant and reminds me of why our vegetation is quite lush this time of year.

The air also hung heavy with the scent of wild roses.  They smelled quite sweet right now, but not cloying at all.

Wild Roses

It was a perfect day.

Winmail.dat on My Mac

I have this really important email that has a winmail.dat file attached to it.  This attachment is (I hope!) a list of email address that I am supposed to use.  So I did what I always do – I downloaded the attachment and tried to open it.  Ha! How did that work out for me?  Not so well, thank you.

I did some research and discovered that the winmail.dat file is a format that contains rich text information; that means it contains formatting and font information.  It is generated by Microsoft programs such as Outlook and Exchange.  I wondered to myself, why doesn’t Microsoft use the standard Rich Text Format (.rtf)?  But that didn’t help me.

One site advised me to tell the sender to uncheck the “send Microsoft rich text format” box when sending the mail.  Now, that person is not available, that is why I have this email in the first place – to help her get a task done in her absence.  I suppose that I could send the email to a different Microsoft using person, and have them forward it back to me that way, but I’m pretty stubborn.

A little more research revealed at least 2 options.  One, Letter Opener,  is a plugin to the Mail app called that interprets the attachment and it only costs $7 USD.  That seems to be the best long term solution, but I cannot risk messing up my Mail app right now.  I’m sure that it would be fine, but I decided not to chance it.

The other is a freeware, stand a long program called TNEF’s Enough.  There are links on the website to download the file, so I downloaded in Disk Image format.  Then all I had to do was drag the winmail.dat attachment into the new application and then my data would be revealed.  Unfortunately, although the data file was valid, I saw no email list – not through any shortcoming of TNEF’s Enough.

Well, although I have not harvested the data that I need, I know what to do the next time that I get a Winmail.dat file.  It happens fairly often, and truthfully? I have ignored the attachments in the past.

ArtFire Referral Program – Shameless Bribe

One of the selling venues that I use is ArtFire - you can see the logo over there on the left.  It is fairly new, and there are several things that I really like about it.

First of all, there is just one fee per month and that is a flat rate.  Right now, that rate is $12 per month.  I can list as many items as I like; there is no listing cost at all.  I can sell as many items as I can; there is no “final value” fee.  Second, the shops can now be customized somewhat, perhaps a silly thing, but now my shop has more of a “me” feel to it.

Third, there are plans on advertising to get buyers to the site.  As with most sites, I personally feel that it is more my responsibility to get people to my shop than the site owners, but every little bit helps.

I could go on… listing is easy and is all on one page.  You can have links to your other sites on the web, be it Flickr, Facebook, or even Etsy.  There are links to help you quickly advertise, such as tweeting a new listing at Twitter.com.

ArtFire has recently restarted their referral program.  If 12 people sign up using my referral program, I can have a shop for free!  I would like that a lot.

So.

What’s in it for you?  As a thank you, I will give you one of my Gazing Pool bicone focal beads,  your choice of colors, if you join ArtFire using my referral link.   ( http://www.artfire.com/modules.php?name=power_up&refuid=3467 ).  You have been bribed!  I don’t know if I can see who signed up or not… just send me a message over on ArtFire if you do.

I will update the count here. Hurry!  This is only good for the first 12 people.  Well, until I post here that the offer is closed.  How about that?

Current Count: 0 – Updated 30-May-2009

Zebra Bead

I’m really excited about this new zebra bead. I really love the webbing.

Zebra Glass Lampwork Bead

My “Dead” Azalea

I swear that this plant was dead. It had no flowers last year. It had no leaves last year.

This year, it has flowers.  No leaves, mind you, but flowers abound.

Risen from the Dead Azalea