Odds and ends

Am I alone in using the digital camera as a way to remember books?  Forget scribbling the name on a scrap of paper, now you can just whip out the cell phone or camera and snap a photo.  Also, while we're on the topics of using bookstores - am I alone in finding a rather smug pleasure in finding egregiously misplaced books which some previous browser hastily stuck into a shelf?  Cat care in the computer section, poetry with the car manuals, I lovingly extract them and pile them happily on the nearest bench so they can eventually rejoin their brethren.

This is the scene in February, mere moments before I took a spectacular fall.  All that snow cunningly conceals a puddle which I KNEW was there, as it's there 9 months of the year, but somehow forgot just long enough to step onto its slickly iced surface and go flying.  My experience was caught on video, as I had the camera turned to movie at the time, but I think I'll just not share that.  It's a blur as the camera makes a lovely arc through the air, and then, as it lands a short distance from my suddenly prone body,  a lot of groaning, some slightly dramatic clutching of the ground, and a final, belated shot of the dog making a sortie back to see what was taking me so long. 

The puddle complex in warmer times. 

Which is why I am rather impatient for spring.  I love cold weather, but when snow conspires with ice to maim, you really don't need a horse to hurt yourself.  It's funny; I have the typical fear issues with riding that most sane adults have, but my worst falls have been sans horse.  Which is something I reflected on after another ice slide a few years ago.  As I lay with my head in the street, watching a SEPTA bus heaving toward my skull, I resolved to never be afraid on horseback again.  I didn't think of making a more sensible pledge, and resolving to move to a climate without ice.

A winter pansy, looking beaten but unbowed.  Granted, it was a mild winter, but I'm still impressed by their survival.  Also the decorative cabbage.

My gardens have always exhibited a lack of overall cohesion.  I believe my harsher critics think this is due to some stupendous lack of vision, but they're wrong.  I'm well aware that a deep purple pansy and a pale lavender cabbage are not natural compliments.  The thing is, I like both of them.  I'm an intensely personal gardener; that it pleases my eye is the goal.