K's Café: The 30 Second Blog

Trying a new blogging method

I've spent a while investigating posterous.com today, and I think I'll give some of its features a try. For instance:

- posting by email, as I am doing now (MUCH easier to add multiple photos)

- apparently it makes a photo album thingy out of my multiple photos? We'll see about that, I guess! *Update: so it only makes a special album on posterous, but just posts all the photos in a row on Typepad*

- autoposting to various of my networking sites, like Flickr and Twitter (which I "never" use), and my regular Typepad blog page (where you are likely reading this, though I wrote it in an email and then it went out via posterous)

- it's sort of a back-up of my blog, really, as well

BY THE WAY: in the process of backing up my blog on posterous, I discovered that I had hit 1,001 posts this week! This makes post # 1,002! In case for any reason it is better for you, at the moment you can also access my blog here at posterous, with a bit of a different format. Not sure how things will end up, but I'll let you know.

So here, for testing purposes and your delight, are some favorite old photos from England and France, including flowers from outside Buckingham Palace, and Stonehenge.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from K's Café

Gladiola and unidentified white and yellow flora

From the garden this week:

I love the color and shape of this yellow/pinkish red gladiola. Yet another nice surprise in the garden.

Who can tell me what the other two flowers are? I don't know the white one or pure yellow one. Thanks for any identification. I am so happy to have several good flower-savvy people in my circle of acquaintance...

Of Pineapple Cutting and Enormous Poppy-Like Things

This is my latest attempt at cutting up a fresh pineapple. Fun.


Are these poppies? They just suddenly POPPed open yesterday - maybe that's why they call them that! They look like poppies, except they're enormous, and thicker, and seem to have more petals and a very interesting, solid inside. Maybe I've just never seen any so close up, or maybe they are a different variety than I am used to. I suppose I should look for poppy seeds inside...that could be a clue. I know what those look like...


And now for more garden flowers (have you noticed I like flowers?): purple climbing clematis, and pink rhododendrons...

And finally, the red roses made their appearance in the side yard this week as well.

Rust-Colored Bearded Iris

This just popped out into the open this morning in the garden, the first of a crop of eight or nine coming:

Jason's home ill with a sore throat.

Emily's got her big, huge, heavily weighted 5th Grade Exhibition today at school, with an unusual schedule (one hour at school only!).

Our heating oil tank is now full again for the coming year, having been 94% empty. Accompanying stink is here - know how to say "to stink" in German? Answer = "stinken" . Okay, so this leads right into the question, what's a Stinktierkohltal? Easy:
Stink = stink
Tier = animal
Kohl = cabbage
Tal = Valley

Put it all together, and you have: Skunk Cabbage Valley. This was the name of one of the paths at the Rhododendron Garden we visited Sunday (they had skunk cabbage, too). The German language loves super-duper compound words.

Floral Delights Continue

The latest from our garden: rhododendrons, the last of the lilacs, and another unidentified bush (anyone?).


And then there's the front of the house, which is abundantly dripping with light pink clematis:

So blessed by God's imagination and our landlady's kindness.

Latest Flowers: Apricot Blossoms and Heather

Monday is a new type of half-day holiday for us in Zurich canton... Sechseläuten. Sounds a little like Guy Fawkes Night and Groundhog Day combined! They burn an effigy (like Guy Fawkes, but a snowman) and how soon the head explodes determines what kind of summer it will be (like the groundhog prediction). A snowman in April? It's true there's still plenty of snow up in the mountains. Unfortunately, the kids don't get the half-day, because they school in Zug canton. But no matter - it'll be their first day back at school after two lovely weeks off...

Our latest garden happenings: Apricot blossoms, enough tulips and daffodils to cut some and take them inside, and happy pink heather!

Flower Photos After All

I took these with my iPhone, so the quality's not so good...plus it was a dark afternoon...but still...

Some maroon hellebore, splendiforous yellow crocuses, and an unidentified, little, pink, flowering tree. Anyone? I had such luck with a reader identifying the hellebore - can you do this one, too, Julie? :-)



Then there's our lovely neighbourhood kitty, whom we call Cub:

Spring Flowers on the Cusp of Spring Break

We're about to have Easter holidays here for two weeks, and we're ready!

Jason just finished two performances of MacBeth (he played the thane Lennox). We hope to drive down to Italy during part of the break, but in the meantime David is off to Dublin for two nights on business. Emily's been fighting with a stubborn cold (day 7 today). The spring flowers are coming out in our garden and I persuaded Emily to take a tour around the garden with me (sorry, no photos this time - it's kind of a dark day and there were too many diffferent kinds of flowers but most of them not in profusion...maybe later):

Currently in bloom:
- the last of the snowdrops (white)
- heather (pink; I didn't even know we had this; we had tons nearby in England)
- mini-violets (dark purple)
- lawn daisies (the little ones for daisy chains...)
- an unidentified, light pink, small flowering tree
- primula (both dark bluish purple and lighter pinkish purple)
- hellebore (white and maroon, facing the ground)
- vinca (kind of periwinkle-colored)

Currently budding:
- Forsythia (yellow bush)
- daffodils
- fuzzy magnolia
- lilac leaf buds
- hydrangea leaf buds

All green but promises of flowers later:
- tulips (I shall be most interested in what color(s) these are)

And fresh in the herb garden for the picking, so fragrant when plucked:
- chives (garlicky!)
- parsley
- thyme (mmmmm)
- sage (evokes memories of pumpkin ravioli with sage butter, a dish we had in England)

That's FOURTEEN types of flowers and FOUR herbs...what a blessed garden I have! Thank you to our landlords.

Also some nice moss and hundreds of baby spiders whose egg sac apparently just popped! Reminds me of the ending of Charlotte's Web.

Our ladies' group memory verse this week:
"Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him."
Psalm 34:8

TASTE and SEE! It's an open invitation. Anyone can talk to Him, anyone can dip their minds and hearts into the Bible to see what it's all about...

Funny Swiss April Fool's Joke video.

And my cousin Suzanne has started a blog of her own about being married for the first time after age 40, which has already made me laugh about name change paperwork, feel tears of happiness for her well up in my eyes at her husband's care for her demonstrated in action, and nod my head in agreement about the joys of built-in tech support.

Little King of the Snow Mount

This bird was singing in the February snow yesterday as I walked past.Inspiration for joy in tough circumstances, and looking ahead to the good that is coming.

The snow in the back yard was light, fluffy stuff, no good for snowmen. I wanted to build one in solidarity with my big brother's great snowman 3 hours from here (he even got snow arms to stay on and put a photo on Facebook to prove it) , so I managed to pack together a hill and make a tiny Snow King to rule the top of the mountain.

Cake, Freedom, Flowers, and Sunrises

I baked a (you might need to sit down) whole wheat chocolate cake with sliced almonds and chopped hazelnuts & walnuts inside, with a Nutella-peanut butter frosting, and Hershey's kisses and red M&Ms on top. Delicious or disgusting, take your pick of opinion. Emily and I are going with the former.


* * *

My nephew will be 19 this month. Wow, the next generation of our family is coming of age! He's the oldest grandchild. It's a huge milestone, the first one turning adult...not that it happens at an exact moment. Next year he won't even be a teenager anymore...Happy Birthday, Mark!

* * *

Been thinking about the line from Braveheart, where Mel Gibson (as the savior figure William Wallace) is stretched out on a cross, being tortured for treason he didn't commit (because he never swore allegiance to the bad king), and when it is suggested he beg for mercy and a quick death, instead of uttering the required and expected "Mercy" to save himself, he shouts, "FREEDOM!!!" Of course it reminded me of Jesus buying our freedom on the cross, unjustly accused. Quite the picture of it.

* * *

Saw a lovely pink flower in the garden today, on an otherwise bare tree. Such a glimmer of hope for spring. And so unexpected - there is still some snow in the driveway.

* * *

I liked this uncommonly used name for Jesus, from Matthew 10:25 - "Head of the House." (as opposed to what his opponents were calling him in the same verse...they were a little confused which side he was on)


* * *

One more night with my beloved gone. We'll see what time I go to bed tonight. It's been highly varied, as David, when he is here, is my wonderful conscience who helps me stay healthy by getting to bed at a reasonable hour. So far, My lights have gone off at 2:50am, 11:50pm, 1:50am, 9:03pm (inspired by my smart friend Allison), 11:30pm (challenged by my good brother David), and 11:55pm (last night). That's an average of 12:10am. Oh dear. Normally we try to go to bed closer to 10pm, to be happy and healthy in the morning when we get up around 7am. I'm looking forward to getting back to that.

* * *

Last night's green bean tortellini (be glad you weren't here, D) with freshly grated parmesan, and this morning's next beautiful sunrise. Today was our THIRD sunny day in a row! Thank You, Creator of sunrises and the sun itself, and generous Sharer of all good things with us.

* * *
I liked this quote I found in a booklet sent as a gift for our anniversary last month - thanks again, Julie:

It is not only prayer that gives God glory but work.

Smiting on an anvil, sawing a beam, painting a wall, driving horses, sweeping, scouring, everything gives God some glory if being in his grace you do it as your duty.

To go to Communion worthily gives God great glory, but a man with a dungfork in his hand, a woman with a slop-pail, give him glory, too.

He is so great that all things give him glory if you mean they should."

Gerard Manley Hopkins (English poet, 1844-1889)