Scout & About

: : the first installation in a series in which I begin to scout for color the way a dog sniffs out . . . well, the way my dog sniffs out toast in the morning. With a voracious, hyper-active appetite, and lots and lots of crumbs.

 

This grainy portrait is none other than local friendliness enthusiast Raurri Jennings (two links there for your clicking), posing with a bouquet found in his own home during this week's Friendsgiving party. It contains some Gerbera daises, which are actually in the sunflower family, and a big sprig of cultivated goldenrod.

Goldenrod is a fantastic filler and, though you may have heard otherwise, will not make you sniffly or sneezy. Many people believe that they have an allergy, because goldenrod appears at the same time as its more subtle (and infinitely more evil) cousin, ragweed. So please, appreciate it without fear! G-rod doesn't get enough love.

Check back for more Scout & About in the near future. . .

Leftovers

So it's been Thanksgiving, one of the holidays that make up The Holidays, and here I am with a belly full of multiple plates of reheated harvest foods, happy for a number of reasons.

In the Flower Scout department, I'm glad to have had the opportunity to mess around with some vases and flora over the past few days.

It's nice to do some arranging, after a brief hiatus, and now that I'm back in town I find I'm eager to begin trolling the woods and streamsides of Troy for bushes and branches. Already I've stolen some bittersweet, the red berries pictured above, which frame the entrance to my new home at the CAC Woodside.

New home, old home: This coming-back is a chance to spend time in my childhood house (too much time?!), and also to return to a wonderful job in the produce department at the Honest Weight Food Coop, where on Wednesday Gayle hooked me up with the ingredients for this second bouquet, which includes two kinds of decorative "politically correct" (as she says) eucalyptus, mums, African Boxwood, and a gorgeous spiky grayish filler that I can't remember the name of.

I really don't like mums, but beggars can't be choosers in late November and these are actually kind of lovely ones. If you're in Troy//Albany//hereabouts and want to go search the forests for seasonal shapes and colors, email me at flowerscoutfarm@gmail.com, or comment on the Facebook page, or just call me if you have my digits. Let's get out there!

The Bulbs Abide

Yesterday I scored a lot of bulbs--a whole boatload of bulbs--at local gardening store, for half price. Half price! This is a great boon to Flower Scout's limited budget, and a sign that bulb-planting time is present/past tense. So today, in an effort to soak up sunlight and avoid the internet, which unfortunately cannot tell the future, I'm planting all of those bulbs in my parents' sandy front garden.

I've got some narcissus, tulips, giant grape hyacinths, two kinds of alliums, and an unbelievably beautiful fritillaria. And I've got a giant tub of ground cayenne, to keep the squirrels away.

I'm spacing them carefully with this trusty ruler, and I'm singing and digging and working to ward off nerves.

Please vote, everyone! 

Just think, by the time my fritillaria curl up out of the ground, we'll be in the future. We'll have seen some consequence of today's great decision-making, we'll have passed the historic solstice of 2012, will have braved winter storms and heretofore-unforeseen life-changing decisions, and all that while they'll be chilling out, patient and abiding, if the squirrels don't get them first,

which is a major reason why I heart farm.