It appears that Google Street View, back in April, caught me in the act of contemplating cleaning the garage. You can tell from my posture that I’m in the intellectual rather than the physical stage of garage sorting. In the front yard the fruit trees have leafed out, clarkia is blooming in the sparse parkway, the nopal is loaded with immature fruit and the roses have yet to climb the entrance arbor.

If only I had a Root Simple banner and and an alpaca to take to lunch.

You know that post I did earlier this year about skunk proofing the yard? I set up the new Root Simple CritterCam last night and it’s pretty obvious that skunk proofing project goes in the fail category.

Many thanks to Max Morgan for directing me to the correct camera to use for small critters: the Wingscape BirdCam Pro.

We went to the Huntington Gardens yesterday to see their corpse flower (Amorphophallus titanum—and, yes, that is a NSFW scientific name) which was set to bloom soon. A few minutes after we arrived an excited docent ran thought the conservatory letting everyone know that the flower was starting to open.

We had lucked out. It takes years for the plant to bloom and the flower does not last long. We left to have lunch and when we came back horticultural pandemonium had broken out:

There was no sign of the flower’s infamous rotting flesh smell (the odor attracts carrion eating insects who provide pollination). But a Huntington staffer kindly took our camera and pointed it into the flower. Here’s the inside view:

Here’s a time lapse video from Michigan State of their corpse flower blooming:

Caroline Clerc, the talented artist who drew the little figures that dance across the top of this blog, gave me a personalized birthday greeting (I’m getting near the half century mark). The card depicts the inside of my brain which has been contaminated by toxoplasmosis and is thus full of cats.

Lora Hall, a.k.a. Homegrown Neighbor took a craft class recently and made a bunch of cards including this Star Wars mashup that she gave me:

It depictis what happens when you hit 50 with toxoplasmosis.