What you see here is my Valentine’s Day gift from Patsy next to my birthday gift from Katie. I hope to plant both today.
The red and white tulips are gorgeous. Tulips are my favorite flowers since I was a kid. I remember Grandma Tompkins tulips as well as Mr Magee’s next door but Mom will have to help me understand that. When do they bloom in Minneapolis? I don’t ever remember being in Minneapolis in the spring. This picture might have been better a couple of days ago but I prefer sunshine for some pictures. I only see sunshine during the week at work.
The big leaf magnolia is also a treat. A friend of mine up the highway from me has one. They’re also known as calcumber trees here. They have big long leaves almost as big as banana tree leaves and their white blossoms are gigantic. What I mean by gigantic is they are almost “punch bowl sized”.
The weather outside is gorgeous. It is sunny with blue skies, 60 degrees and low humidity. We get maybe three days a year like this. After I post this entry, I am out in it!
I'm pretty sure tulips bloom in the spring and I can't remember visiting there when they'd be blooming. Seems to me we always went in August. I didn't remember Mr. McGee had tulips - or any flowers, for that matter. I suppose they did, but I wonder when you saw them? You will have to point out that magnolia tree. I have trouble picturing a punch bowl size flower. Magnolia blooms are very beautiful, but only in the close; on the tree they're too hidden I think. I have a mocking bird making a nest in the vine on the front of the house. I can see them with their twigs and strings flying in and out. And tell me this: why does Earthlink disconnect me and ask me if I want to reconnect and I say yes and it's done and I can keep going at what I'm doing? I mean, it doesn't take me out of the program, just stops the progress for a minute or two. What's that about?
It will be a few years before it blooms. The big leaf magnolias are not as thick as the traditional magnolia trees. The branches are spaced out a bit more. The blooms are gorgeous and highly visible. I planted that tree today.
Disconnects are a symptom of a bad connection or an overloaded network. In your case, I think it's both. There is a bad spot or a bad relay in the phone line between your house and Earthlink's phone bank or there are so many people using that phone bank that it cannot keep up with the traffic. There is not much you can do about it. It will not get any better until the phone company and/or Earthlink decides to do something about it. I switched from BellSouth to Earthlink because of the lousy connections we were getting from BellSouth.
As for being able to reconnect and pick up where you left off, that technology came along a couple of years ago. Without it, most people's dial-up internet experiences would be unbearable rather than simply miserable.
I have crocus, daffodils and tulips planted. The crocus are the earliest bloomers. Mine are planted right up next to the house along front. Last year I saw greenery peaking out of the snow at the end of February. I tried coercing them back below ground and they forged upward at the end of March. Way too early! They looked wonderful for about 2 days then we had another cold spell and that was that. I got a few daffodils in April and a few tulips at the same time. Because of the weird weather (and where I planted the bulbs) I had a lot of greenery and very few blooms.
I have a few daffodils. They come up on their own every year but it's hard for them. My soil is a combination of sand and clay loaded with iron. Hard as bricks. Trees thrive in it but not much else.
One more thing about tulips. I flew into Denver on April 14th, the day Sue's Brianne was born. I took a cab directly to the hospital, and on the way I saw nearly every house had tulips. And 3 feet of snow. The tulips were barely showing through the snow, but they were positively gorgeous. There had been a major snowstorm the day before and I think the way Denver works is that it snows and there is plenty for a day or two, and then there are more days where there is none. Strange climate, summer and winter.
About Denver: It's undoubtedly the altitude. That had no physical impact on you? When people step off the plane in New Orleans, the humidity hits them. I would suspect the altitude does the same thing in Denver. Or was that a car trip?
Mom, just a slight correction- Brianne was born on April 7th.
Yes, Sue's birthday is the 14th.
I'm surprised Rob hasn't mentioned the tulip garden he planted years ago when we lived in Metairie. He nearly broke his back planting about 60 bulbs. I think maybe 15 came up, and some of those 15 were pretty sad-looking.
To add insult to injury... if we'd wanted them to come back every year, we'd (no, HE'D) have had to dig the bulbs back up at the end of the summer, keep them in the freezer until spring, plant them again, and repeat the process.
I know there are definite advantages to living in northern climes. Tulips must be counted as one.