Himalayan Blue Poppies

It has been a extremely busy spring, but finally it started to slow down. I have been working 6 days, sometimes 7 days a week! At least I enjoy what I do, so it wasn't like a torture for me. Just the physical exhaustion. Anyhow, it has been really cold this spring so that we are approximately three weeks behind the normal blooming time. If you happen to visit the garden in the next few weeks, you MUST check out our Meconopsis Meadow. The blue petals are just unbelievably beautiful. This is the plant I fell in love with when I did my internship in Scotland in 2008.

I even brought back the seeds to AR, but there was no way they would have survived the hot summer in AR. They like cool summer.

I was walking through the nursery today and realized a robin was loudly making noise at me. Surely enough, I found there eggs in their nest on Rhododendron falconeri branch. These eggs were so little and so warm. I can't wait to see them hatch!

忙しい春だったけれど、ようやく落ち着いてきました。週６日、時には７日仕事してました！少なくとも、仕事は楽しいので拷問ではなかったけれど。肉体的疲労だけ。この春はずっと涼しかったので、例年の開花時期よりも約３週間遅れてます。もしここ数週間のうちにガーデンに来る機会があれば、ヒマラヤの青いケシは必見です。青い花びらは、信じられないくらい美しいです。この花は、私がスコットランドでインターンシップをしていた時に一目ぼれした花。種を持って帰ってきたけど、アーカンソーの暑い夏を生き延びるわけもなく。ヒマラヤの青いケシは涼しい夏でないと生き延びません。

今日、グリーンハウスをチェックしてたら、コマドリがピーピーやけに騒がしくしてました。思ったとおり、石楠花の枝に去年からあった巣に、卵を発見！卵は親指くらいの大きさで小さく、あったかかった。孵化するのが待ちきれない！

D&D @ D20 Games

Once or twice a month, I meet with a group of people to play through an adventure called Tomb of Horrors.  It puts our D&D skills to the test.  We have lots of fun while we are at it.  Last Sunday we met up for another session.  The store was filled with groups of people playing games.  It was a pretty fun Sunday.

Spring

春になって、あっという間に時が経ってもう５月半ば。
毎週末のようにイベントがあるこの時期は、一年の間で一番忙しい時期です。
４月からのプラントセール、母の日のイベント、フラワーショーなどが終わって、ようやく少し落ちついてきました。

先週の水曜からは、出張でワシントン州のバンクーバーへ。オレゴン州ポートランドからコロンビア川を挟んで向かいの都市です。ここ会合があって、行ってきました。仕事とはいえ、ガーデンツアーに参加したり、レクチャー聞いたりして楽しかった！なかでも、ドイツから来ていたシャクナゲ博士とたくさん話す機会があって、いいコネクションを沢山作れました。

今日（日曜）の午後帰ってきて、ダーマがものすごい勢いでお出迎え。ジャンプしてピーピー鳴いて、きっとウィルよりも恋しがってくれてた（笑）
明日からはまた出勤です。でも、今週末は久々の２連休！予定つまってるけれど。シアトルでは、この春記録的な寒さと降水量を更新してます。はやく暖かくなってほしい。青空が恋しい！

It's Been Sunny Out

The weather here has been nice for a few days.  We get to see sun light, and blue sky.  I almost forgot what those things looked like.  Atsuko is enjoying herself at the conference in Vancouver, WA (not Canada).  She'll be home late tomorrow night.  Until then, it is just me and the dog.  The dog spend most of the day on the couch, but I've been getting here up and walking every few hours.

It's Nice To Be Done With Midterms

I actually only had one midterm, but I spent quite a bit of time on it.  I probably spent 4 hours working on the take home essay and another 10 to 15 hours studying with the other grad-students in class.  I'm crossing my fingers that I got a good grade.  To reward myself, I went and play in a Magic The Gathering tournament Saturday night.  Today, I volunteered for a few hours at the Rhody Garden then came home and read for this week.  Class work never ends!

I Like Having A Friend That Can Paint

I play Dungeons and Dragons with a guy that really knows how to paint.  A few weeks back, the character I was playing died.  I wanted to play something really different.  Before, my character was human.  Now, I am playing a Thri Kreen, a humanoid-insect.  I bought a pewter mini and asked the guy to paint it for me.  This is what the finished product looks like.  It's really neat!

Jump Darma



Darma Doesn't Like It

I Hate Computers

After a few days of dealing with slow load times and random crashes, I finally decided to look into what was going on with our desktop PC.  I checked the RAM, it was fine and that's good cause I just bought it.  Nothing was overheating so I guessed the CPU was okay.  Then I noticed the little red hard drive light on the case would start until about 10 or so seconds after we tried to access something and when it did the computer froze.  It was the hard drive.

I bought a new one of Friday and spent most of the morning installing the part, then Windows 7, and after that updates.  At least I was able to read for class in between the computer needing my attention.  Luckily that night I was able to get all our information off the old drive.  I'm going to do a wipe of it and take it to a recycling center at some point.  The computer works great again, and we now have twice the storage on it and a faster drive in it.

I'm guessing the next thing to go will be a fan or two.  Those are easy to replace and I am fine with that.  I just hope nothing else really breaks... knock on wood!