POPPIES AND PEONIES, ETC 6/22/2008

Summer has finally arrived and the garden is starting to grow. These Bolero poppies are in bloom for the first time.

These peonies are the old fashioned Karl Rosenfeld, Sarah Bernhardt and Festiva Maxima. I purchased three new peonies this spring at Home Depot...blaze, miss america and do tell...I don't mind buying young, inexpensive plants and trying my success at them.

We live on 6 acres of land with quite a few trees, particulary a thick woods to our north. Basswood, a few oak, ash and boxelder make up the bulk of trees. This year we are having an unusually bad infestation of forest tent caterpillars. They have stripped bare most of our trees. At one point, I couldn't walk in the house without stepping on worms and carrying them in on my clothes. They mounded over the flower planters that I couldn't move inside. The rest of my many flower containers were moved into a cool dark shed, where some developed root rot. I should have left them out. They walked over my vegetable and perennial gardens, but didn't eat the plants, except for my three william baffin roses, which they relished. They also ate one apple tree, left the stems only!!

We have had these worms in the past, but tolerated them. We will have to aerial spary next year. I couldn't stand another spring like this one. They spray with bt which is supposedly a fairly safe option.

OK...here are pictures of the apple tree and a rose: They were fully leafed out. You can also see the bare trees behind the apple tree.

Forest tent caterpillars are "born" from moth eggs encased (no web or tent) around the stems of trees, preferably high in the tree. (Eastern tent caterpillars develop in webbed tents you can easily see in trees.) The newly hatched worms eat the leaves of a tree, drop and march to another tree (hence, often wrongly called armyworms) and eat until their cycle ends. Then they cocoon in remaining plant leaves and turn into small brown moths in about a week. And the cycle continues. The worms are now towards the end of their cycle and slowing down.

Last picture to show you...my dictamnus...gas plant ...blooming for the first time...it has a pleasant lemony scent. Supposedly you can light a match above it and it will ignite the air , hence called the gas plant.

THING 23

OK, I've given myself a pat on the back. I am amazed that I followed through with this and completed all 23 things. It happened because it was fun and interesting. Thank you for this opportunity!

THING #22

I'm sure that I will be drawn back to many of the web sites that I have sampled. If not through my work, just for fun. This project made me so aware of the vastness of the internet! I will come back and hopefully review some of the other contributors blogs. At a quick glance, I can see we all took different approaches to the things and our blogs. Check out no lutefisk on a stick. He really stretched the limits of this experience! I found more sites I would like to explore on his blog... and will find more on other blogs .

THING #21

I viewed several of these sites. MN Readers RSS wouldn't attach to my google reader. I am a "member" of Web Junction, GoodReads and now Ning. I left comments to another ning coworker and added the ning badge to my blog.

THING #20

I am a registered Facebook user, and a MySpace lurker. I have found interesting information about people I know! I feel like a spy, but if they put information out there, they should assume it is for public viewing. MySpace seems to offer more information. Facebook seems to take more navigating to find info. I looked at the Librarians and Facebook site. The group has over 4,000 members! I joined.

THING #19

I listened to a podcast on MPR about why women shouldn't be so picky about the men they date, or end up with. Not exactly library related, but interesting! Podcasts are great. You can always catch up on a session you've missed. I suppose we could create some library related podcasts on our website.

THING #18

I looked at both You Tube and Google Video. My dial up makes viewing a slow and tedious process. And our library blocks these sites. I know I would really enjoy these sites if I had a better connection. Pictures are worth a thousand words.

THING #17

ELM has many useful databases. My RSS wouldn't attach the InfoTrac Student Edition youth smoking subjects. But I could attach the RSS feed for NPR Children's health topics. It's a great feature to be updated on current articles through RSS. I created a folder in Academic Search Premier. Several of these sites want you to create web pages. I emailed a proquest article to myself and that was an easy process. Net Library has the nice feature of being able to browse for a subject in a book and to take notes on pages of interest. All very useful databases, especially for students.

THING #16

Both of these tools are wonderful! I like how they lay out a plan for a specific timeline. I would definitely recommend it to any students gathering information for school projects.

THING #15

I tried puzzle pirates and tried a bilging game. Actually felt like there was not much interaction with other sailors. Is second life the game where people actually like it better than their real life! Would need a lot more time to learn the ropes for these online games.

THING #14

I like the group forum on LibraryThing. Great place to share ideas and thoughts about the library.
A friend asked me to join GoodReads so I did. Either of these sites would be good to keep track of the books I have read, which I have always wanted to do. But will it happen??
I love all these tools I have been learning about. And I will probably use them here and there. But I don't know if I will ever have a blog or site I need to manage. It just takes too much precious time!

THING #14

THING #13

Whew! That was a workout! I could research these tools for the rest of my life.
I would love iGoogle as a home page if I didn't have a work home page. I love all the widgets and customizing that can be done. My life isn't so complicated that I need a calendar, but I could use one at work as a sort of diary/work schedules/events for myself and employees. I would use a free calendar, not Backpack which you have to subscribe to. I would have to work with these tools for awhile to get used to them. It's hard to make a judgement with so little time. Sticky notes might work well on a home page. I've never used a PDF converter, but I am glad to know that these exist should the need arise.

THING # 12

I liked the Reddit news site. Easy to browse. The most popular articles have a red number in front of them for easy identification. They are usually quite sensational..."Man drops dog off cliff." A few of the articles were not appropriate for children! Newsvine's format was too cluttered.
I shared an article from BBS News and the tools were very easy to use.
These are sites I would go to more for entertainment than news...to see what others think is interesting. Not really productive.

THING #11

I tagged one of my blogger posts and created an account with del.icio.us. I searced for hobby and library information. The site is very straightforward and easy to use. It would be useful for reasearch or fun. Some of the tagged items on the library sites seemed outdated. Wonder if these sites were set up and then not used much, which I could see happening. Again, this web device could be used as a link to our library services.
Only downside is yet another location to maintain and update.
Learned a new word. Folksonomy: community of users who develop a unique structure of keywords to define resources.

THING #10

Back after a short hiatus. How can we depend on wikis if anyone can edit the information? I edited the 23 things wiki and found it very easy to do. The book lovers wiki was great...it was a good lead-in to the Princeton Library which was very interesting. They are having a Guitar Hero program for teens with prizes for the best score and best rock star outfits...how cool is that.
So we could certainly start a book lovers wiki for our libraries as a "door" to our services.

THING #9

Google Docs seemed the simpler format.
Zoho seemed to have a few more options. The shared chat site in the left sidebar would be handy for shared editing.
The Founding Fathers would be appalled and overwhelmed with everyone's two cents worth.

THING #7 AND #8

So many tools, so many uses!
We use email to notify patrons of holds at the library and it sure beats phoning!
I have used IM for quite a while and it has potential for use at work.
Web workshops are great as a training tool. "Attended" one yesterday!
This picturetrail was fun. A lot of format choices. Definitely could be used in the library as an information tool. I had many library event pictures I could have used, but am concerned about privacy issues, hence the buddha.
Very time consuming...and I couldn't figure out how to get the pictures to fill the frame. Only so much time to play.

BUDDHA

THING #6

My creation
Originally uploaded by hkathie29

I came up with this trading card as a potential teaching aid for children during the summer reading program. Is this something that would even interest them? Whatever, it was fun designing it.

THING #5

Yes, these tools are fun! And could be used to promote the library. Perhaps a teen poster contest of some sort?
I created the image below from Big Huge Labs warholizer. What amazed me was how fast the whole process was. Less than a minute to transform the picture! Then I uploaded the picture to my flickr acct and added it to my blog.
Photo sharing adds to our creative potential.

Ten below

Ten below
Originally uploaded by hkathie29

THING #3 AND #4

I like google reader...the fact that you get updated info from your favorite sites without having to search all over the place.
Flickr is going to take some getting used to. Between downloading and uploading and going from here to there, half of my day has gone by! My Flikr photo is posted below.

what i'm reading now

what i'm reading now
Originally uploaded by hkathie29

THING # 2

I couldn't get the video to work on my computer because it's dial up. But I did read the other posts. I took a Web 2.0 class from Michael Stephens a few years ago and went away feeling I couldn't apply what I had learned. So now at last I get to try a few of the things he spoke about.
This is all about making the library relevant in today's world. I am, being in my 50's, caught between today's world and my comfy old world. Wish me luck!

CAST YOUR VOTE

At first I didn't like the avatar and thought it would be better to post a real photo of myself, but looking at other blogs I now like the avatars...they seem to tell a lot about a person. Am I right? Cast your vote!

THING #1

Well, I've accomplished #1 and it was fun and exciting, but it took a long time!