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I’ve been talking about what flowers to plant this spring with my green-thumbed son, Ben, and so flowers have been on my mind. We have roses on the side of our house – old varieties as far as I can tell. They were planted by the lady who lived here before us (or her husband) because her husband built the house in 1949 and they (and their family) were the only other people to live in the house. They are quite beautiful and range from large, soft petaled bi-color ones to tiny tea rose hybrids. I haven’t figured out what varieties they are though. Maybe I will post pictures when they bloom and see if some of my readers can help. But now I have flowers and roses on the brain, so to speak, so here is a beautiful painting of roses.

The artist is Danish painter Carl Frederic Aagaard. I can’t give you a link to a Wikipedia article about him because there isn’t one. But here is a brief biography gleaned from around the web: After the tough years for the Denmark following the English defeat of their navy in 1801 and the bombardment of Copenhagen in 1807, as well as the loss of Norway (which had been part of Danish territory) after the national bankruptcy in 1813; Danish culture rebounded and flourished, especially painting. Aagaard came into his own at the end of this period and thus was trained by some of the great Danish painters at the Danish National Academy. He first exhibited in 1857 and continued to have success as a painter thereafter.

Enjoy his roses, and please click on the picture to see it / download it full-sized.

Peace,
Bekka

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Okay, so I have changed my blog theme again. If you’ve stopped by at all today, you may have seen any of 5 or 6 different themes I was trying out. I needed to find one that would meet all my needs without glitches. Unfortunately, the gray and black theme I first changed to didn’t handle pages and subpages well. It messed up the top banner. It also didn’t let me position images so the text could flow around them. This one handles both problems just fine. Now I just need to tweak the sidebars! It was fustrating though.

I found myself dreaming of summer. Since I was also looking at pictures to assemble an album for my mother,  I ended up looking a photos I took of my kids this summer. Like the trip to the park we took in late August, just before school started. (We = Mom, Sierra, Todd, Ben, and two of their friends.)  Sierra found a toad, and we took pictures of it before we let it go. She thought it was cool as did all the other kids, except for the part where it peed on her.

Todd played basketball, even though no one wanted to play with him. He was quite content to dribble around the basketball court at the park and shoot from different places. Most of the time he missed the basket, but he enjoyed himself none-the-less. Todd is very found of sports of all kinds, even though he doesn’t currently play on any organized teams.

 And then there were Ben’s tomatos. I have never in my life seen him so enthusiastic about anything (except bears and Christmas) as he was about gardening. He helped a neighbor lady in her garden and she gave him a tiny tomato plant. He nurtured it all summer and it produced five or six tomatos. He was beaming every time he picked one. He is now growing an amaryllis he got for Christmas. He checks it every day, making sure it is getting enough light  through the window and that it is watered properly. It is starting to sprout a large green shoot and his excitement is at a fever pitch. I don’t think it could grow fast enough to keep up with its keeper’s enthusiasm.

Ah…dreams of summer. Helps me forget the snow and cold for a bit.

Peace,

Bekka

Tags: announcement, Ben, blog, children, family, personal, Sierra, Summer, Tidbits Trinkets, Todd