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1. My friend's Victorian house. It's not in such a nice neighborhood now as there is a lot of crime in that area, but some very nice people live scattered throughout that area. She was never able to have any biological children, but has some adopted children. None of them want the house when she is gone. It's a shame. The Harison Yellow originated by a chance seedling grown by a lawyer in New York City, I believe. His name was George F. Harison. One r; that is not a mistake. It is very prone to suckering and survives with no care on old farmsteads and anywhere it was planted. It's known as being difficult to propagate, but I'm going to try a method I read about. It was carried by pioneers to the west and they say it is planted all along the Oregon trail. Some consider it a nuisance and spray to get rid of it. I think it is one of the most beautiful roses there is, even if it only blooms in the spring and has the worst thorns I've ever seen; a few other rose varieties are thorny like that, too.2. The boquet. There is a lot wrong with this photo, but I like it anyway; it is "me". I belong to a rose club where all the members are real rose enthusiasts. We were asked to bring a rose to a meeting for a contest. There weren't too many entries, but Charlotte was the only rose in bloom then, and all that was left were some cynoglossum (the Chinese-forget-met-not), and alyssum, so I put them in an antique vase that came down to me from the family and took them along. The photo was backlit, and I should have used some fill flash, but I won't bother readers about that. It also has too shallow of what is known as depth of field, so not everything is in focus. Charlotte fades rather rapidly once opened into full bloom. The little plant stand it is sitting on has a story as well. There was a fire at a neighbor's the third house down one night a few years back. I was completing an ebay transaction and heard the fire trucks so I looked out to see what was happening. The ebay seller sounded like a kind and caring person and wanted to know how it all turned out. The whole back of the house was on fire. There was a young girl who was renting it and lived there with her dog and bird. Some former owners had installed a wood burning stove. The girl was at work, and the dog and bird perished in the fire. She came home from work to that. The next morning I looked, and the house was gutted inside. The girl went home to live with her parents, and a fund was set up for her at a local bank, but no one heard about her again. I wondered if the city inspectors would even allow it to be repaired, they did, and it is now nicer than ever, and a beautiful young couple bought it. Anyway, the workmen took all the things and set them out at the curb for the trash people to pick up. I went down to see if there was anything worth salvaging. Most everything had been damaged by fire or smoke. I looked at the bird cage, and it made me feel sad and didn't want to take it. But I spotted two homemade little plant stands, so I took one home, and one of the workmen helped me carry the other. They were badly scorched by the fire and had an odor; the man suggested I take them to a power wash. It was way on the other side of town, so I sanded them down a bit, put them in the bathtub and scrubbed them and got all the odor out. Then I started filling the holes where the Phillip's screws were and sanded them down, put on a base coat and a coat of paint. A girl down the alley finished painting them for me, and I paid her, maybe not enough. They aren't like fancy furniture most people prefer, but my heart was touched that somebody cared enough to build them for somebody. The edges of the hexagonal stands are even routed. Those miniature roses won a prize that night, and the lady graciously and lovingly put them in my boquet. So that is how that came to be.
3. The violets. There is a sadness about many of the stories behind my photos and some joy as well. My house is too close to the neighbor's, and one owner put up an ugly board fence where the boards are rough cut and staggered. Nothing had even grown along that side of the house in the 40 plus years I've lived here. The next spring, violets appeared. All kinds, purple ones, white ones, and speckled ones. I was so delighted, I went out and picked this boquet like I used to do when I was a child and took a photo of it. Those violets somehow were a consolation to me, and after they were done blooming, the foliage was huge and there was a pathway down the center to the back yard. I called it Violet Alley. My daughter remarked one day how pretty it looked. My new neighbor didn't mean to, but he used something like Roundup, and it must have filtered through the fence. It killed all my beautiful violets. Two years now, and they try to come back but keep getting killed again. Most people consider them nuisances.
4. The Black Beauty lily, whatever story behind that is obscure, but they are beautiful. I just ordered them from a place on the internet that sells heritage bulbs, the kind that have fallen out of favor over the years in preference to newer, "better" ones. They should multiply and get very tall. I had to get down way low to get this shot. I think they are beautiful and wish they bloomed longer. Nothing stays beautiful forever, but nature constantly renews itself somewhere else if we don't destroy it. I hope I haven't bored my readers with my stories. I have hundreds of photos, and each one has a story, but photos can only tell you so much. The rest has to be put into language humans can understand.
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