Our flower garden has become a magical swirl of color…
from the salmon-colored roses that catch your eye…
to the purple petunias that help a pig take flight…
to the bright pink roses that keep the bees buzzing…
to a hand-painted pot of orange zinnias that add some love.
In other words, our garden today looks nothing like it did on a cold February day six months ago. *brrr* The transformation is amazing.
ONCE UPON A TIME… a few weekends ago… Zen-Den and I finally visited a southern Ohio castle that I’ve heard about for decades.
The Castle and the surrounding gardens are officially named Chateau Laroche. They were built by an eccentric genius named Harry Andrews, who after serving in WWI decided to promote peace and build his own castle based on the ones he saw in Europe during the war.
First, he used his smarts to become a knight by creating his own order, The Knights of the Golden Trail. Then he built his castle using, among other things, the stones he found along the river. After he built most of the castle, he moved into it and lived out his days in the slightly modernized parts of Chateau Laroche.
The castle, which is open to the public on a limited basis, is one of the most unusual, almost dilapidated historical properties I’ve ever wandered through, over and around. Here are some photos.
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I. I’ve enjoyed June 2014 NaBloPoMo [done my way]. The theme of this month’s challenge is: COMMENTS. There are daily prompts associated with this challenge, but I haven’t answered any of them. I’ve been lazy, but admit to feeling guilty about my behavior.
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II. To make up for my slothiness re: answering specific prompts, I thought that right here, right now I’d share MY GENERAL PHILOSOPHY ON PERSONAL BLOG COMMENTS.
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III. Today’s prompt is: “Write on Someone Else’s Blog Day: instead of writing a post on your own blog, go leave five comments. It still counts as writing!” Here are the 5 NaBloPoMo bloggers who did as instructed [or other first time commenters who came here] to LEAVE A COMMENT FOR ME. I’ll fill this in later because today I’ll be out leaving comments on other NaBloPoMo bloggers’ blogs. [Obviously.]
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IV. So there you have it, my gentle readers. A confession. A summary. A list. And now, as I end this post, A THANK YOU FOR PAYING ATTENTION to my sweet little bloggy and taking the time to get involved in the conversation. I appreciate your gift of comments. Always.
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V. And as reward for getting this far in a lengthy meta post, I leave you all, new and old bloggy friends, with the funniest video I’ve seen in ages. WORDS OF WISDOM, gentle readers. Words of wisdom.
“You can’t hit people because you want pancakes.”
“Sometimes the lights all shinin on me;
Other times I can barely see.
Lately it occurs to me what a long, strange trip its been.”~ Truckin, Grateful Dead
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If weeks had subtexts, then I’d say that this week’s subtext has been: HIPPIE-NESS. [a word?] Do you, gentle readers, have weeks like this when one unusual subject keeps turning up repeatedly?
I’m not kidding, every day this week I’ve been part of a conversation that has centered one way or another around topics that belong smack dab in the late 1960s or early 1970s.
Sock it to me, sock it to me.
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I’ve talked about:
Birkenstocks [which are now fashion forward again, btw]
AND
senior citizens who like a little toke to start the day [former neighbors, in case you’re wondering]
AND
a slightly insane off-the-grid genius who spent most of the 60s building a castle from stones he found along a river bank [photos coming next week]
AND
Colorado vacations [where weed is now legal, like you didn’t know]
AND
mothers in the 1960s who dressed their children in brightly colored matching outfits [not sure if this is technically hippie-ness, but it was a thing back then].
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Yes, it’s been a groovy week– and I’ve loved it. I’d forgotten how the hippie culture which influenced the late 1960s and early 1970s was so much less uptight and so much more in the moment than today’s world of goals and analytics and marketing and– oh, whatever.
Like, far out, man.
So what better way to end this post than to leave you, my gentle readers, with this song by the Grateful Dead that has run through my head all week?
Guess I’ll just hang it up now and see what tomorrow brings! 😉
THE SPECTACLED BEAN 