First Rose of 2013!

Is that a rose?

I think so...

Closer...

Closer...

Closer...

and Closer...

Yes, my first rose! 

Getting some close-ups!

Finally, the shot I was looking for!

After all of the rain 1 day later!  The do open up quick but the rain did not help!  Wait, it did help open the rose, but not on my opportunity to take more pics!

More on the way!

Getting Creative while I wait for my Roses!

I went and took a bunch more pictures last weekend.  They were starting to all look the same with no roses, so I did some creative editing.

Here are the photos!

I was going to try and take pics of Eta Aquarids meteor showers, but gave up and took a pick of this tree and the Rose garden. I could not stay up near dawn.

Extra Exposure on the tree out front.

Rose Garden - Never turns out as cool as I hope.

 Now here are my cool edits using creative kit!

My Friend

Strawberries

Cabbage! Corn Beef and Cabbage 45 Days!

Link to all the photos here:

2013-05-07

Love You Dad! You loved gardening, Roses not so much?

On May 5, 1984, my father died.  Each year on that day I visit the grave, but for the last couple of years I have also tried to remember as much as I can about my father and remember his life.  He made it easy because he took so many pictures.  While its hard to find him in too many pics, because he took most of them, you know he is there behind the camera and you can feel his presence   Last year I went to my sister Val's place and we look at almost every picture slide that my father had taken. This year I  got to spend part of the day with my other sister Dawn.  We visited the grave and I did my normal thing that I like to do with the flowers.  They are plastic flowers, I want them to last.  Dawn got purple, I got a flower with some blue color, mom got her red roses, we grabbed pink for Val,  orange for all of the family and friends (and for the O's mom says), and white roses for my dad.  I place dad in the middle and surround him with us all!

When I got home I wanted to find some pictures of my father to share on Facebook.

We Love You Dad, May 2013

It was not easy to find many.  The newest sets were still in the slide carousel so I went with older slides in boxes from 1977 and 1978 and tried to keep it summer related.  I think I got a few good ones, but there was 1 that stood out for me.  It was a picture of what is now my rose garden in 1978.  You will see all of the roses  are on the other side of the fence with my fathers favorite white rose bush inside the fence in the corner on the right.  I don't see any flowers blooming, but I know its still there today.  You can see dad standing there watering a small vegetable garden.  I'm guessing these are peppers and radish, not sure what else, but I do remember that little metal fence around the garden.  He had tomato plants, they were closer to the house.  And yes, that is me on the left and my sister Val in the middle. The story of the Rose garden goes like this:

Reinhardt Rose Garden 1978

• Moved here in 1970.  The roses were on both sides of the walkway leading to the house.
• Dad decided to move them outside the fence and against the fence.
• Sometime around 1982 or 1983, my father got a very bad case of poison ivy.
• Dad's solution for getting rid of the poison ivy was to to remove all of the rose bushes!  I still remember him loading them all in the  back of the station wagon throwing all of the rose bushes in the dumpster! Of course Dad decided to keep the large white rose in the corner.
• In 1984 my father died.
• The roses begin to grow back sometime after 1984.  There was a large dirt spot in the corner of the yard from when we had a pool installed.  A match made in Heaven!  The roses represent so much to me about my dad, life, and death, I find it hard to explain in words.
• In the mid and late 80's I transplanted all of the roses back into the yard into there current locations.  I just planted them all over no real planning or spacing.
• Later in the 90's, I let everything get pretty wild again and poison ivy and weeds were rampant outside the fence, we cleaned it up and underneath it all,  2 rose bushes had already begun to grow again.  I left them there.
• There was a great deal of neglect for many years, but by the late 90's I started enjoying time in the garden after the end of a long college semester and work.  
• The poison ivy is still around.  I get it all the time.  Not as bad as dad, the roses are safe.

In the lower left, that's a Tomato plant.

Many years I got caught up in what happened in May 5, 1984.  Is there some type of sign for me to see?  Too much I would get caught up in the events of that day and my fathers death looking for some strange connection.  I like this one best May 5, 1984; USDSP Satellite detects "fastwalker", a UFO the military tracked.  Anyway, on this May 5, I ordered a pizza and the order number they gave me was 84.  My sister's texts explain it best:

Sister #1 - "Crazy huh weird shit"

Sister #2 - "I think that's cool!  Dad was thinking bout u & was saying thanks for the flowers & remembering him yesterday!!

Combined,  I think they express exactly how I feel about it. 

Love you Dad.  

Great start for me this year!

I believe I have got it going right on schedule this year! Went out and did some pruning and make sure air and the sun can get between the bushes and around the base. Did spraying with fertilizer early before the buds. Got the Disease control out there before all of the spring rain! I just used some old supplies I had around, Miracle-Gro for Roses and Ortho RosePride. I have been trying to get more involved and see what's out there, maybe I will start learning something! Lot of options out there, sometimes makes my head spin! If I can just keep it up all season,  and after the Roses bloom, I might avoid my yearly Rose Garden Apocalypse!  I even did some extra work to help prevent some of the worst pests we have here in Baltimore City.  With a vacant house across the street it does not look good!  I will spare you all the details on that one.  You can read something about it if you want, Rose Garden Recovery , recovery mission did not get fully of the ground.  Again,  I look for none of this to be necessary, but most often the lazy days of summer set in for me at the end of June.  Goes from Birthday to Independence Day to Vacation Days to Raven Season in a flash!

In previous years,  I barley got the garden cleaned out and some fertilizer before the roses bloomed!  Often I would miss my chance to apply any disease control before all of the April showers and the rose would be blooming and loosing leaves at the same time.  Looking to get in another application of fertilizer this week and maybe some insect control soon.

I did not get much done this weekend walked around checked things out and of course took a few pictures with mixed results.  Getting harder to find great pics without any blooms!  Below are some pictures I took and I did manage to fill the bird feeder by late on Sunday!

Another awesome gardening experience was my sister going  Mickey Mouse garden crazy at Kmart on Sunday after church!  She just recently moved back in town this year and was a great to see her interest in some gardening!

I should also have some pics next week of a few of my mothers additional gardening tasks assigned to me.

Now some pictures that are okay.  I only think 1 or 2 turned out as expected!

You can see all pics here:
https://plus.google.com/photos/101314293289523845544/albums/5872800209674052321

First, I made a horrible attempt to get a picture of the full moon on Friday!  Should have got up off my butt and went outside!

Next, I would like to capture some rose buds?  These look good.

Really thought me in the garden would look cool?  Not what I expected.  Probably should have combed my hair!  This is what happens when you just want to get right out to the garden on a nice day!  I rolled out of bed and I was off!  The first one is kind of scary!

Few of my usually random pics...

Trying some different light and flash stuff?  Does it bring out the radioactivity in these?

Normal

Radioactive 

I did add seed!  The pic is in a tweet @reinhardtrose!

Now I really lose it!  Trying to get as close as possible as a sunset in the rose garden!  Climbed up on the wheelchair ramp at the church across the street.  I will try and pic 2 or 3 of my 20 attempts. Hey, they looked great on the camera's tiny display!

Last but not least, some of the participants!

Hellena had a bad day.

Me celebrating the Baltimore Ravens draft picks!

Go Ravens!

Off to watch the O's play on the West Coast!  Go O's!

You can see all pics here: https://plus.google.com/photos/101314293289523845544/albums/5872800209674052321