warnings
The summer swim season has arrived, which means I've spent the last week or two coping with the annual flood of stories about how awful and threatening water can be. No matter whether a given story focuses on pools, spas or some other body of water, these items warn people who like to dunk themselves to play, cool off, relax or
I found a new "favorite" plant last summer. It's called Dalechampia dioscorefolia, otherwise known as the Costa Rican Butterfly Vine. Its stunningly beautiful, exotic flowers were unlike those on any of the vines I typically see at nurseries and easily earned a place in my disorganized (and experimental) backyard garden. Given its unique beauty, I placed it on a trellis directly outside my bedroom window so I could see it every day and observe its progress. After a few months of growth, it was still quite floppy and had not wrapped itself around places high enough on the trellis for my liking. So one Saturday, I went out and wrestled apart many of the branches of the vine that had wrapped around themselves and set them up to reach
