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parts
Sunday, May 16, 2021
Lovely bloom
We celebrated our anniversary with a bunch of friends in a beautiful Encinitas garden yesterday afternoon. Three birthdays were celebrated as well. Had a great time with old friends and ate some wonderful food and drank champagne. Or they did anyway, I haven't been drinking and am getting over a case of mild food poisoning.
Great to spend time with Ron, Lena, Sheela, Bob, Barbara, James and Eileen. And of course, Leslie.
She said that Shawn had given her and Ron the plant many years ago before he moved to Thailand.
A very pretty flower and a wonderful afternoon!
Saturday, May 15, 2021
Found dog
Not the sort of pooch that will survive long out here in the wild I am afraid.
We think he is probably at least part bichon. He is so adorable, great personality.
End of the race
He texted me today that he had decided against buying this print because the cowboy was black.
Not prejudice he says, just personal choice.
I really don't know how to react. I never thought the rider was black, I suppose he could be or a hispanic vaquero, it never occurred to me but they did do a lot of the riding and work out here and it makes no difference to me, I would personally consider it a positive. There were a lot of black cowboys, you know?
Borein was a working cowboy and the saddle looks like a Visalia rig, so I assume the scene is probably from California. This is the way Borein depicted his vaqueros, being out in the sun all day lent itself to dark, sunburned faces. Whatever the ethnicity, the rider threw a nice loop.
I think that I am through dealing with this person. He gives me a sick feeling in my stomach.
Edward Borein (1872-1945) was born in San Leandro, California. He began sketching horses, cowboys and steers at an very early age. By the time he was seventeen, he achieved the main ambition of his youthful life and became a working cowboy drifting through most areas of the West, from Mexico to Montana.
In 1907 Borein went to New York to learn etching techniques. He opened a studio so typical of the West in its atmosphere that he soon attracted the companionship of other homesick Western artists working in the East at that time. Charles Russell came to regard him as a brother. Borein was one of the most popular figures on the Western scene. The fact that he became the intimate friend of such men as Will Rogers, President Theodore Roosevelt, Leo Carillo and others of equal prominence testifies to his attractive personality as well as his talent.
Feeling uncomfortable in New York City, and electing not to return to his more familiar Oakland surroundings, Borein took his new bride, Lucille Maxwell, to Santa Barbara in 1921 and established a studio there. His old cronies and new friends found this studio a delightful place to gather.Watercolors, especially in his later life, was a favorite medium of Edward Borein. He was equally adept at pen-and-ink drawing, and his etchings were of such vigorous, realistic quality that no Western artist has surpassed him in this field.
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Postscript:
I received this letter from Will:
Sorry for your trouble. It is a fine, fine Borein. As for color ID, could be either, and yeah, that’s a positive for me too as those images are very scarce, especially in California. The rodeo competition event of bulldogging originated as a novelty performance by a black cowboy in Wyoming at Cheyenne Frontier Days, circa 1916. It later became a competition, but modified by the young white competitors, who chose not to being their steers down by biting them on the upper lip, as the originator did. I’m blanking on his name as write this, to my sorrow.
I grew up knowing that story because my father, Al Chandler (1909-2001), was born in Oregon but raised from the age of 11 in Cheyenne. As his widowed mother was often ill, one of his guardians was Charles Hersig, founder of the Wyoming Hereford Ranch, where my dad spent most of his teens. Dad became a prize winning roper, and continued to compete in the circuits after he began work as a telephone lineman and wire chief for Mountain Bell in Casper.
Your comment about a nice loop inspired me to share this photo of him taken at the Las Vegas, New Mexico rodeo in 1938, age 29. Also a helluva nice loop, which the brahma calf hasn’t even noticed as he runs through it. Dad pointed out to me that he trained his horses (this was one of about 10 he owned at that time) to sit down for the impact as soon as he threw the loop. The knot is visible and positioned to throw the calf upside down, ready for the piggin string. Charlie Bennett, a childhood friend of my dad’s with a third generation ranch near Laramie, surprised him with this long forgotten photo as a Christmas present in 1988.
Cheers,
Will
Friday, May 14, 2021
Blogger problems
For the first time that I can recall I received a dangerous site message when I tried to open the blog today. A reader called me as well to report that she was also having trouble logging in. I got in touch with google support. The man who answered said, not to worry, it is not the blog.
Instead, it's an issue with Blogger itself. Since Blogger is pretty much outdated, browsers, such as Chrome, will consider the website as "deceptive". Basically, Blogger currently has outdated certificates and it doesn't meet Google Chrome's requirements.
In fact, you can even go to https://blogger.googleblog.com/, which is a blog created by Google itself and you'll probably find the it's also considered as a "Deceptive site".
I asked him if they were planning on fixing the problem and he didn't know. Told me to send some feedback to the developers. This is troubling to me. Google has a sad and beguiling habit of suddenly cutting the cord on their own platforms, no matter who and how bad it hurts, they did it on Google + and so many other programs. (see: killed by google)
https://support.google.com/googleone/contact/survey_transactional_short?ctx=chat&caseid=AOEqE9j8HnNZoWaPJXTECfveU620lLRHDv2Ib9ehvhSIUFXXJpTSq5KDtUU=&click=l
Perhaps the blog will have to go to Wordpress or something and take another shape? This is very troubling, will try to get to the bottom of it.
Coming up
Anybody have pictures of Leslie and my wedding? Shawn? It was twenty seven years ago tomorrow. Not sure where my album is but Leslie will probably know.
Early morning in Yosemite
Thursday, May 13, 2021
Autonomous Ragnarok
There are two stories that caught my attention today. In the first there was another recent Tesla death, a fatality up in Fontana. Apparently the car ran into an overturned semi-truck. There have been a spate of autonomous vehicle accidents of late.
Since Tesla introduced Autopilot in 2015, there have been at least 11 deaths in 9 crashes in the United States that involved Autopilot. Internationally, there have been at least another 9 deaths in 7 additional crashes.
This comes on the heels of the story of the Einstein in the Bay Area who refuses to sit in the front seat of his Tesla and keeps getting arrested.
General John Murray of the US Army Futures Command told an audience at the US Military Academy last month that swarms of robots will force military planners, policymakers, and society to think about whether a person should make every decision about using lethal force in new autonomous systems. Murray asked: “Is it within a human's ability to pick out which ones have to be engaged” and then make 100 individual decisions? “Is it even necessary to have a human in the loop?” he added.
At the same event, Lieutenant General Clinton Hinote, deputy chief of staff for strategy, integration, and requirements at the Pentagon, says that whether a person can be removed from the loop of a lethal autonomous system is “one of the most interesting debates that is coming, [and] has not been settled yet.”
Sounds great but will it be any more foolproof than the autonomous cars? Will the brass and the bean counters figure out what they consider is an acceptable rate of innocent deaths and collateral damage when the robot driven bullets and bombs start to fly and the wrong target gets wasted?
I'm afraid that the answer will be yes. We have already set up such a metric in dealing with innocent middle east bomb casualties.
You can create the finest machines in the world and they will still lack one key ingredient, in short supply as it is, human judgment. I shudder to think of an autonomously weaponized future.
Wednesday, May 12, 2021
Redd Volkaert
Tiger Girl
One of things I enjoy doing in life is reading gangster and gumshoe stuff. O'Henry, Spillane, Runyan, Stout, Johnny Dollar, insurance detective. That sort of thing. Wiseguy action.
I really enjoy the genre. The beginning of the last century was evidently a wild and woolly time.
Whittemore (1897-1983) illustrated a series on Kanasas landmarks in 1936.
This one is called Sod house, Logan County.
It is a very lovely example of the colored woodblock, she is dreadfully undervalued but most women, especially obscure women from the midwest, are undervalued in today's market.
Thankfully that is changing, as they are every bit as good if not better than the male artists.
But I am not writing this post to discuss either her artistic acumen or societal artistic inequality.
It just so happens that she shares her sobriquet with two other famous women, a suffragette and a lesser known bank robber gangster moll also known as Tiger Lil.
And that is where my research took me and what constitutes the subject of this post.
In 1925 and 1926 this gang, led by Richard Whittemore, terrorized the eastern seaboard, from Maryland to New York.
Richard Whittemore, a longtime career criminal, escaped from the Maryland state penitentiary on February 20, 1925, after killing prison guard Robert Holtman. He reunited with his wife Margaret Whittemore, known as Tiger Lil and the Tiger Girl, and began recruiting a team of stick up artists and hold up men such as Bernard Mortillaro, Pasquale Chicarelli, Joseph Ross, Morris "Shuffles" Goldberg, Leopold Gilden, Anthony Paladino and brothers Jake and Leon Kraemer. Whittemore and his gang would then commit a series of bank robberies in two states during a 12-month period
The gang committed its first armed robbery, only four days after Whittemore's prison escape, when they ambushed a Western Maryland Dairy payroll shipment in Baltimore. The driver and a guard were shot during the robbery and the gang escaped with $16,034 in cash. Three weeks later, the gang robbed Baltimore bank messenger J. Wahl Holtzman of $8,792 in broad daylight, beating him unconscious and then stealing the money he was carrying.
Anyway the gang kept up the mayhem for the better part of two years, engaging in all sorts of sordid gangster stuff. Read the wikipedia entry, pretty saucy.
A guy wrote a book about the gang a few years ago, too. These hoods had color, took pride in their work. Craftsmen, if you will, with a very special skill set.
They called Richard the Candy Kid, a great moniker for a hoodlum with a dame named Tiger Lil.
Reportedly they developed a taste for heroin and the collective monkey on their back led to their eventual downfall.
The Candy Kid ended up hanging from a rope, not the sweetest ending for a dulcet criminal.
The tiger girl managed to get off and newly declawed, perhaps started her budding new career as a woodblock artist?
Seriously, he swung from a hemp rope and she lived to the ripe old age of ninety. Now how is that fair? She must have had nine lives.
Not sure what she was doing all that time, planting petunias? Or visiting the cemetery on a moonless night in her long black veil?
On January 11, 1926, they robbed Belgian diamond merchants Albert Goudris and Emanuel Veerman on West 48th Street in Manhattan. This was their most successful haul yet, having gotten $175,000 in gems, however this was also to be their last robbery. They spent the next nine weeks celebrating, spending much of their loot, According to federal watchdog Harry Anslinger, many, if not all, of the gang were using heroin by this time. Their drug use may have been the contributing factor for their capture when the New York Police Department were able to arrest eight of the surviving gang members on March 19, without firing a shot.
Whittemore was first tried in Buffalo for the armored car hijacking but the trial ended in a hung jury on April 27, 1926, and a mistrial was declared. Although the charges were dropped, Whittemore was extradited to Maryland where he was charged with the murder of prison guard Robert Holtman. He was convicted on May 21, condemned to death on June 10, and hanged on Friday, August 13, 1926.Two other members of the gang, the Kraemer brothers, were convicted on robbery charges and sentenced to 40 years each in a New York prison.Margaret Whittemore was arrested but never convicted for her roles in any of the crimes. She died at age 90 on April 13, 1993.
You see how boring today's criminals are? Blah. Where's our Candy Kid? No pizazz at all these days. Whatever happened to Robin Hood and Pretty Boy Floyd? No integrity today, even among thieves I suppose.
Fawning over flora
Remember when the dollar store was selling those boxes of wildflower seed for a buck? I bought twenty. Nothing. Same with Reardon. My neighbor Stephanie sent me some pics of her two dollar investment.
I guess you're supposed to water them?
My place is actually looking good. We have a new gardener. Wish I could be home a little more to enjoy the blooms.
Crazy Tourists
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| “If you didn't know that TV footage was a video from January the sixth, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit.” Rep. Andrew Clyde - (R) GA - photo by Brent Stirton |
Solomonic wisdom needed
Many people are weighing in on the conflagration, Omar and Tlaib's latest vitriol towards Israel is quite predictable.
For a different perspective one might read Elliot Abrams, he whose reputation was mortally sullied in Iran Contra. I don't agree in toto but some of his points bear considering before you start the process of assigning blame.
Not that Netanyahu didn't bring this on with his kowtowing to the religious right and heavy handed abuse of the Palestinians. He did. But the first thing you learn in the region is that nobody's hands are clean.
Baby Hawks
Funny, my old fashioned, antique, mirrored dslr with the optical viewfinder can still do the job, especially in low morning light.
Tuesday, May 11, 2021
Help on The Way
Wither the constitution?
An interesting story on asset confiscation over at Reason. Forget probably cause, you are guilty until you can prove your innocence. Feds need the money.
FBI comes in and raids safe deposit boxes and then tells people to prove the assets are theirs if they want them back.
In legal filings, federal prosecutors have admitted that "some" of the company's customers were "honest citizens," but contend that "the majority of the box-holders are criminals who used USPV's anonymity to hide their ill-gotten wealth."
A clear case of guilt by association. This story led me to the op ed at The Orange County Register, The FBI can't seize first and ask questions later. The gold bugs have been talking about government confiscation for some time. Maybe it is coming.
Monday, May 10, 2021
Measuring success
Today is the day. I want to be finished with this phase of my project tonight. Long as it takes. I want to get away for a day tomorrow in nature, take a hike. Been two months or so. Body is fighting me. I think the auction is going really well, some very encouraging signs. But we will see. You never know, you can always get fooled. So I am going back to work. Get this one done.
I took the day off. Mailed a package first thing and then drove out and went birding. My project is in the can for two more weeks. I can tighten up a few things, my jewelry shots are terrible for instance but all in all things are looking pretty good.
I got a message from Live Auctioneers yesterday that I got to the 5000 view mark very quickly. Today I am at 6300 views. I have 284 registered bidders at this point and over $70k already bid. These are all very positive metrics. On May 21st an email will go out to another half a million people with Blue Heron Auctions LLC May 25th auction as the featured auction for the day. This can not hurt.
Barry asked me what success would look like for me on this inchoate attempt? It is a good question and one I have not spent a lot of time dwelling on. But here goes; success for me would be not falling on my face and making an ass of myself. Success would be learning the platform well enough that it is easier next time and something I am comfortable doing. Success is not a dollar amount, I asked my wife what she thought and she said paying the bills and having something left over, which is always a reasonable outlook.
Mostly for me, success will be selling a bunch of my consignors' material and not having too many lots pass and not meet reserve. I really want to do well for the people who have trusted me with their possessions. Not really worried about the stuff I put in the auction, I think it will do fine. But I want everybody to be happy and to know that I gave it my best shot for them. Left nothing on the table. And I have left nothing on the table. I am exhausted. It has been hard work.
Money is just a way of keeping score. I held a lot of great things back because I want there to be a round two when I have finished round one. I think that if this auction is successful more people will want to work with me. We will see. I could have seriously padded the numbers but I wanted to offer material in a variety of price ranges that was all good so that there was something for everybody and in every price range.
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Birding was bleak. Hot and dry, nary a bird to be seen. Left the preserve earlier than I ever have, truth is I am pretty tired. Thought I would shoot the baby hawks on the way home, nowhere to be seen. Hope I didn't miss them. They left awful fast last year. We will see. Priorities suck sometimes.
Sunday, May 9, 2021
Happy Mother's Day
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| White Sands |
It's hard to live with a brilliant person and my mother was nothing if not brilliant. Friends would take so much pleasure in her mercurial and crazy approach to life, hers was anything but mundane. We children would merely shake our heads. We had heard it all before.
It was a bit tougher to take if you were on the inside, subject to Adelle's whims, vagaries, caprice and occasional selfishness. I admit, I was not easy either. It is the rule of the road; when you live in a cauldron, grow your armor quickly or be incinerated. We all gave as good as we got, to be sure. And we all mostly survived.
Of course my mother is no longer here to defend herself and I could just imagine her telling me what a bastard I am and always was. Tom can mimic her to a t and often does. Has the accent down pat. "Bobby, you bastard..."
So I think I will focus on the better parts of our life together, the things I most respected about her and they were many. She adopted many strays off the street, both human and animal. Never met a stranger. She loved her dogs, perhaps as much if not more than she loved her children. One could do worse than to be reborn as her hound.
She probably accomplished more professionally, in more disparate fields, than any person I have ever known.
She taught French and History. She was a guidance counselor. She wrote the first adopted African American curriculum in the State of New York. She was an editor of a major New York publishing house and increased their titles by fourfold during her employ. She was a great editor and assembled an amazing family library.
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| Terry, Murray and Adelle |
Ran political campaigns. Had a spot at Elaines, got the great table at Le Veau D'or where she lunched many Thursdays with Magritte's lawyer, Mr. Tavernier.
She left Gramercy Park for Hoboken and then slid west. She eventually hid out in the Poconos for thirty years and sold antiques. Went on the lam, but always with a big coterie of sycophants and well wishers in her train, bewitched and betwixt by her magic and personality.
Her kids didn't necessarily buy it but were generally content to let her ply her schtick. She concocted a magnificent and utterly fake origin story but everybody bought in, that is until we didn't.
She sold cheap shit like Shawnee, Red Wing and Hull, loved depression glass, occupied japan, sold iron figural doorstops and old Harley manuals, became an expert in the obscure and forgotten. Was horrified when she saw what I spent on my material.
She had some twisted relationships with some very twisted men, many of whom drank too much but finally found a pliant husband who would worship her and rarely say no to anything she asked. She was in heaven. He was a great guy who deserves a medal and definitely a case of purple hearts. I wouldn't have taken her crap for a second, he loved her and ate it up.
She was a gourmet cook. We were forced to eat calves brains and eggs as kids but she did other things exceedingly well, like stroganoff and veal marsala. Phenomenal bread and biscuit maker. Dog and cat lover. Voracious reader. Kept us clothed and fed.
We may have received the short end of the stick on some occasions but she loved her kids and took pleasures in all their accomplishments. She was proud of us and rightfully so, I come from a family of very gifted and intelligent people.
She genuinely liked my writing. She used to write in to the blast comments and encourage me. I still get a tear thinking about that. She liked my fiction. I proofed for her when she worked at Pinnacle so to have her genuine acclaim means a lot to me.
Mom, I miss you. We all did the best we were capable of, considering. I know I was no picnic. Not like any of us get a dress rehearsal in this life thing. Miss you and love you Mom.
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| Mom and John |
Saturday, May 8, 2021
And where it falls, nobody knows...
What is that thing hurtling down at supersonic speed, so quickly and unannounced? Chinese rocket flotsam? Do tell...
Was reading about the guy who managed to survive the Mexico City rail line collapse the other day. "Wasn't his time," he said.
Tension
I had decided to only put 200 lots in on this inaugural auction. I could put a thousand lots in with all my inventory, believe me, but you have to stop somewhere.
On a whim, I sent this picture to four art dealer friends and an auction house to see if anybody recognized the signature.
Three did immediately. Steve Stoops was first.
It is the work of Peterpaul Ott (1895-1982.)
You can see a bio for Ott on Spencer Helfen's excellent website. And this from Artprice.
North River Fiasco
Two thirds of the voters in Oceanside voted against a new housing project, North River Farms. The developer took the referendum to court and the judge is now thwarting the will of the people.
The result of a ballot measure in which more than two-thirds of Oceanside voters rejected the construction of up to 585 homes in South Morro Hills appears to be jeopardized by a tentative ruling last week in San Diego Superior Court.
If upheld, the ruling would be a victory for Integral Communities, the developer seeking to build the North River Farms project in an agricultural area of northeastern Oceanside. Integral filed the suit in January 2020 alleging that the citizen-led referendum violates state law.
Judge Richard S. Whitney said in his tentative ruling released Friday that the referendum was “preempted” by the California Legislature’s efforts in Government Code section 66300 “to maximize the development of housing within this state.”
“While the referendum did not outright ban housing development, the referendum has the effect of limiting housing development on a portion of the jurisdiction of the affected city,” Whitney said in the ruling. “If the opposition’s position were accepted, referendums could endlessly be passed to effectively disallow any housing development.”
This idea of maximizing housing in a state with severe water shortages in a time of drought is ridiculous. Not to mention the environmental effects of ceaseless development. The judge has now apparently finalized last week's ruling.
A Superior Court Judge has ruled that Oceanside’s Nov. 3 referendum on the North River Farms project proposed for South Morro Hills is invalid and that the 585-home Integral Communities development can proceed “assuming other pending litigation does not prevent it.”
The Legislature clearly intended to preempt referendums designed to restrict “development of housing within this state” under Government Code 66300, which was passed in 2019 to address the state housing shortage, said Judge Richard S. Whitney in the final ruling Thursday afternoon.
I feel sorry for the people that live in Morro Hills and the neighboring communities. Rural areas are facing an onslaught of growth and some people won't be happy until California is one big wall to wall housing tract.
You don't like California? Fine, leave. You may have heard, we don't have enough water. At least you won't have to watch it get totally destroyed. Some democracy.
Thursday, May 6, 2021
We put the holes in the poles.
A third of the way through my task, with a break I will be done in two days. People are messaging me from around the world asking why I don't have this or that?
I have been under the gun and can only do so much. But you can't really say that to them so I am trudging forward as best as I can.
I hate to say it but I am not really cut out for data entry. There is something so robotic about the whole deal, inputting line after line on the spreadsheet, and me being a noob having to do so much manually. My father and sister were both CPA's and have no problem with it but for me it is a bit soul sucking.
I don't know if it is my add but repetitive work drives me nuts. In 1990 when I was living in Israel during the war, I had a job in a plastic factory for two weeks. I grabbed these long trays off an assembly line and sent them over to the cutter, again and again, over and over.
Inside I was screaming, it was so awful and boring. And yet there were people there who were cheerfully putting the same nut on the same bolt and were happy to do so, even after a twenty year stretch.
Not me.
So I quit and went out and worked in the banana fields. Very hard work, maybe the hardest I have ever done but infinitely better than being on the dehumanizing line.
Owl Shot
I was quite pleased to hear that The Fallbrook Sourcebook used one of my photographs on their front cover this year.
I just walked over and scored a copy after Debbie Ramsey clued me in.
I want to thank Julie Reeder for putting the great horned owl shot up, the competition was really great, loved the competing butterfly shot but they went with mine for some reason. Might have fit the page better.
She also paid me a handsome check, which I was not expecting, and a bunch of great packages and tickets to things, whole thing just way beyond my expectations, which were nil.
Thank you Julie, Lucette, all the people at the Village News and the Fallbrook Sourcebook. You are so kind. I really appreciate it and feel quite honored.
Happy With You
Wednesday, May 5, 2021
Finally!
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| Mountains through the trees - F. Grayson Sayre |
I finally went live this morning with my preview of my first live auction on live auctioneers. I still have a lot of tweaking to do to dial it in but you can't imagine the work just getting it this far!
I need to tighten up my titles and descriptions and add secondary photos but I think I have time.
Anyway, please follow and bid even if something grabs you. Spread the word and please keep your fingers crossed for me and my consignors! I hope this initial one is a success.
Check out the auction here.
Monday, May 3, 2021
There's dumb and then there's Florida dumb.
And back in Florida, Governor DeSantis is suspending all local Covid restrictions as well as vaccine passports.
It seems more than a little shortsighted, it is not as if people don't continue to get Covid 19 and die back there. 3916 new cases in Florida yesterday. But now they are going to tie their local government's hands, for political expediency and so that it will make Governor DeSantis future presidential resume look a little better to the GOP.
Sunday, May 2, 2021
Karen Dalton - Green Rocky Road
Sunday wrap up.
I thought that I would be able to button up the first phase of my auction preparation today but I couldn't. I am down to about ten watercolors and prints behind glass. Except for these ten, all the objects and paintings in my sale are now photographed and cataloged. One hundred ninety down, ten to go.
It is very difficult to shoot something reflective. The secret is putting it in full sun and taking the shot from a shaded vantage. But that positioning is very difficult to find sometimes. There was no sun today and the glare outside was terrible anyway.
I tried to illuminate the works with my Smith Victor floods but they are too bright and it looked awful too. Natural light is best. Hopefully I will have better luck tomorrow. Worse comes to worse I will take them all out of frame. That would be the best optimal thing but it requires a lot time and I don't have a lot of time right now.
I have been working a little less this week. More ten and eleven hour days, not fourteen like last week. I found I was making too many mistakes when I was fried after a long day. So I took a small step back.
I really like it. Bischoff had a flair with strong color and light that is perhaps unmatched by his Southern California impressionist peers.
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It has been several years since it has done so and they are breathtaking when in bloom if you are into that sort of thing.
Of course there is talk that my plant is not a true rostrata specimen but instead a tissue culture frankenstein conceived by a mad scientist up on Gavilan.
Who knows?
No matter its true origins and parentage, the plant is a joy in my garden.
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I want to thank Jeff for digging up the clivea for me. Planted this afternoon when I got home, along with a purple bottlebrush.
I am looking for a couple nice climbing roses for my front fence.
I want a red orange one and a purple. I had the former for the longest time but it succumbed to entropy and age.
Anyone have any suggestions? I already have a large Cecil Brunner/Banksia climbing rose that is fifty years old and don't need anymore pink.
I don't even know where to go to get a climbing rose now that Tropic World is gone and the Moonies have taken over. Hunters in Lemon Grove is rather far.
You know a place?
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I am not sure why but the blog readership is blowing up again, 2700 views yesterday, 3098 today. This is about double normal and I am not sure what is driving it, perhaps it is a bot. It would be too delusional to think that my brilliance is starting to be recognized and that one day I could become a real life influencer in this world of ours.