In 4 hours it will be here again and astronomical spring will begin in this hemisphere … and at this moment the first sentence of this song already represents reality here,
A beautiful weekend lies ahead… Sorry for the people who live on the island above me … look at a picture of the sun
The music on the squares will start again this weekend in my area and we will be looking for that on Friday/Saturday (although the first weekend I just saw seems to be very oriented towards small children, so you live in the middle of the Netherlands and you have a good tip)…
I’m out with the guitar a lot these days anyway …
maybe a little further out the door and with a suitcase in front of my chair … …nooo
Hi Rogier! How is it I missed your updates?! I’m happy to read about your positiveness
about spring (you get the meaning, nevermind if sometimes I invent words that don’t exist in eglish )
…it’s so nice to spend sometime outdoor in the sun, and you have a very nice garden there! Now maybe it’s about time your wife will plant some colourful spring flowers and making it even prettier for you!
We have a little garden downstairs and at the moment it looks like a wild forest I look foward to spend a few hours there and make it nice again! But from tomorrow rain rain rain for the whole next week
Wish you nice walks out there in the nature
Now I have to go to strum my dear Jude…not sure when but a couple of Celentano covers for you, Brian and Andrea are on the way
How sweet of you to stop by here to read and leave a word …I was already thinking it became a monologue
look at who you are typing…
even in Dutch I “invent” words and sentences and too often without consciously
I’ll make this clear when she gets downstairs
We do that together … “Your hands work great, I hear that every day,” she says . (one a day, quietly and happily messing around outside …said really does a lot a lot lot more of course )…at least I have the pots and hanging baskets and she do in the open ground … But but … We bought plants again last week, but they are not blooming yet and the garden is (and was) full of flower bulbs, but many that have now come up have already been eaten by the snails, because since last year everyone in the Netherlands has had enormous amounts of snails in the garden … no, no, much more, it is really a ridiculous amount
It has just been half of March, be patient and it’s a pity that you are having such bad weather, rain will fall a little on Saturday, a little more on Sunday and then normal temperature again … but today it will still be 21c
and
that is especially great during this period for all small animals and birds … half our garden is full of pruning “green bush waste” and leaves
Okay…I don’t understand this one…collaboration or visiting you? or?
Ps:That @brianlarsen guy is busy with other things at the moment so I’ll leave some jokes out
So…what a long story for the morning , now I’m going to prepare for a great day outside
Good morning dear Rogier, I’ve obviously missed your spring post !
Thanks for the lovely pics out of your garden.
First signs of spring are visible here too and temperatures already climbed up to 20°C here in the valley with snowy mountains in the background .
I have to keep it short, so much to do after returning home yesterday .
Enjoy the sunshine and all those little creatures coming back to the light after the winter!
No conspirational collaboration here, Rogier, but ideas are coming up… a little trip to beautiful Liguria would be so nice !
Hi Andrea @Helen0609
I read your message yesterday afternoon in the garden , and it made me happy (I don’t read often and actually never post by phone)… I usually don’t log in because otherwise I forget to respond when I look on the laptop the next day …
But reading your and Silvia’s @Silvia80 post prompted her to pay extra attention to what is blooming and the hundred+ that are about to bloom (my girl is usually free on Friday afternoons) … That relaxed her so much after a too busy morning with many annoying suppliers … and she said as we walked to the village center “don’t forget to thank those girls you were chatting with … it made me completely calm to focus on the little animals and plants” …
Ooooo, what a picture you paint here … if only there were devices with which you could share such pictures
Welcome home ,and with all the strength I have in me, I hope and wish you to be able to continue to improve and get better and better and get the very best out of it now and in the future … (or … )
please drop down first 900km and pick me up
I had read it a few times but sometimes sentences don’t make sense…and yesterday in the garden the penny dropped
I’ll just collect a few photos from yesterday afternoon to add some weight to the story…
A lot is about to explode open and even more still has to come to the surface…but this is a good start …
front garden Magnolia will be at its maximum in 4 to 7 days, but went from completely closed the day before yesterday to opening so much within 24 hours…
It’s not all that big, especially from a distance, a single flower is sometimes just that … but with the right focus it’s all beautiful … look and learn to look closely and there is so much beauty … our large rosemary is no longer 10 percent of it because of the Het rozemarijngoudhaantje (Chrysolina americana )
The live music in the restaurant later in the evening was a DJ (my own reading error of course)…Grrrr… Luckily we where outside and the music not to loud
Beautiful photos Rogier. I enjoyed your steady thumb blues videos - you’ve progressed so much since Justin first posted those classes! I need to get to them at some point, but right now I’m busy revisiting BLIM, finishing grade 3, and researching tube amps . Perhaps finally learning how to keep the SHC riff in time with the shuffle lets me branch out to these since they seem technique wise quite “adjacent”.
( I’ve been a stealth reader of your log for some time and haven’t interacted besides the like button. Time to change that!)
Hi Rogier…I’m happy to read it was a pleasant Friday afternoon and evening for you and your wife…it’s so important to find sometime for activities that help us to regain the focus on ourselves!
I was just meaning “for you” because I know you, Brian and Andrea like Celentano, but…
It would be so nice And we have plenty of beaches to strum and …eat pizza of course
Welcome back home Andrea! The sight of snowy mountains, the cool air contrasting with the warmth of the sun…this always gives me a deep sense of inner peace…maybe this summer, fingers crossed, maybe only a few days
Tell my husband He asserts he doesn’t understand even when I speak Italian
Hi Rogier. Some lovely garden pictures there. Yes, Spring is a lovely season with the promise of new life in the garden and the associated hard work of keeping it all tidy.
Get rid of the garden waste and the snails and slugs will have fewer places to hide.
I didn’t plant this year and lost a lot last year. Hibiscus has died, several days of near-freezing took the top 1/3 of the bougainvillea, and I did not get around to planting 2 months ago. In another 3-4 weeks it will be too hot and garden flowers will start to die, so nothing this year. I seem to have lost the salvia as well last year. It would come up each spring, die off in summer and return the following year, but nothing at all this year.
I re-potted it 2 years ago and gave away the primary plant. I saw last fall it had started to grow additional segments around the pot. It does seem happy. The blossoms on that one grow up the stalk, but they die off at the bottom faster than new comes, so it is about done now, only a bit taller than it is in this picture from 2 weeks ago.
I have a bed of vinca that needs a good trimming before it gets too hot to be out. Those bloom even when the temperatures are 115F (46C). Humming birds are not too fond of them though. They will start to look really good next month when the temperatures get uncomfortable in the afternoon – and after my cleanup.
The bird re-constructed a nest on this wind chime after a yard crew destroyed the original that was here for many years. The “lot” sat vacant for about 4 years and this year we have a new nest and sitting humming bird. This is safe from grackle and roadrunners, unlike the nests in the bougainvillea the quail and doves have.
The bougainvillea are the tall shrubs at the back wall. The vinca are the nasty-looking things in the raised bed.
Cactus seem to bloom after the right amount of rain. It needs to stay humid for a couple days or the blossoms will fail before they come out. Blossoms last one day, so I need to take they shot the morning it happens. This was taken last year. The cluster is from several small growths I took off an old plant that was so heavy I needed to let it die and dry out to move it. They started about the size of a Brussels sprout and are now a bit bigger than my two hands could cover. I can harvest the new growth and pot those to get more and have done so for friends and family.
Wow Michael you certainly have some very different flora and fauna from us Northern Europeans.
I confess I had to look Phoenix valley up on Google maps! I had no idea whether you were north south east or west in the US. What an exotic garden you have and now I can see why your cacti are so happy. Hummingbirds too. How beautiful.
I guess all the stuff we read on the forum about humidifying guitars is very relevant to you.
I have avoided buying a hollow body. The fret sprout is pretty bad on a new guitar about 2-3 months after getting it. Outside humidity is around 10% at room temperatures much of the year. Temperatures range from freezing to ~47C (118F) over the year. We have occasional mid-summer monsoons that can raise the outside humidity in summer from 15-20% to over 80% in minutes.
Ive been eyeing an archtop with P90 pickups but concerned I’ll need to baby it more than I like. Indoor humidity is 20-35% except for monsoon days where it can rise 15% over night after a good rain, then likely drop back to typical a couple days later. I’d probably need a whole home humidifier for just a single room!
Good to see things blooming in the garden Roger. You’d have thought we’d be a few weeks ahead of you here in Normandie but things seem a bit sluggish this year. By now all of the lawns and fields would have been cut but I have only mowed to front lawn once, about 10 days back. Buds are beginning to break through and there is a miniscule amount of colour but a plethora of daffoldils . Not a normal mid March but up there, enjoy, my northern neighbour, before that summer sun arrives and starts frying all those colourful plants. Funny old world !
Hi Michael, I have the same plant as you (first picture) but no red “flowers” yet. And the cactus! My brother has different types and also this one with light pink flowers.
Such a pity! A couple of years ago I happened to visit him when they blossomed and they were spectacular!
Be careful about your wishes… they may come true ! I guess, travelling in your company would be quite entertaining !
And thanks for all those beautiful photos you added! Be careful, this place turns out to transform into a Gardener’s forum …
Wish you a nice and calm Sunday!
Phew , What a lot of very nice things to see and to read here
Where to start…
The latter of course …
That turned out just a little bit differently and, funny enough, about an hour after you wrote this… a leaky seat cushion made Sunday very different from what I wanted and always causes a lot of inconveniences, but I refuse to buy a spare for 2 to 4 days a year for 800+ euros. … so I just have to get through the inconveniences (also tapping away at the computer is now a thing) …and I waited quietly until the chaircompany’s workshop opened and I can call them for an appointment…
But but, despite this (small) inconvenience, it was a great weekend, with much nicer weather on Saturday and Sunday than predicted … although it was sometimes on the edge, but with 2 lunches and 1 dinner in the evening … and hours spent working together in the garden, it was a wonderful weekend …
Hi Ashu @Beatup6String
Thank you very much …Thanks for naming the music, otherwise this would seem like a chaotic diary where everyone just talks about their garden and so on
I regularly listen to old videos again. More often than expected I find that I now play a song not much better than I thought I would do after, for example, 3 years… yes, it is definitely better and less insecure, I hear, but especially what I see has become much better… much less tight or sometimes no longer looking at my hands at all…
Those blues studies have improved much faster in comparison…to …well now in mind is … " Is there anybody out there" - Pink Floyd …
My first recording didn’t even work with video and I did it on a looper… now I play it more confidently but with more than expected a lot of buzzzz strings or too hard keystrokes in between… Okay, I’m going to practice that again from tomorrow
Thank you for posting and I’m glad you did
Hi Silvia @Silvia80
and saterday and sunday where great gardening times too and your name and that from @Helen0609 came allong a couple of times when we see here pics on my phone while I was reading to here what that weird Shot had tapped … @sairfingers is his name
It took a while but the penny fell…slowly but fell
Oooo
If I have the money, I will build an ambulance so that I can lie down for half an hour every 2(?) hours between sitting in a special good chair… for now I will have to make do with daydreaming… … but the smile is big here
My wife says to people a lot in the past …I study ‘Rogiers’ for years so now i get him… mostly …Spouses tssssss
Yes So I meant this sentence that I was going to read out loud in the garden… Yes, you are absolutely right, I have been reading that for years as a tip against snails, but we started this way about 5 years ago… and only last year it became a problem for 1000+ plants and flower seed bombs that I have scattered / grown / planned Arrgghhh…
It was on the news very often last year, vegetable gardeners who were able to harvest almost nothing, my father-in-law has a very large vegetable garden and there is not a tree or a leaf… but there was also no lettuce or endive growing, etc.
Slugs hide in the ground without any problem and that is why they reproduce in the ground,Those slimy creatures themselves eat a large number of plants that you have to plant against snails… and a study last year showed how many meters away you have to move them from your garden otherwise they will just go back to the garden where they were born (they’re like salmon …damn) …
Okay, it stops beyond 90 meters, I thought, but throwing them over the neighbors fence is of no use unfortunately
Oooo, what a probably unnecessarily long story…don’t start about snails
Hi Michael @sequences
The most important thing first…I hope this year won’t be such a madhouse for you as it was last year with record breaking temperatures like 100+ days with 100 degrees Fahrenheit…it was on the news a lot here
My little dream plant (Gordon and I don’t even have to think about growing it into a mega shrub or tree here) … it will die every autumn, so that’s lucky for you
Those large temperature fluctuations are difficult , pfff …
But we were enjoying photos in your garden yesterday , what beautiful plants and stones and views it has there…There were a few Ooo and Aaaa here
I do have a flowering succulent… unfortunately no cacti in the garden,
That is strange and you would indeed think so with that warm sea water and yet quite a distance further south… perhaps because after a dark and gloomy January and February here, through only the month of March so far, this has been the sunniest start ever here (since they started keeping records) just on the radio due to the sunniest and driest start in 60 years, many wildfires in the Netherlands ( whe have wild ??? )… I have been keeping track of a number of things in a book for many years when the first creatures and plants come to life and it was a bit behind average, but that is now really being caught up every day…
Always great to hear how things are going in other places… and yes, that scorching sun later… but I use the water hose a lot if necessary to limit the damage as much as possible (hardly necessary last year a lot of rain ,but then …those freeking )
Greetings all and so fun to type and think about this stuff in a little different way and with images and words from other people all over the world you know …
for now tea ,air in the cushion and back in a moment
… look at a picture of the sun 
…
)
. (one a day, quietly and happily messing around outside …said really does a lot a lot lot more of course 
, now I’m going to prepare for a great day outside 
!
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!
! 
… if only there were devices with which you could share such pictures 
… 
and haven’t interacted besides the like button. Time to change that!)
And we have plenty of beaches to strum and …eat pizza of course 
The fret sprout is pretty bad on a new guitar about 2-3 months after getting it. Outside humidity is around 10% at room temperatures much of the year. Temperatures range from freezing to ~47C (118F) over the year. We have occasional mid-summer monsoons that can raise the outside humidity in summer from 15-20% to over 80% in minutes.
