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I just looked into why the weather has been so shitty for so long, and it’s due to a huge immobile North Atlantic high pressure system that is blocking the normal flow of weather patterns. Unsettled, to say the least. I still wear two shirts and a flannel, inside t-shirt tucked in in my classic cold weather dressing technique. All customers come in wearing jackets. Dog (when not chasing sticks) stays inside the warm truck or curled up in the store trying to stay warm.

UNSETTLED weather/UNSETTLED government. Unsettled seems to be the word for the day. Most people I know mope around and complain about both the weather and our dysfunctional state of political affairs.

I try my best to not complain about either one, finding that although both are the worst history has ever experienced, there’s not much that complaining can achieve except to aggravate those around you to the point where nobody wants to be around you!

Maybe it’s better to turn your back on misery and face the art forms that offer peace instead, like delosperma ‘hot pink wonder’ stunningly refreshing in the sunlight of days long gone.

...or perhaps euphorbia ‘bonfire’ misted over in the morning dew, leaves folded slightly from the weight.

This blazingly hot lone 30+ year old tulip offers hope also, and I feel that if this tulip can survive all these years through tumultuous times, so can we. It’s just so hard, though, for those of us who know the difference between right and so wrong.

Brand new patented clematis on its way to someone’s home after they fell in love with this intriguing hybrid.

Hard to capture the beauty and majesty of this proud lupine.

Red buckeye is almost done unfurling it’s foliage and about to flower. This group was brought in last spring, and I’m really really surprised they haven’t hitched a ride to someone’s house by now. Incredible plant.

Japanese maple buds clamshelling open yesterday. The longer one observes beauty in nature, the less one admires the obviously showy (forsythia, etc), favoring the more hard to see beauty of textures, patterns, and evolution. I always think when I see this that Japanese maples regurgitate their foliage in the spring through the protective bud sheaths like a clam shell opening.