Wild Cucumber a.k.a. Man Root

Wild cucumber is a climbing and trailing perennial that grows all over out hillsides in the winter.

The root can weigh much as 100lbs. WOW!

It is because of this root that it is sometimes called manroot, and also that it is one of the first plants to reseed after a fire 

I love the little curls and wisps of vine that stretch out to anchor the vine...so soft and graceful...

Wild cucumber smells and tastes like a garden cucumber, but will cause stomach upset and diarrhea. DON’T EAT THIS PLANT! 

Natural Medicinal Herbs states, “The pulverized root of the wild cucumber is used as a poultice for headaches. A very bitter tea brewed from the roots is analgesic and is also used as a love potion. It is used as a bitter tonic for alleviating stomach troubles, kidney ailments, rheumatism, chills, fevers etc.” 

Um...no thanks.  I'll just grab a tylenol....

A Veggie New Age Song:

Peas would rule the planets, 

and love would clear the bars. 

It was the dawning of the Age of Asparagus.

Happy 50th Anniversary Mom and Dad! San Diego Family Reunion Couples Photographer

Well that's a first.  Me featuring a wedding I didn't attend and didn't photograph!  

The wedding of my parents - 50 years ago!

Well, to honor the occasion of their anniversary, we got together for a little 

"Happy 50th Anniversary Portrait Session"

And did I mention we had fun?

What started out as a gift for them....somehow magically, turned into a gift to me.

And before I sign off, I have to show you the portrait they chose to have printed on canvas 

and hang in their home:

The beautiful thing about having a photograph printed on canvas is you don't need

glass - so there's no glare.

(It's definitely my first choice in displaying art)

"A golden aura surrounds you two, a couple representing all thats right about marriage, a pair who have triumphed over time, over challenges, over all, and continue to bond, serve and love. A golden aura symbolizes unselfishness, generosity, and happy compromise out of love for each other. You are an extraordinary duo, and we wish you comfort, peace, and happiness all the years of your lives." Johanna Fuchs

Nicola: Class of 2013 San Diego Balboa Park High School Senior Portraits Photographer for Del Norte High School

Time for the Class of 2013 to be getting ready to turn in their text books, clean out their lockers, 

plan their parties and 

send out Graduation Announcements!

Nicola and her family wanted to capture her senior memories in a beautiful outdoor park 

and I was so happy one of my clients, Sheri, suggested they give me a call.

If you are looking for some unique graduation announcements - or party invitation, thank you card or even want to order a single custom Father's Day card, make sure you take a look 

HERE at my favorite card making website Tiny Prints.

"Education is not filling a pail, but lighting a fire." (William Butler Yeats)

Flat Stanley Visits San Diego

Hi, I'm Flat Stanley and I've taken over today's blog.  

If you don't know who I am, I'll let you know that I'm the star of a childrens' book about a little boy who had a bulletin board fall on him and squish him flat. (Yikes!)

 I have many different adventures in my book, but  I also discover that the
good thing about being flat is I can be mailed to people.

Well, speaking of being mailed, my friend Jay, who is in first grade and lives in Pennsylvania, drew a picture of me in school and then mailed me to his Aunt Pam in San Diego.

He asked her to take me on some adventures here in San Diego and then mail back a little story.

Well, since Aunt Pam is a photographer, he's getting a lot of photos of my adventures too.

We went to the Safari Park and the Zoo...

And I got to walk on the beach,  touch seaweed and look in a tidepool...

I tried to meet a new friend, but he was scared of me!

I dipped my toes in the water....

And then a wave came and got me and Aunt Pam really wet!

So I dried off in the sun....

Other things I discovered during my visit to San Diego:

I like nachos....

And I don't like cactus plants - they are dangerous!

Thanks for letting me stay with you Aunt Pam - I'm ready to head back home to Jay now along with a "San Diego" t-shirt I helped you pick out for Jay, and a handful of sea shells we found at the beach!

The Flat Stanley Project was started in 1995 by Dale Hubert, a third grade schoolteacher in London, Ontario, Canada. It is meant to facilitate letter-writing by schoolchildren to each other as they document where Flat Stanley has accompanied them. Dale Hubert received the Prime Minister's Award for Teaching Excellence in 2001 for the Flat Stanley Project.



The Project provides an opportunity for students to make connections with students of other member schools who have signed up with the project. Students begin by reading the book and becoming acquainted with the story. They create paper "Flat Stanleys" (representative drawings of the Stanley Lambchop character) and keep a journal for a few days, documenting the places and activities in which Flat Stanley is involved. Each student's Flat Stanley and its respective journal are mailed to other people who are asked to treat the figure as a visiting guest and add to his journal, then return them both after a period of time. The project has many similarities to the travelling gnome prank except, of course, for the Flat Stanley Project's focus on literacy.


Students may find it fun to plot Flat Stanley's travels on maps and share the contents of the journal. Often, a Flat Stanley returns with a photo or postcard from his visit. Some teachers prefer to use e-mail for its quicker travel time.


In 2005, more than 6,500 classes from 48 countries took part in the Flat Stanley Project


According to the February 26, 2009 broadcast of Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Flat Stanley was on board US Airways Flight 1549 which landed safely in the Hudson River. He was carried to safety in the briefcase of his traveling companion.


In early 2010, Darren Haas, a huge Flat Stanley advocate and applications architect, approached Dale Hubert with the idea of turning the Flat Stanley Project concept into an app for the iPhone.

Happy Mother's Day to moms today and throughout history.....

YAY to moms everywhere!

And while we are thinking about moms, I have to share something from the

 history of photography that I just found out about...

Take a look at this next photo and see if anything looks odd to you.

 (Aside from the fact that it's hundreds of years old....)

                   .

Did you notice that someone is underneath that flowered blanket holding the baby?

Well.....

The first photographic images in the late 1820s had to be exposed for hours in order to capture them on film.   

The long exposures gave us a few unmistakable Victorian photography conventions, such as the stiff postures and unsmiling faces of people trying to remain perfectly still while their photograph was being taken.

Seems children were just as squirmy then as they are today, because another amusing convention developed: photographs containing hidden mothers trying to keep their little ones still enough for a non-blurry picture.  These fantastic portraits of children all contain their mother, disguised as chairs or camouflaged under decorative throws behind them. 

Can you spot all the mothers?

 Interesting...and slightly creepy isn't it?

Thankfully, these days we don't need to sit still for hours while we're having a photo captured....

I wish you a wonderful Mother's Day with lots of smiles and love!

Victorian photographers must have had the creepiest job in recorded history. When they weren't taking photos of dead people for posterity, they took portraits of young children, who, thanks to the limited technology of the day, now look ghostly, if not plain unhappy. Look not-even-all-that closely, and you'll see the human shapes of mothers trying to hide behind them, as they hold their children still during the film's long exposure time.  MSN now

And Happy Mother's Day to MY MOM~  I love you!  

A Walk on the Wild Side....with flowers galore!

Went for a glorious hike last month with my pal Wendy.

After about 2 hours of hiking in the hills above Poway,
we found a beautiful little trail we'd never been on before.

(So of course we headed right up it - we like to live life on the edge and all that...)

And in addition to being filled with the most beautiful wildflowers,

it was lush and green and had so many beautiful turns and twists - truly and amazing trail.

The wildflowers greeted us at every turn of the trail from Yucca to Poppies and everything in between!

This succulent was growing right out of a wall of rock!

This little plant's leaves were shaped like little bowls and were filled with the morning dew....

I've named it "Cereal Bowl Plant"  (I'm oh SO creative, don't you think?)

And we found a MEADOW!  Yep.  

Just like they had on Little House on the Prairie.

(Can't you picture Laura and Carrie running along?)

Well sadly, two weeks after that hike, we took Betsy to the trail to show her 

all the beautiful wildflowers and they were gone.  

Dead.  Dried up.  Drought-ed.  (Just invented that word)

Even the beautiful meadow was ugly....

WASHINGTON, Feb 21 (Reuters) - The historic U.S. drought of 2012 could spread this spring to more of California.   They also projected a warmer-than-normal summer over almost the entire United States.

California has the greatest chance of abnormally dry weather, even though parts of California were just beginning to recover from drought at the end of last year.    The northern half of the state had been mostly drought-free of late but now a drought seems likely to develop.

"They started out so well, in November and December they had really good strong rains, they had good snow packs in the Sierra Nevadas," Miskus told Reuters after the outlook's unveiling. "By February, however, conditions were dry, and this is typically California's wettest month," he said.

Last year's drought is second only to the Dust Bowl year of 1934 as the one with the most widespread and severe dry conditions in the United States. And 67 percent of the contiguous United States are dryer than normal, and some places are still experiencing exceptional drought.