Seems like I post annually about how much I love crape myrtles. Because they are truly something I rejoice in; have done ever since I was a child.
So today my gratitude is for this beauty that looks like it’s swaddled by a shrub. Just popping out of the sea of green like a breaching orca in an excess of joy.
©2026 Bas Bleu
With all the crappiness surrounding us these days—mostly man-made—I was filled with joy and gratitude to peek through the trees around the (man-made) ponds on the former corporate HQ campus and current construction site of absolutely hideous townhouses selling for $1.2M and discover my old friends the sacred lotus blooming.
Those ponds were completely
drained a couple of years ago, and I was so worried about the flora and fauna
that were part of their ecosystem. The snapping turtles were rescued and
relocated somewhere; I haven’t seen the blue herons. But the lotus gives me
hope.
A definite reason for
gratitude.
©2026 Bas Bleu
Do you need some Asiatic lilies? I expect you do.
You’re welcome.
©2026 Bas Bleu
We had three gardenia bushes in the house where I grew up in Southern California. We also had no air conditioning, so on summer nights my bedroom windows were open. Even though I was at the front of the house, I could still catch the scent of the gardenias. It was heavenly.
About seven or eight years
ago, I bought a little gardenia shrub and planted it in a pot in my back yard.
It’s not an ideal situation for it—that area gets only scattered bouts of
direct sun seven months out of the year, due to all the trees around me. But
that little trouper has hung on, even though it took a bit of a hit during the
snowcrete days we had earlier this year.
Although it doesn’t give me weeks of scented evenings, I’m still grateful for the flowers it produces for me. Gardenias mean summer to me.
©2026 Bas Bleu
We here in the environs of the District They Call Columbia have been in a Seattle weather pattern for nearly a week. It’s been completely overcast since last Friday; Friday and Saturday it rained all day; every day since has seen at least some sprinkles.
(The rotting Kleptocrat cited "bad weather" when he moved yesterday's Cabinet meeting from Camp David to the White House. Right after returning from Walter Reed, where he got his third "annual" medical check-up since taking office 15 months ago. I mean...)
So of course the mushrooms are loving it. This crop is just
from yesterday morning, when the weather was 71F and soupy at 0800.
I did not harvest any. I just let them live their best
lives.
©2026 Bas Bleu
I noticed this after one of our recent rain storms. It seemed beautiful to me, so I took the photo.
It’s all around us, if we look.
©2026 Bas Bleu
Today I am grateful for the poetry of Spring—all the colors that envelop us as Nature throws off Winter’s coat.
I’m grateful for brisk temperatures for my morning walk, as
well as the lack of humidity.
I’m grateful for overnight rain that clears up before I go
out.
I’m grateful for the birds who sing and the foxes running
across the golf course.
Is there any better way to start the day?
©2026 Bas Bleu
Long ago, in the Before Times, when the developers of the corporate campus behind my house were still trying to get planning permission to turn five acres of parkland into 82 four-story townhouses, I had an email exchange with a lawyer fronting the project about many of the scores of mature trees they’d destroy.
He assured me that “the canopy will not be affected,” which
meant that they’d rip out/cut down all the trees they could and eventually
plant an approximately equivalent number of saplings. For dealing with county
agencies, that amounts to “the canopy won’t be affected”.
Well, they’ve got eight units completed of their 82, with
framing done on another five or six. All the parkland has literally been paved
and plumbed for the remaining units, and they’re working on the landscaping.
Two months ago I wrote about their allée
of hollies that look fine now, but will never again bear berries unless
they stick a male plant in the vicinity.
And as I was making a tour on Sunday morning (the only day
of the week they don’t have crews out violating the start times), I noticed
that three shrubs right next to the model unit do not have long for this
world.
Wonder how long it’ll take them to replace them?
©2026 Bas Bleu
Okay, what you’re looking at here is a row of seventightly-pruned holly trees, each with bright red berries.
They were planted last week near the block of model townhouses
for the development behind my cluster.
The one where they’re building 82 three- and four-story
units on five acres, at $1.2+ a pop. (Well, $750K for the Affordable Dwelling Units, which have only a single-car garage and no "rooftop terrace".)
The reason I took the picture is that these are all female
trees; hence the berries. But without a male holly within 50ft, there will be
no more berries. And there are no indications of a male (they’re usually kind
of scraggly looking) in the landscaping.
Enjoy, yuppies, while you can.
©2026 Bas Bleu
I was looking at autumn foliage a while ago and noticed this guy.
That’s it. That’s the post.
©2025 Bas Bleu
A couple of weeks ago I noticed some incipient mushrooms along one of my walking routes:
I didn’t go that way for a few days, but when I did—wow:
I’m seriously tempted to harvest them and make soup.
©2025 Bas Bleu
As we move from a remarkably temperate end of August into an equally unusual September, I’ll share with you some shots from the W&OD Trail.
You’re welcome.
©2025 Bas Bleu
Last week was a bad one for anyone who believes in democracy, justice and decency. Even for people who are willing to settle for basic humanity.
I’m not even going to list specifics; just
know that the entire world was covered in a layer of shit that came out of the
firehose anchored to the Oval Office, and it’s going to take so long for us to
dig ourselves out from it.
So I’m going back to Nature for my
gratitude today. Because she just keeps doing her thing, no matter how much
humans stomp around in a dominance display. On the same site where developers
are spewing up 82 “luxury” townhouses in five acres of space, where they’ve
done their best to turn the three ponds that they’re required to retain
(because they’re part of the headwaters of Difficult Run) into sludge, this
hibiscus (I think) is reaching for the sun.
(I couldn’t get closer to it because the
developers’ neglect of the landscape has resulted in it being overrun by poison
ivy, and I did not fancy my skin becoming a battleground for the fight between
mosquitoes and urushiol oil rashes.)
Nature reminds me that we’re in a
marathon, not a sprint. I need to be thinking long game, just like the lotus
and the hibiscus.
(Also, tbh, like the poison ivy.)
©2025 Bas Bleu
I had an unexpected blessing yesterday.
The developers of the formerly parklike campus behind me announced
last year that they were going to replace the Asiatic lotus plants in one of
the three ponds on the property with American lotus—on the alleged advice of
someone at Reston Association that the American variety are “hardier and easier
to maintain”. So they were clearly indifferent to maintaining them during the construction process. (They couldn't even be bothered to pick up trash that someone clearly fly-tipped from the W&OD Trail; a story for another day.)
N.B.: Those Asiatic lotus have been in that pond for longer
than I’ve lived here, and they’ve weathered violent storms, blizzards,
sub-freezing temperatures and poor air quality during summers with triple-digit
heat indexes.
Also—this property does not come under the remit of any RA Obergruppenführer, so I have no idea what business they had sticking their
nebs into this. Throughout the entire rezoning and permitting process, all they
cared about was that the residents of the 82 three- and four-story townhouses
crammed into five acres of buildable land should pay RA dues; they didn’t give
a flying fig about the landscaping or loss thereof.
Throughout late Fall and into Winter, I watched as they
drained the water from the two upper ponds and waved sadly goodbye to my
beloved sacred
lotus as the level sank.
They completely emptied them both and just left them.
They blocked off access, so you could only get near the
ponds on Sundays and snaking around their fencing. The lowest pond was left
with some water (they’re part of the headwaters of Difficult Run, which is the
only reason why the developers can’t fill them in and build on them), and one
Sunday I met my
old friend there.
Even so, I’ve been mourning for the lotus—they fill me with
such joy and their loss leaves a huge gap in my soul.
(I’ve also been concerned because the past few weeks when I
walk past the ponds on the W&OD Trail, I could see the developers had
turned off the fountains in all three ponds. We’re having a ghastly mosquito
season here, and them just letting the water sit there isn’t helping.)
So, yesterday, when I walked over to the building site to
consider peeing on the first eight structures (“model homes” for the “invitation-only”
first viewings), I was startled to see that the lotus are back!
I trotted over to drink them in and shoot some pix.
Then I went
home to get my real camera, returned and shot some more. Because they may have to last me a while.
I am so deeply grateful that the “less hardy” plants bided their time during this winter of discontent, and have barreled back to life. You cannot imagine.
©2025 Bas Bleu
