Camellias for Christmas

We hit 80 degrees this afternoon on this first day of winter. The Camellia bushes are blooming all around the yard. Turns out there are hundreds of Camellia varieties. Check out the American Camellia Society for a wealth of information on these gorgeous flowers. I remember my dad, who grew up on a farm in Cairo, GA in the southwestern corner of the state, bringing back Camellia cuttings in his suitcase from winter visits with my grandmother, who had big lovely bushes beside her Cairo home.

These pink beauties were the first blossoms I discovered by accident while taking a shortcut across the front yard a few days ago.

The biggest Camellia bush is in the side garden and looms above the wall that runs along the right front side of the house. These blossoms look like some kind of double variety. Ms. Marley, do you know what kind they are?

The bushes off the back porch are a dark pink variety. Here's the first blossom that finally unfolded this morning after yesterday's rain.

This speckled blossom didn't bloom until mid-January in the front yard but isn't it a nice addition to the camellia collection?

Warm Christmas Wishes

I pulled out the Christmas boxes yesterday afternoon and we decorated the living room to Tony Bennett's Christmas tunes. Our little tree is perched atop my antique desk and creates a soft glow in the corner of the living room at a dog-safe height.

Autumn to Winter

The last of the Japanese Maple leaves are falling and although daytime temperatures are mild the nights have been chilly. Nothing like Reno, mind you, but overnight temps will be in the low 40s tonight and could dip even lower tomorrow night. Flannel sheet weather.

Two remaining leaves hang onto the Japanese Maple tree just off the back porch.

An early morning iPhone photo taken at the S&S Gentilly Trailhead,
part of the Bulloch County Greenway Project,
a couple blocks from the house. 

Project on Skidaway Island

Okay, this isn't about the house or the neighborhood but it is about a lovely place 70 miles east of here. I am helping the director of Georgia Southern University's Applied Coastal Research Laboratory update his website. The lab is on Skidaway Island southeast of Savannah and most of the island is private and gated. According to Wikipedia, the island's Landings Club is one of the largest gated communities (waterfront homes and six golf courses) in the country. The 2000 census shows the island's racial makeup was 97.57 percent white and the average age was 61.

However, the lab shares a beautiful 700-acre campus without gates on the north end of the island with Skidaway Institute of Oceanography that was established in 1967, when Robert C. Roebling donated his cattle farm to the State of Georgia for a coastal marine research facility. The Roebling family made a fortune from its wire cable business and from building bridges including the Brooklyn and Golden Gate.

Three photos merged into one image of the Applied Coastal Research Laboratory, tucked behind the old silos.

 Stratocumulus clouds along a convergence boundary (I know this because I live with a climatologist) taken from the dock at Skidaway Institute of Oceanography.