Country Mouse Year In Review - Town Mouse Posts 2009

Here is my retrospective on Town Mouse posts of 2009. There are so many really excellent Town Mouse posts, I just clumped a few of my favorites under various headings.

Informative!

Tmouse provided many great informational posts, too many to list. Here are just a few...

Inspiring!
My little water garden - I so admire how Town Mouse experiments with different habitats such as water plants and shade containers.

You can't miss TMouse's great five part series on the great front garden remodel. You'll learn a lot and be entertained too.
I love how she shows the planting plan with colored dots on the plants she focuses on in each post.

Here's her great post about improving an ugly side yard area by adding some beautiful pots for shade plants - Before: scary. After: you decide. (We decided it was lovely!)

Town Mouse's beautiful native garden is a big hit on the Going Native garden tour. Here's her blog post on the event this year: Going Native Garden Tour: Mission Accomplished. Her garden is an inspiration to hundreds of visitors each year.


Touching!
And then there was Sal the Salamander, and how the fate of one poor damaged critter touched us all - Salamander Rescue Society and Salamander Rescue Society - Sad News (and a wonderful poem by Mary Oliver).


Travelling!
TMouse shares photos from her many expeditions to places where California natives abound.
  • One of my favorites is of a place not too far from her home: Wildflowers of Russian Ridge. Carpets of wild flowers! And just a few miles off the 280 freeway!
  • Then there was one on a wonderful wildflower trip us meese tood in May: Memories of a Grand Wildflower Day Out.
  • Very touching is Tassajara fire, a year later - showing regeneration after one of our California wild fires that nearly razed the wonderful Buddhist monastery and hot springs.
  • And don't miss Reminiscing, with amazing pictures of flowers from Yosemite. Tmouse and Mr Mouse sure get out and about more than us country folk.
There are many other wonderful trip reports besides these.

Entertaining!
All these posts are entertaining but I just loved this one. Assuming the voice of her garden, TMouse speaks out in MeMeMeme: The TMouse Garden Speaks. She was tagged as a favorite commenter and invited to participate in this activity, supposedly to talk about yourself - but she did it with a twist.

And Controversial!
One of the things I admire most about Town Mouse is that she holds strong opinions and voices them (whereas I tend to waffle a lot). Here's a post that hit a nerve with fellow bloggers: Hey Google, what's with the ads?

Another post on a controversial topic was To Photoshop or not to Photoshop?

Then there was the "book review review" - on the "low maintenance garden" topic, (Low) Maintenance. That promoted interesting discussion.


Other TMouse Posts I enjoyed

I enjoy town mouse's dialogs with M.r Mouse, as in The TMouse CMouse Excellent Adventure: SF Flower and Garden Show - we had a good time and both blogged about all we did and all we saw at the show.

Photography competitions - we've entered a few. I really liked TMouse's End of the Line photo of washing hanging on the line - promoting the ecosensible lifestyle, with wit.

In December TMouse had the idea we could do a shared post. We gave our differing perspectives on Toyon in Native plant of the month: Toyon.

That's a good way to end - a shared post on our shared blog. Thank you, Town Mouse, for all the great posts you wrote this year, promoting gardening with natives, wildlife gardening, and eco-sensibility. Here's to a productive and fun 2010!

Comments

donna said…
Always something to be learned when visiting here.

Thought about the both of you when putting together my last post with photos of San Diego blooms. I know you're not in SD, but anywhere in CA is a good place to be.

Happy New Year.