Gardening is another one of my hobbies. My grandmother and mother both love plants and encouraged me to spend time outdoors. My grandmother loved growing orchids even though she did not have the best success rate. She passed her love of plants and gardening to her daughter, my mother Fran, who in turn shared it with me. Since my grandmother has passed away, I feel most connected to her when I am in my garden, admiring the flowers and wildlife buzzing around me. I love hearing the birds chirping their unique songs as the breeze blows past me. My dog Louie enjoys sitting on our porch swing with me while he keeps watch for trespassing squirrels.
Another reason I love plants and gardening is that I am named after two different flowers, Heather and Rose. Both the Heather and Rose flowers grow on bushes. Roses come in a wide variety of colors, sizes, and styles, while Heather is a small shrub with purple or white flowers. One of my favorite plants growing in my garden is the Hellebore (pictured below) which like Rose bushes, come in a variety of different colors and styles. What I find fascinating about this plant is that it is an evergreen perennial flower, meaning it blossoms almost all year round, weather-dependent.
Vocabulary:
1. Encourage (verb)- To give support, confidence, or hope to someone or something.
2. Orchid (noun)- A plant with complex flowers that are often showy or bizarrely shaped and colored.
3. Success (noun)- The accomplishment of a goal or purpose.
4. Rate (verb)- A measure, quantity, or frequency, typically used for comparison.
5. Garden (noun)- A piece of ground used to grow vegetables, fruit, herbs, or flowers.
6. Trespass (verb)- To enter the owner's land or property without permission.
7. Shrub (noun)- A woody plant, smaller than a tree, that has several main stems arising from the ground.
8. Perennial (adjective)- A plant that lives for several years.
Vocabulary Exercise:Fill in the blank with the appropriate vocabulary word. You may need to modify the ending to fit the sentence.
1. My Heather _________ is so beautiful with its purple and white flowers.
2. We thought it was a public beach until we saw the "No _____________" sign, so we left.
3. My parents came to _____________ me, and cheer on the sidelines during my track meet.
4. Fran thought she had purchased _____________ plants, but it turns out they only last one season!
5. At this _______ we will never finish in time! We were working much faster yesterday.
6. Wow, the _________ looks beautiful with all the flowers, herbs, and vegetables you have planted.
7. She had never seen such a peculiar looking flower before, she had to ask the garden assistant to learn it was a _________.
8. I feel so ____________, having accomplished all my schoolwork and chores before my deadline.
Grammar Point: Onomatopoeia
Onomatopoeia is the process of creating a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Often animal sounds like the "oink" of a pig or a "buzzing" bee are onomatopoeias. Onomatopoeias help enrich your writing and add descriptions that allow your readers to visualize or hear the action in their heads.
Grammar Excercise: Watch the video below about onomatopoeias. Then create your own short story or comic using at least five (5) different onomatopoeias.
A nice entry on gardening! Apparently working in the soil is even an antidepressant. Unfortunately, I don't like bugs or dirt, so the flowers we have were planted years ago by someone else. In the front, though, my nephew planted a few hyacinths, which come up every year, and some mini-carnations. In the back, we have a rose bush that is the first and last flower to bloom every year, and lily-of-the-valley, which grow wild. I loved the video.
One of my favorite memories is of my trip to Disney World with my older sister, Jennifer. We went for my twenty-first birthday in August of 2016. We stayed at the Pop Century Disney World resort so we were able to take advantage of the "Extra Hours" perk of staying on Disney property. Since Jennifer had worked in the Disney College Program, she was an expert on all the parks. She helped us plan what we should do and at what time to maximize our experience and avoid waiting in long lines. I was so nervous about the plane ride to Florida! It was my first time on a plane as an adult and I did not know what to expect. When the plane took off, the speed and angle at which it traveled were terrifying to me. I was convinced the plane would not make it off the ground. But miraculously we did, and before I knew it we were in Orlando, Florida disembarking the plane. ...
My worst experience was the death of my grandmother at the end of my Junior year of college. The week before my final exams began for my spring semester my mother called me to inform me of the passing of my grandmother, her mother, who lived with us. She suffered both a heart attack and stroke at the same time. While my grandmother was 86, her death was unexpected, as I had just spoken to her just the other week for her birthday. We had made plans for the summer, my grandmother, mother, and I would see a baseball game together, in addition to other adventures. I remember how hopeful she was, and excited for us to spend time together when I returned from school. My grandmother, born and raised in the Bronx, was a Yankees fan. She knew about every player, their strengths and weaknesses, and would passionately watch each game. When the Yankees were losing, she would moan like it physically pained her. ...
A nice entry on gardening! Apparently working in the soil is even an antidepressant. Unfortunately, I don't like bugs or dirt, so the flowers we have were planted years ago by someone else. In the front, though, my nephew planted a few hyacinths, which come up every year, and some mini-carnations. In the back, we have a rose bush that is the first and last flower to bloom every year, and lily-of-the-valley, which grow wild.
ReplyDeleteI loved the video.