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“Thanks CTG”!

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A big warm applause goes out from us all in the ESP to Central Texas Gardener http://www.klru.org/ctg/ for an amazing job capturing the true essence of the East Side Patch on KLRU.  Linda, you and your team did some remarkable work, your photography, editing and capture was the best… once again I thank you for taking time to film and document our garden for TV:

bury head in sand

And yes this is me in my kids’ sandbox after receiving news that the CTG video was live! A little over the top I agree, but a necessary reaction for an introvert.

Oh and Linda?

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You made this lady’s day really special!…not to mention ours.

Sadly since this photograph was taken… The Botox Lady has unfortunately lost her upper lip to frost-bite…more on this oral calamity later.

Here is a sneak Patch preview:


Stay Tuned for:

“Frost Bitten Twice Shy”


All material © 2009 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by  late  (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.



Comments on this entry are closed.

  • Germi January 15, 2010, 12:13 am

    Applause applause!!! I just watched via a link Pam sent me – I must thank her … she is now the President of your fan club and I am … the screaming girl on the sidelines, I guess!
    The Patch is AMAZING, all come to life and moving and … and … I LOVE IT! A garden after my heart – it has everything I love about a landscape, most of all the stamp of its creator. There is nothing like a personal, idiosyncratic garden space, and you have one of the most personal ever!
    You shouldn’t have been nervous! You came across like a passionate champ – and Leah was GREAT! What a wonderful team you two make. You ARE shyer than I thought you’d be! But better to be appropriate to the venue – it would have been weird if you suddenly started a conversation with the Botox Lady or if you and William Wallace came to blows on camera. So job very very well done!
    The Hobbits were as charming as ever, and make fantastic garden ornaments. What a wonderland they live in!
    I so enjoyed it! More! More! EastSidePatch TV!
    All the very best,
    Witchy G!

    • ESP January 15, 2010, 10:00 am

      Hi Witchy G.
      (Bows,Bows) :-)
      Screaming girl on the sidelines?…ridiculous and very funny! I think Pam is the President of so many things there is no way she could possibly have time.

      Glad you like the segment and the ESP-space. The filming took place in the fall at an early (well it was for me) hour. It was funny to be waking up and find a camera and lights on you, and what? I am required to communicate! I almost grabbed the Botox lady to hide my head behind her and let her do all the spraying I mean talking, while I quickly guzzled five double lattes. Leah is always great in this type of situation, she told me afterward that she was sitting on her hands to prevent any nervous hand gesturing, I couldn’t believe she kept this secret trick to herself while all the time I was waving and twitching around! We had a good laugh later about what we must have looked like with Leah sitting totally still and rigid and me having a complete fit!

      Can you imagine if I just trailed off the interview and initiated an “English” argument with William Wallace, or started mouth clicking with the Naboo Tribe, or even worse, screaming over the top of “The Lady” (well you have to if you want to be heard)! Yes I do believe the big white van (complete with the straight jacket embroidered with the letters “ESP”) just may have been parked around the corner from the ESP, just in case this situation transpired…wasn’t it Linda?

      So Happy you liked it…Haha garden ornaments…

      ESP.

  • Les January 15, 2010, 6:08 am

    They say a picture is worth a thousand words, well what about moving pictures? I had a great time watching, and the two of you did a great job, no need to hide behind any fake garden gates. That was also very nice of them to plug your blog, you may need an upgrade with all the traffic that will be heading to the site.

    • ESP January 15, 2010, 10:20 am

      Hi Les.
      It really was nice of CTG to promoted the ESP blog on the moving screen, I was laughing that the clairvoyant lady from Poltergeist was featured next to the macro shot of my Madame Ganna Walska water lily of all things!!!
      http://www.eastsidepatch.com/2009/10/1914/

      Glad you enjoyed it Les.
      ESP.

      Oh and who said the garden gate that I was hiding behind in my living room was fake? :-)

  • Cheryl January 15, 2010, 9:05 am

    Love it! Your yard is special on so many levels and what a fantastic place for your children to grow up in.
    That’s a great video… and you WILL be bombarded on your blog with Newby’s! (as for me, I check it almost daily in hopes that you’ve snuck something in) LOL Keep up the good work.

    • ESP January 15, 2010, 10:32 am

      Hi Cheryl.
      Thank you. The CTG team did a fantastic job of capturing the kids at play and my youngest’s comment “pat fishy” could not have been timed better.
      Very funny on the “snuck” front, have you seen the latest “looks like” images?: http://www.eastsidepatch.com/visual-comparativies/
      The Donald Trump papyrus still cracks me up.
      Glad you liked the video…Linda and her team rock.
      ESP.

  • The Garden Ms. S January 15, 2010, 9:13 am

    I just watched the video clip – W00T!! Congratulations to you and your family – it looks like a spectacular show. Botox Lady is no doubt already planning her interviews with the media. :-)

    • ESP January 15, 2010, 10:42 am

      Hi Ms.s
      Thank you.
      The Botox lady had planned a host of interviews with most of the prime-time shows on most of the major networks, but then unfortunately her rather large top lip got frost-bite in our latest cold-snap. I can hear her lispy hollering through the rain while I type this. Poor Botox Lady.
      ESP.

  • Jenny January 15, 2010, 10:31 am

    The wonders of the internet. Still far away from home I watched CTG last night. Linda and the crew always do a great job. But what about the garden creators.? What a family affair. I have always enjoyed your posts of the children enjoying themselves in the garden and to see you all together was very special. I wish I had more opportunity to teach my grand children about nature- it is so important. It was a wonderful piece on a wonderful garden. As to hiding behind the fence- I remember the time we sat to watch Linda’s filming of our garden- scared to death. Congrats to the patch.

    • ESP January 15, 2010, 10:48 am

      Hi Jenny.
      The wonders of modern “techmology” indeed, wait did I just break the internet(s)?
      Happy you got to see the show on your travels and you are right, the CTG crew did a fantastic capture, and everyone was so nice and patient.
      I am glad I was not the only one who was somewhat “concerned” before the airing, perhaps this is a British trait :-)
      Thank you Jenny, and safe travels…

      The Waltons.

  • Gail January 15, 2010, 12:05 pm

    Loved it, loved it!!

  • ESP January 15, 2010, 12:38 pm

    Haha! Thanks Gail!

  • Linda Lehmusvirta January 15, 2010, 4:42 pm

    Dear Leah & Philip & the hobbits,
    Thank YOU for making it such a special day for CTG! I love the story that Leah was sitting on her hands; both of you were so calm and so fun. It doesn’t matter what time of day: someone pointing a camera at you and asking you to spill your soul is scary. You are naturals!

    And I promise: we did not bribe the hobbit to say “Pet fishy!” Ed Fuentes almost fell over getting that shot, perched on the pond. As for Botox Lady, she was the tough one. So elusive we had to go back to force her to “perform.” And thank you also for all the work you did to go through your pictures. Your super fan, Linda

  • ESP January 15, 2010, 6:08 pm

    Hi Linda.
    Can you believe Leah had this inside TV scoop trick and didn’t tell me! Sitting on her hands indeed! (tuts and shakes head for five minutes in sheer disbelief). We really had fun the day of the shoot and I am so happy Ed did not go for a swim with the fish especially with that expensive equipment on his shoulder! That would have been a disaster of ESP proportions…I imagined my youngest hobbit saying “pet Fuentes” as Ed struggles to the opposite side of the stock tank covered in oxygenating water ferns, still filming! (Well you know he would be)!
    A day and a shoot we will never forget.
    Thanks Linda and team.
    ESP.

  • Linda Lehmusvirta January 15, 2010, 7:16 pm

    Ed would have loved to go for a swim and to “pet fishy,” too! I’m not sure the fish would have been as happy about it, though. I think he had some tartar sauce in his pocket. . .

    Someday, we’ll get the CTG underwater cam to go along with helicopter cam. Hey, I know just the person to design them, ESP one!

    Really, this was a favorite day (and a half) that we will always treasure. When we drove away, we all said, “Now THIS is why we do CTG!”

    • ESP January 15, 2010, 7:47 pm

      Hi Linda.

      Too funny…and as for the tartar sauce…Haha, (stitch develops under left side of rib-cage). The fish would loved having Ed flailing around in the tank with them, are you kidding, they are like dogs with gills (Brrrr, facial quiver on right cheek, left kneecap buckles)!…I need to stop this nonsense!
      You CTG guys deserve all the cams there is out there…agave cam…underground cam…just to film and check on the levels of organic matter below ground, cactus cam etc.etc.

      Really happy that you all had a fun experience in the ESP. I know we all did.
      Philip.

  • Pam/Digging January 15, 2010, 7:24 pm

    Yes, I do have time to be prez of your fan club, ESP. You and your garden and your blog rock, as I’m always telling everyone who’ll listen. Congrats on a wonderful episode!

    • ESP January 15, 2010, 7:57 pm

      Haha Pam…I just knew you could take on one more venture :-)
      I feel privileged to have you rooting for the Patch Pam, and I know this will build up the fan club membership significantly from its current 9 members!
      Thanks.
      ESP.

  • Bob Pool January 15, 2010, 9:28 pm

    Pam alerted me as well. I would have missed it as well. You looked a little nervous on camera. My wife still thinks you look like a young Kevin Kline, a nervous young Kevin Kline. I told her that you weren’t all that nervous. If they would have had hidden cameras there for the days leading up to the filming, then you would have seen nervous. The jobs that had to be done to get a good filming……shiny gifts for the Naboo, so they would stay hidden and not start any shenanigans with the film crew, rounding up some frog tongues to appease the witches so there would be no spells, breaking Botox Ladies lip to reduce the spraying diatribe,[blaming it on the freeze, for shame] and threatening the hobbits not to have any goldfish fights. I can only imagine the nervousness while accomplishing all this.

    However, it came out oh so well. They truely captured the beauty of the Patch and your beautiful family well. Lyn and I have watched it several times now and have enjoyed it immensely.

    • ESP January 15, 2010, 10:20 pm

      Hi Bob.

      There you are!
      I thought the Naboo had abducted you to conduct some rather delicate negotiations with a sister tribe in the far east! I know how “persuasive” they can be after all.
      A little nervous? I was a lot nervous Bob (as my Bartemius Crouch Jr – darting tongue irritatingly portrayed, as it desperately tried to force some moisture to my parched and self-conscious morning mouth)!! I have been laughing at myself for quite a while now…can you tell? It is the least I can do. I love being behind the camera, but in front of it? that is a different pale of peppers.

      Oh and Leah agrees with Lyn’s Kevin Kline observation. I shrugged and pretended I had a magnetic collar around my neck. :-)

      Oh and how well you know the the Patch and all of it’s inhabitants, not many people believe that these factions and characters really exist in the Patch but, exactly like your comment suggested, it really is a struggle to keep the status quo, especially with a CTG film crew in the mix. At one point I had to painfully extricate my wedding ring from my finger and quietly throw it to a Naboo warrior just to stop him from darting and incapacitating Linda mid-sentence, the diamond distracted him just long enough. I have to say that because the film crew’s paperwork was in place the Naboo were, on the whole, very accepting, although Ed the cameraman did complain of feeling like something had taken “a bite” out of his leg at one point…(I looked away and whistled) then blamed one of the hobbits.

      No comment on the Botox lady!

      Happy you liked the segment Bob.
      ESP.

  • TexasDeb January 19, 2010, 8:31 am

    Wow – I’d been diverted from my computer for a bit and it was such wonderful fun to have several posts AND your CTG debut to return to. I have no doubts you and your patch will be featured again at some point because the only thing more fun to watch than the unfolding vistas along your paths was the interaction between you and Leah. Two thumbs up!

    (and what a nice legacy to have – the video that freezes you, your family and your garden in time this way….win/win!)

  • ESP January 19, 2010, 9:10 am

    Hi TD.
    Glad you enjoyed it. It really is a nice snapshot in time, especially with the kids being so prominently featured. Thank goodness it happened last year, I am not sure what I will have left after this winter! The interaction was funny, well she kept calling me names!…Plant disciplinarian? My brain works differently? I had to stop this!!! We had such a laugh watching it. Linda and clan are the stars.
    ESP.