garden — Page 45

Day One Hundred Thirty-One

July 22, 2020 at 9:57 am by Claudia

Suddenly, the brown-eyed susans are blooming everywhere – even in some new places in the garden. They self-seed just like the coneflowers and the David phlox, which is also blooming.There’s lots of striking color everywhere; lavender, purple, white, pink, yellow-orange and brown. This particular patch of brown-eyed susans wasn’t planted here. But there’s been a lot of self-seeding over the past three or four years, and now they’re ensconced in the back of the big garden bed, right where we can see them from the house.

I’ve seen some monarch butterflies in the past few days. They love the flowers, but they’re also stopping at the milkweed and laying eggs. Unfortunately, every time I’ve seen one, I haven’t had a camera nearby. I’m always so happy when they start to appear around here.

Don update: He’s doing better, but he’s really, really tired. Today is his last day on antibiotics, so that should start making a difference in his overall energy. He’s sleeping a lot. He’s frustrated and impatient. I can’t say as I blame him. I’m still sleeping downstairs, but I expect to move back upstairs in the next couple of days. One thing: he cooked dinner last night. I don’t know whether that was because he was sick of my cooking or because he needed to feel like he was doing something. Probably a little of both!

I’m doing my best to stay upbeat but the state of our country along with Don being very ill last week has left me feeling very sad and depressed. I’m not motivated to work on the jigsaw puzzle – it’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve done anything with it. I am reading a lot, which helps a great deal.

We ordered some face masks from a vendor on Etsy and they shipped out on Friday from Indiana. Monday, I checked the tracking number and the package had ended up in San Juan, Puerto Rico. What the ???

I have no idea how that happened but when I sent an email to the USPS about it, I was immediately contacted by the supervisor at our local post office. And then, this morning, he called me again to say it had arrived there (he couldn’t believe it got here so quickly) and would be delivered today. I have to say these little glitches are rare and I am so impressed by the customer service. Support the USPS! The Trump administration is trying to bring them down and privatize the whole thing. That cannot happen.

Okay, end of public service announcement.

Stay safe.

Happy Wednesday.

Day One Hundred Twenty

July 11, 2020 at 9:41 am by Claudia

The limelight hydrangeas are starting to appear. That doesn’t happen until mid-summer. Are we there already and if so, why is the summer going so fast when we’re social distancing and every day seems somewhat the same? I don’t expect an answer. This is, as the King in the King and I says,”a puzzlement.” (I played Lady Thiang many years ago, so I heard this particular song many, many times.)

I got going early yesterday because I wanted to beat out the rain. The big garden bed was getting really overgrown and I hadn’t weed whacked in ages. (Hyphen? No hyphen? I don’t know.) After finishing with said weed whacking, I started to prune a lot of the plants, pull weeds, cut back prickly plants, etc. Because the temperature was lower than it had been, I assumed that would make doing these jobs much more comfortable. Wrong. It was unbelievably humid out there – tropical storm humid – and I was wringing wet and exhausted. After I finished, I took a break, drank tons of water, and then went back out to put everything away. I never got to the mowing. It would have been too much.

I did virtually nothing for the rest of the day.

It rained all day long and into the night. We’re due for more storms today and there’s another heat advisory in place. Very humid. I swear, it’s like August around here.

Anyway, I’m glad I got the work done, but boy, was it exhausting.

The we watched the news programs last night and I became so enraged about Trump and William Barr and Roger Stone that I could barely sit still. The blatant corruption is stunning. I’m so sick of it all. I feel like I’ve aged faster than I normally would have because of all of this crap, day after day, year after year.

Then there are the horrific COVID numbers throughout the country. And it didn’t have to happen. But we have a malignant narcissist who is quite probably a sociopath, as well, sitting on his duff in the Oval Office, tweeting, conspiring, stuffing his face full of junk food, and not caring about a single human being other than himself.

So as the day ended, we declared the weekend to be a news-free zone. I am going to retreat into the world of dollhouses and tiny things. Things I can control. Happy little make-believe lives and pretty houses.

I finished Faith Fox by Jane Gardam. Truly excellent. Now I want to immediately read another one by this but the only book I have on hand is the third book in her trilogy, and I don’t want to read it out of order. Quality problem, of course. I’ll be forced to pick something else from my TBR pile.

Stay safe.

Happy Saturday.

Day One Hundred Fourteen

July 5, 2020 at 9:59 am by Claudia

My first coneflower has opened. I have scads of them throughout the property, so I look forward to this every summer. To me, they are the perfect cottage garden flower.

How did we spend our anniversary? Mowing the entire front lawn and secret garden in very hot and humid weather. It had to be done, but we were pretty tired at the end of that chore. Don cooked a great breakfast, a picnic-type lunch (veggie hot dogs and burgers) and a great dinner. We listened to James Taylor’s On the Fourth of July, which seems as if it was written for us. Several years ago a friend sent me a link to the song on our anniversary and I fell in love with it.

By the way, all those thunderstorms that were predicted for Friday? 100% chance of 2-3 inches of rain? Zip. We heard lots of thunder, but no rain. That’s the second time that has happened lately. We really, really need the rain. Sigh.

We’re taking it easy today. Don’s back is bothering him – too much lifting – so he has been ordered (by both of us) to refrain from any of that work for the next week. He, like me, doesn’t always know when to stop. I’m much better about that nowadays, but I’ve had years of experience working outside and last year kicked my butt so I made a vow to ease up this year and I’ve been pretty successful. I also made a vow to know when to ask for help and I did that, as well. Don, on the other hand, is a little newer to all of this. He’s learning the hard way, just as I did. So he’s on back rest. I’m sure he’ll walk his paths, etc., but no dragging falling trees or lifting rocks or even hoeing.

I’m reading Faith Fox by Jane Gardam, a British writer that I discovered in Oblong Books last year. She’s a wonderful and funny writer who completely gets human nature and her characters are richly detailed.

Maybe more work on the dollhouse today. Or the puzzle (which is unbelievably difficult). Or both. It’s going to be hot and humid again, so I’m headed out to water everything after I finish this post.

Stay safe.

Happy Sunday.

Day One Hundred Thirty-One

Day One Hundred Twenty

Day One Hundred Fourteen

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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