My Favorite Summer Topic: My Garden

Okay, last year I made big deals about my garden. Well, get used to it. It's my true love in the summer. :-) This is the view from my den window as of May 16. The plant with white flowers just barely showing on the right is the aforementioned Bleeding Heart.

The saying is that a garden grows thusly: The first year it weeps, the second year it creeps, the third year it leaps. My garden is now into its seventh year, might even be its eighth, and I'm still waiting for that leaping thing. I do have to give the garden its due, however. The "soil" I started with was basically a large sandbox with a smattering of dirt. Replacing that with my hand-mixed blend ("CarlaDirt"--equal parts topsoil and cow manure with some sphagnum moss) has provided some nourishment and the garden hangs on. I love reading gardening articles that say you need to divide your perennials every three years, usually, because they'll choke themselves otherwise. I've NEVER divided one of mine and actually have added plants to thicken their spread a bit. But like I said, that garden is one hard-working survivalist.

So this is what I look at every morning, first thing. This is the view from my bathroom window. (Both these photos were shot through screens, to explain the grid effect.) The scene changes slowly but enought to interest me every single day. I'll try to put a photo up each month so you can see the progress ... and the color.

This year we're going to add a Burning Bush to the front yard and it will be just visible in this view. It'll be against the property-line chain-link fence that you can't see clearly here but the bush will be in that green space that's visible in the center far-left of this photo. Stay tuned.

And HAPPY SPRING ... at last!

I don't get the formatting

I've been working on that big post below for hours, waiting while the video tried and tried and tried to get itself uploaded. Now that it's finally included there, the spacing of my text changes mid-post. I've looked at the "Edit HTML" option to try to correct it but nooooo. So you're stuck reading squished-together lines.

My apologies.

"Later next week" ... Yeah. Right.

Well, this is far beyond "later in the week" as I said in my last post. It's not even later in the month. It's halfway through a whole new month! The meeting of the Every-So-Often-Procrastination Society can now come to order.

And it's not that I've been overwhelmingly busy, either. I just really haven't felt like writing here. But I'm trying to push myself a bit. I've discovered that when I have too much time on my hands, it stays right there, on my hands. I don't do anything with it at all. Like many other mentally organized people--those of us with a non-institutionalizable level of OCD (like that non-word there?)--I'm much more productive when I have too little time. So my current assignment for myself is to get the things done that I said I would.

This raises a pretty interesting question for myself: Should I have retired so early? My answer is still a ringing YES, but not because I have so many things I want to do; it's because I was so very ready to stop doing what I had been doing. Now, like many other Boomers, I'm trying to "find myself"--my new self, that is. I'm on the hunt. If and when I find myself, we'll introduce ourselves to you

For now I'll move on to the trivia of my life that I'm sure you all find absolutely fascinating. I actually took this little video and planned to post it under the title, "Why I'll Probably Never Move Away from Here."

It's the sound that gets me--we can hear it from our back porch even though the dam is about 1/2 mile away. And if we get our screens on somewhat early we can hear it when we go to sleep at night--sometimes with the windows closed!--and first thing in the morning too. I love it.

My other favorite spring sound was affected by the oddness of this spring: the peepers. These little froggies start singing early early in spring and then their sound disappears as we get into summer. Well, this year they apparently got fooled by a week of warm days and then got clobbered by plummeting temperatures. I hope it didn't wipe them out completely. This is one of the sounds I used to have to go to our camp for (here in NY a cabin/cottage in the Adirondacks is known as a camp). Now I can hear peepers in the comfort of my VERY comfortable Serta Memory Foam bed. (Just had to put that here.) Anyway, I miss the peepers this yearMy garden is coming right along this year, though. The wicked winter of 2007-08 almost did in a few residents but they're coming back--smaller but tougher, I guess. I did have one "resurrection" that really surprised me. Last year my friend Lynn had me pick out a couple of plants as a gift to me in memory of my mom. Of course, one of them had to be a dahlia--maybe more about dahlias some other time--and then I saw a white Bleeding Heart. I didn't know they came in white. So I dutifully dug the hole and put some good soil in, and planted it. It looked very nice and healthy, and then it disappeared. I don't mean it shriveled up, or got some disease or anything like that. It was just there one week and not there the next. I dug up the soil a little and everything, looking for it because I could NOT figure out what had happened to it. If something had eaten it--like that pesky rabbit, another thing for maybe more later, even if it had eaten ALL of it, there should have been some stem left at ground level or evidence of digging to eat the whole thing. Nada. Nothing. No sign of it at all. So I just wrote it off as some freaky fluke. Well, the freakiness continues. This year it was the first plant to show growth, as in about an inch a day when the snow melted. Now it's out there in full flower (early for us!). All I can do is shake my head and say, "W H A T ?" But it's lovely. This is a not-very-good picture of "Resurrection--the Plant" so you all (that's implying more than one reader, y'know) can see it ... before it disappears again this year. (I don't know that it will but I'm prepared!) And one more plant of note.

My friend Rachelle also gave me a plant in memory of mom so this is my magnolia, "Marie." I rarely name things but both this and Resurrection just needed them! Isn't this a lovely shrub? The leaves will appear after the blossoms all fall off and form a skirt around the bush on the ground. Since this was such a tough winter I have hopes of Marie continuing on. (Just like another Marie I loved.)

Ah, there is one more thing I named. I'd like you to meet my new toy, "Raleigh Rose." I think that sounds like a name for a thoroughbred. (BTW, I told Stan's daughter Lana to bet on Eight Belles and if she had put her $50 on the filly to win, place or show, she would've made $500. But she only bet her to win. Which I think Eight Belles did in her own heart anyway.) Anyway, I did a 5 mile ride this morning, up some VERY tough hills and found out just how not in shape I am currently. My whole windpipe is still very sensitive from all the hard panting I did. No joke. So here's my trusty steed. She was an impulse buy and she replaces my trusty O-L-D Gitane, the men's skinny-wheel racing bike I bought in 1972. And was still riding, although I figured that I didn't ride it last year even one time because I just didn't want to hassle with the glitchy dérailleur anymore, carrying a paper towel tucked in my waistband to wipe the grease off my fingers after I put the chain back on after the dérailleur made it overshoot the sprocket. AaAAARRRrgGGHHH. Much more fun this year!

The best thing Raleigh Rose does is keep me away from the blackflies. You wouldn't believe how gigantic they are this year. They're like the ones I first encountered: in the Boundary Waters of northern Minnesota on Memorial Day weekend in 1975, I think it was. I remember telling people in Iowa that there were these horrific bugs that "looked just like black regular flies only littler." Well, that's what the Nort' Country has this year, eh? All my gardening has been done with a headnet on, and just to let you know HOW bad the blackflies are, even Stan is working outside wearing a headnet most of the time!

So until next time I get the inspiration--or have a video or photo I want you to see--Happy Spring!

The Boyle Wedding

Kate & Ryan were married last weekend and Stan & I were there. This will be a short post because I just want to try to upload my video of the Boyles' first kiss. Then I'll do a longer post later in the week to talk about the wedding and Stan's & my whole trip. Egad.

Meanwhile, here's the "First Kiss."

It's a Loonnngggg Winter

Well, today is April 1 and the 18" of snow (or so) that's still here is melting pretty quickly ... right now. It's around 55 degrees and it's raining off and on but tomorrow it's supposed to be in the 40s again. At least it's better than a week ago when it was 5 degrees when Stan got up.

VERY little is newsy around here. I'm actually rather bored and am considering looking for a part-time job doing anything that will get me out of the house. I'm not too interested yet but am thinking about it. I'd probably be pretty content if I could cross-stitch many hours every day but my hands won't let me: tendonitis in my right thumb really cuts down on the amount of time I can spend with a needle in my hand.

I do have to show off what I'm calling our Impatiens Gargantua. This is a "volunteer" plant that simply came up in a pot that Stan had under some timed fluorescent bulbs in the basement. He didn't even know what kind of plant it was. I identified it as an impatiens, but then it just kept growing. It's about 2-2 1/2' tall now. And it now has shoots growing off at several levels and some of them are flowering, while the blossoms on the top of this tall beauty just keep on coming. By the time it's warm enough to put it outside, this plant will be a shrub! I didn't know that impatiens could grow in this way, especially the height thing. But it seems to like the window it's now in so we hope to keep it growing.

So now we're heading out West to both visit Stan's daughter and attend our niece's wedding. This should be a nice visit even if it isn't the best weather season yet. Stan finally said that he really wanted to go more like June but he'd not said a word prior to yesterday. Sigh. We haven't seen his daughter in over 2 years so it's time, regardless the season. I'm looking forward to the trip.

I'll think about my future ... in the future.

Drawer Pulls Redux

Well, I think it worked. The muy expensivo new hardware did update the dresser set as much as it could and I think it looks pretty good. You be the judge.





We're both pretty happy with the change. Like I said, the quality of the pieces is a level I can't afford at current prices. Stan showed me the original price of the chest-on-chest: $169.95. That was in 1961!

My sister Amber asked if the lamp ever made it to Elise & Pedro's--I had tons of trouble getting it from NY to FL. We finally took it down in Stan's bag, swathed in bubble wrap. It made it in one piece, but there was no way to get the shade there too. So I have a perfectly good lampshade tucked (as much as you can tuck something that size--they are truly obnoxious!) into a closet. And Elise got a shade that she likes for the lamp, a beautiful wine-red color. Fitting, don't you think?

Today my goal is to stay alive. This upper respiratory thing both Stan & I have is really a killer. I'm pretty sure mine morphed into a sinus infection. (I think his did too but he won't do anything about it for at least another week--anything as in, see a doctor.) I have an annual check-up scheduled for tomorrow so I'll ask then for antibiotics. Keep your fingers crossed.

Florida in January

We're back from our Florida trip and I'm currently watching it snow ... again. In FL, of course, there was no snow. And that was nice. Very nice. No jacket needed. Sun warm enough to really enjoy sitting in. Too cool for getting into the pool but warm enough to sit outside next to it.

Stan & I haven't done a southern vacation for several years. Last time was our 2d trip to Tiamo, a lovely resort on South Andros in the Bahamas. Stan loved bonefishing and I loved snorkeling and sunning. But Tiamo would cost about $7K for a week now, far far far beyond what we're willing to spend. Next southern winter trip may be a 1-2 month rental in FL; I'm thinking Homossassa area (1 hr north of Tampa) or the Sebring area (about an hour east of Tampa). I'm going to have fun looking!

We went to an NHL game while in Tampa: the Tampa Bay Lightning vs. the Buffalo Sabres. It was a ton of fun, especially since Pedro had tickets that got us into the free-food-schmooze area that's used by many corporations. What an amazing smorgasbord!! Good food, free wine/beer, great desserts AND a pro hockey game! I just don't think you can ask for more in one night. Luckily the uber-wicked cold that Stan got didn't really check in until the next day ... and I didn't get my own update of it until we got home. Both of us would be more than happy to be the first volunteers in line for head transplants, or even just exchanges for sinuses.

Kyrin was a perfect child as usual. She has grown so much since we saw her in December! One month and she's a rootin' tootin' toddler.

I'm sure I know the model for the Energizer Bunny! She's getting ever cuter as her own darling personality infuses her looks. This picture was taken on our trip to Tampa's excellent aquarium. All of us had a good time.

The last photo is of Pedro playing "monkey man" (he created the name, not me!).

Pedro & Elise had their kitchen floor retiled while we were there and none of us thought about the fact we wouldn't be able to walk on it for a night! So Pedro got into the cabinets for things like plates and silverware--we hadn't planned to order out but had to. (It was a good thing we had the hockey game the next night because the stove was still in the family room!) He did a great job balancing! Stan & I have to say again how much we enjoyed the visit and say a giant thank you to Pedro & Elise.