Miscellany of a Cheshire Cat

The seedlings and some bean seeds are in the raised beds in the 90 degree heat. Once again, I think the plants are too crowded, but every other time I’ve thought that they’ve been fine. New this year: sweet peppers, beans and jalapenos. Basil and 2 types of cayenne are back again this year.

To get enough space I had to pull some of the mint that had taken over one of the beds. Despite the heat, my brain said, “Hey, there must be something I can do with a knee-high pile of mint.” Since I was already Too Hot, I decided to make some mint sugar syrups on the stove. One experimental mint syrup and one experimental ginger-mint syrup are cooling on the counter right now. I hope they’re relatively tasty. And while my brain was on sugar syrup, I started browsing my liquors book and notes. I might have to do some spiced liquor experiments soon too.

I need to do something about the other bits of garden around the yard… I broke a trowel trying to dig a spot to transplant some of the mint. More topsoil. More hot, dirty work. Maybe it’ll cool off… but I’m not holding my breath because this is already the second month with multiple 90+ degree days this year.

Still on the list today: 1) Go through the fabric closet. 2) Grocery shopping.
Given it’s a holiday, I think the latter won’t be happening until tomorrow.

gardening, heat, mint, random, syrups, weather

The roses really started to open up May 1st. There are tons of buds on both the front and back rose bushes. It should be a good year for roses!

The seedlings are almost ready for planting as well. And I’ve got a shrub out front that’s dead that I get to replace too. I’m contemplating putting in white irises or maybe purple ones. The location is actually right next to the roses seen here. (And on the other side of these roses is a bright pink azalea. I need to be careful about too much crazy color. Maybe a white lilac bush…)

The heat has hit and I’ve switched to iced coffee. Despite all the exercise, sleep is not as easy as I think it should be so coffee is an imperative. Then again, when isn’t coffee an imperative?

coffee, gardening, photographs, roses

In the land of random open tabs I’ve been meaning to share, we have have the following:

• Yodeling Pickle: I never knew I needed a yodeling pickle (toy)… I still don’t know. But I’m sure there’s someone out there who will love the yodeling pickle.
• Truckers knitting and quilting: a cute story. Installing a sewing machine in a sleeper cab is brilliant! (link from Laura)
• Margaret Thatcher in a tank: actually linked from a larger story about the Top 10 Careers damaged by Photographs. Ms. Thatcher’s photo was provided as an example of one not damaged by a photo.
• Bunny party after roof collapses: Swedish rabbits “make special friends” after the roof over the country’s biggest rabbit exhibition collapses under heavy snow. Paternity suits increase 72%.
• Convicts in sheep’s clothing: quite literally. Apparently it’s an effective disguise for avoiding recapture.

“We shall tear this toy to shreds!” declares Abby. “Shreds, I say!!!”

Or rather, the roses are still blooming. Through rain and gray and temperatures in the 50s, the rose bush out front carries on as if it were still August while the climbing rose out back is starting to peter out. We are getting a proper autumn here this year! YAY!

This week has been really busy… work is in a whirlwind, kittens are little tornadoes of energy and my brain hurts quite literally. Oh, and laundry is on-going. Why is laundry *always* on-going? And did I mention we’re going away next week? Tadcaster Cruise. I’ll be working on vacation again, which doesn’t bother me too much as it beats coming home to a huge mess. Plus it gives me the excuse to bring my laptop so I can start working on my Nanowrimo project.

The messages from the cat planet were strong today. Quite strong. Today’s kitten “toys” included: a post-it note of unknown origin, Tennyson, a bottle cap, sister’s tail and my slipper. I also had to defend myself while eating my lunch. The girls have figured out the telltale signs of eating cereal with milk and swarmed me. Tennyson, of course, took a stoic yet expectant pose by my elbow. The little fuzzy ones, though, climbed all over my keyboard and arms in an attempt to get into my bowl. I had to use one hand to defend my cereal and the other to eat.

There are a few more kitten photos up over in their Flickr set.

In the interest of completely random, UserFriendly’s link of the day was an amusing site: Cheese or Font? Dreda, I thought of you immediately.

In other news, NASA would like to reassure us that the world won’t be ending in 2012. [Giggle alert: the linked article uses the phrase "fictional fiction" - you have been warned.] From the article: “People are very gullible,” he added. “It a sad testimonial that you need NASA to tell you the world’s not going to end.” Sad, yes, and media-hyped to a frightening degree. We are also the country where the media went to NORAD to ask about their planned course of action when they thought some little kid had taken off in a balloon the other week.

“Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr,” growls Tasha.
“GRRRrrrrRRRRrrrrrrrr…” she adds more emphatically.
autumn, bengals, kittens, random, roses

It’s not Friday, is it? I’m having one of those weeks that just drags on and on. At least my back is starting to speak nicely to me again after all the driving last weekend. I would also like to register a complaint that the weather today is indecisive and unacceptable. Either rain or be clear, but this cloudy, hot, moist stuff is annoying.

Apparently, I’m cranky. Which explains why I’m cuddled up to (or curled possessively around, depending on your angle) my coffee mug. Ah, blessed caffeine, you are such a comfort to me in my times of need and my times of needing to hit people with a clue-bat. Metaphorically speaking, of course. I don’t actually own a clue-bat… yet. (But my ideal clue-bat would be a cricket bat painted blue with the word “clue” attractively emblazoned on it in white. A blue clue-bat. Say that 3 times fast!)

The hosta pictured here is from my mother’s garden in Maine. She really does have lovely gardens, despite the tons of rain that has been dumped on Maine in the past few weeks. Rain is good for gardens, yes, unless it comes in such volume that it super-saturates the ground for days or weeks and rots the plants. Dad’s veggie garden is not doing as well as the flower beds.

My garden is looking okay. By transplanting my peppers outside late, I avoided the too-much-rain problem but the plants are still farther behind in their growth cycle than they should be at this time of year. The good news is that my chives came back this year! YAY! I do wish I had some space for a proper vegetable garden, but my cute little raised planters will do for now.

clue-bat, coffee, friday, gardening, hostas, maine, photography, weather

Just reassuring you I exist beyond providing regular doses of Monster Cat. ;) This is one of the roses from out front. I cut the all the blooms off this bush and put them in a vase in the kitchen to save them from the painter guys who are supposedly painting the porch. The kitchen has smelled of roses all weekend!

Summer is totally here. It’s hot. I finally got my seedlings into the raised beds out back. It’ll be a late harvest I should get some tasty peppers. I also planted some mint, basil (less than last year!), cukes and peas. We’ll see if the latter 2 come up. They’re going to be very crowded where I put them but hopefully I’ll end up with tasty snacks. Next I need to start splitting the houseplants … the houseplants that reside on the sun porch… in the sun… in the hot summer… oofa.

I have a new contract that was in place for a whole week before it changed rather radically. Never a dull moment, right? It’s interesting and different than past problems… but kind of the same too. Everything always seems to come down to communication.

Monster Cat himself (because it’s hard to exclude him, ever) has been through lots of cat scorn-provoking tragedy lately. He seems to be on the mend now but he spent a very expensive weekend at the vet’s last weekend. Don’t tell but he’s going in for a follow-up Monday morning. He will adore it.

Speaking of last weekend, while my cat was howling away at the hospital, I went up to NH and MA for a wonderful bridal shower book brunch! (By the way, if I’d thought of the book brunch bridal shower thing before I got married, I might have not ducked out on that part of the tradition!) The loveliest ladies attended and it was indeed an elegant affair. I had a great time at the brunch and hanging out with the fabulous Juli throughout the rest of the weekend. Juli, for those who don’t know, has the best shopping karma on the planet. She shares it. She rocks. I have a great little black dress with flowers embroidered on the hem as well as some other lovely things from our escapades. She also sent me home with a stack of books to add to my “To Read” pile. What a wonderful weekend!

gardening, photographs, roses, travel

A week after the first rose bloomed, the rose bush is fiercely exploding with blossoms and buds! It’s a gray day here today so the colors are definitely influenced by that. The rosebush out front which is much newer and smaller also has its first buds on it!

This week has been a series of ups and downs and round and rounds. A major highlight was going to New Hope, PA for the first time with spinpsychology! We had great fun wandering about, buying disembodied heads and chocolate covered strawberries! Naturally we did not acquire the heads and the strawberries from the same establishment, but would you have really been surprised if we had? There was also yarn shopping and yummy lunching. A good day.

Now if only the washing machine wasn’t fighting with me each and every load… yes, I will be calling the repair people tomorrow. Yes, I will be annoyed if they tell me it’ll be 2 weeks before they can get here. Yes, I will keep trying to do laundry until it’s fixed. After 2 days of wimping out on the spin cycle, just this morning it made it all the way through a full cycle without my coaxing! Go washing machine, go!

We went to see Star Trek last night. My expectations were fairly low as I haven’t ever really loved Star Trek movies. Like most people who’ve chimed in, I was pleasantly surprised that it was so good and I enjoyed it so much. It was a great deal of fun and a clear beginning of a new Star Trek storyline. The casting was excellent – Simon Pegg as Scotty… totally spot-on. Perhaps the writers were a little obvious or simplistic at times but all in all it was a very enjoyable movie. I might even consider seeing it again in the theater on IMAX!

This has also been the first week of grilling! I have sent the Fop out into the backyard to play with fire for dinner twice already! I’m not a big hot dog fan usually, but when they’re grilled they are oh-so-yummy.

And now, back to my irregularly scheduled laundry wrangling…

garden, house, miscellaneous, movies, roses, star trek

After almost a week of rain, Friday the first sharp bit of yellow showed against the glorious dark green of the rose bush. Saturday, the bud had blossomed. Today, it’s already ragged. The first roses on this bush tend to go very quickly, especially if we get a hot day like yesterday. I always find it remarkable how quickly the color fades as well. Today is glorious, breezy and comfortable though. A perfect Sunday!

Yesterday was a great day for getting projects visioned. A trip to JoMar’s with alysten (thank you for hosting!), spinpsychology and lissa510 resulted in more fabric than I’d anticipated but I stayed under budget and got some good fabric for Fop pants. My find of the day was a bolt of purple-y wool which will turn into something happy and Norse. I also got a shirt pulled apart so I can adapt it for a pattern. It’s always more fun to do project stuff with people around!

Today is more mundane: laundry, house work, errands. The windows are open, the cat is ottering and calling the mothers is next on the agenda. Whee!

gardening, roses, weather, yellow

Just in case you were worried, the asparagus fern continues to flourish almost to the detriment of the purple passion vine in the pot with it. There will be dividing in the spring. Again. I like this photo because the afternoon sun is blazing on and through the plants but the outside world is cold and white. I do love our sun porch.

Today was fun. Well, yesterday technically at this point. A bunch of the usual suspects (meaning of course: Berrick, Lissa, Siovhan, Merricke, Mark and the Fop along with myself) ended up at the Melting Pot to celebrate my birthday with fondue. We’d been meaning to go for a while and the stars aligned for both an excuse (my birthday) and an easy menu (restaurant week, which may or may not have turned out to be a discount). As often happens with such a combination of people, amusement was had. I am the Princess of Asparagus, by the by. I believe everyone paid tribute to me with their spears of asparagus, which was pretty much awesome since I love the stuff. I’m glad no one was in a hurry because we were there over 3 hours. Fabulous people also gave me treats of books, yarn and maple sugar candy… Thank you all for the company and the wonderful evening!

I also now have a combination camera and laptop bag the size of a semi trailer thanks to the Fop. I now have more bag than I have camera, a deficiency I’d like to remedy.

I am not yet fully packed for Birka. This should surprise no one. (Though I will point out that the Fop’s swords are already in the little car.) I did locate all the jewelry I want to wear Saturday. And I picked out the garb too. I just have to go put it all in the same bag. We are driving up tomorrow and staying with my brother in Concord – so those of you who will be there this weekend, see you on Saturday I hope!

And now? I should go finish packing.

asparagus fern, birka, birthday, friends, packing, photographs, plants, purple passion vine, sca, travel

Time to harvest the kumquats. The little tree is still pretty tiny but it is producing a ton of “fruit”. As I learned last time, this fruit is mostly seed and rind, but it’s really quite pretty. And adorable. Each fruit is about the size of a small marble or smaller (think 1-2 normal sized clementine or tangerine seeds encased in a thin rind) and I expect the tree will be instantly taller after I harvest the fruit. What I’d like is for the tree to actually grow. I transplanted it a while back in the current pot, so we’ll see if it gets a growth spurt this spring.

I know you’re jealous of my adorable little kumquats.

Indoor gardening rambling follows… you have been warned!

I worked a little on on the sun porch last week and I’m considering renaming it The Arboretum given all the trees I have out there. I love my Norfolk Pines of Many Sizes! Don’t tell the Fop, but I think I might need to pick up another tiny Norfolk sometime soon as all the others are well over a foot tall now! Of course, first I need to do more work out as I only go through organizing, rearranging, cleaning and clearing the first half of the porch.

The willow-leaved fig bonsai that was formerly traumatized and dropped its leaves when I transplanted is doing well: all its leaves are back! The asparagus fern which is supposedly sharing a hanging planter with 2 other plants is failing to share in such a way that the soil in the planter is being pushed up above the rim of the pot. I think I’m going to have to split it again this spring. Hmm… while I’m thinking about it, I probably should winter-over my bonsai trees in the garage to give them a rest. I’ll have to find a good spot for that.

bonsai, fruit trees, indoor gardening, kumquats, plants, trees