Gardener's Blues...and Other Colors

Just checking in so you don't worry, but I'm not sure I have so much to say. Actually, I think the opposite is closer to the truth, but I don't trust I'll find the right words just yet. For now, a few random notes:

* I've gotten lots accomplished in the last day or so, not all of it at work or in the garden. I feel kind of good about that.

* The Olympics are winding down and due to work schedule, I'll only catch the late night stuff now 'til the end. Ah, well, only two years 'til the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver.

* 2010. That sounds a little weird, huh? Where are those flying cars and rocket jet packs, anyway? I'd happily settle for a few more windfarms.

* It turns out that two weeks of somewhat immersive coverage of the Olympic Games, enhanced by substantial sleep deficit was just the right combination for me to have committed to memory the entire NBC Fall Schedule of programming. Well, at least I've made note of when HEROES is starting up again. I really like that show.

* Thirty-five days since my last filthy cigarette. I know I've probably made it sound easy this time around. Nobody's more surprised than me. I attribute this both to my blasted optimism, which annoys even me sometimes, but also to no small sense of determination. I don't want to be a smoker anymore. (All of your encouragement and cheerleading hasn't hurt, either...so thanks for that.)

* Now that it's been a while since I took the smoke, I am noticing some improvements in me. I'm breathing easier, and I find that singing's a little easier, too. Well, the act is. I'm not feeling lately like I have a lot to sing about...but that's also possibly the reason I've been doing so much of it.

* Unexpected Carnage! A moldy and long-forlorn mousetrap in the cabinet beneath the sink here in the computer room sent a good-sized mouse off to his reward just moments ago. (We bow our heads and wish him well.) I'm blogging about it now, but it will be less creepy to address the larger issue of actually removing the body by morning light.

* I don't find that I like the wintergreen Altoids as much as I do the spearmint.

* As always, I find the garden awfully good for what ails me. Lately, there is almost always an undersong of crickets, but especially in the evening. There's quite a buzz at noontime as pollinators of all shapes and sizes ply their way from one flower to the next.

The goldfinches have been visiting the sunflowers regularly. I saw the hummingbird again this morning. And the bunnies are never far away, it seems.

Each day there are new colors, or fresh combinations of different flowers grown together. As I explore, I slow down and breathe a little easier, as a piece of my stress burns away in the golden sunshine. I can think of no better things than these tiny wonders and it's nearly impossible to be glum in their company.






"And that evening, while he was playing, a brown leaf, the first leaf of the fall, blew into the station and landed right next to the cricket cage. Now this leaf had come from New Jersey. A playful gust of wind danced it over the Hudson River, and up Forty-second Street, and whisked it down the subway entrance."


"Chester was in the middle of a song when the leaf came down. It was such a shock to see this little reminder of all that was happening in the country that for a moment he couldn't continue. But then he realized where he was and forced himself to go on."

- The Cricket in Times Square, George Selden, 1960.

May Makes Way For June

Wahoo!

Another lily emerges this morning, at the feet of a clump of nibbled crocus foliage.


So reports of their death, as they say, were premature.

On a similar note, they say the cicadas are still going to grace us with their presence this spring, though no sign of them has yet appeared around this end of the Cape. They say a lot, as it turns out.

Meanwhile, the dianthus are starting to bloom. Most of these were new nursery plants last spring, so they are big healthy spreading clumps now. A few are a couple of years old. I just love a little plant that is inexpensive, spreads itself around and blooms more or less all season long.

It had been predicted it would rain all day for us today, so it was a surprise to wake up and find a, well, not exactly sunny morning, but certainly not a rainy one.

This gave me the chance to get some tall marigold seedlings (the varieties are tall, the seedlings are about three inches high just now...) planted along the fence.

There's two kinds: the ones on the roadside are all yellow, and from the tiny picture on their nursery tag, they appear to be single-flowered...or at least only partly double.

The other kind is a mix of orange and yellow and will feature the fully double, pom-pom marigold flowers. Those are on the house side of the fence.

I love these tall varieties; they really help to fill out the garden as the summer wears on and various other plants' bloom times come and go. I tried to be sure and stagger them, so they weren't planted directly opposite one another across the fence.

I've also now identified the best spots for the tomato plants. They are doing well in the bedroom window and getting rather tall and strong. This is fine with me, as I'll carefully pinch off the lower branches and plant them deep, so they develop a good strong root system along the buried part of the stem. This should give them a strong footing against the wind that seems to prevail on our street...and of course, they'll be well-staked, too.

Of course, it will be a day or two still before those get into the ground, but I'm not worried about them.


The rest of the day was spent at work, but I did find a few moments late in the afternoon (just before it did finally begin to rain) to nip off to the garden for a look at what was blooming there.

The siberian irises are going full strength now. Most are the white variety, which make a great background for those purple bearded irises. The blue ones are a little taller than the white, so they'll really create a nice drift of color as they grown around one another.

Divisions of each of these and also a purple variety from the meadow live in our border at home, but they also seem to have suffered from nibbling.

Nestled amongst some evergreens, this rose's first bud is a pearl about to unfurl.