Some Progress with the Nesting

I'm pretty impressed with how well this volunteer hollyhock is doing at the entrance of the restaurant parking lot. As you may recall, none of us actually planted it; it simply began growing there, its seed brought by some random bird or something. I'm quite fond of the single flower and the buttery yellow color.

Ah, what a full day Wednesday was. I started early with a visit to the bank, on the way to my latest eye appointment. The appointment went well - my eye is showing what was described as 100% improvement since my visit there last week. But I also saw a different doctor, and I found that he was a lot more forthcoming about describing my condition to me and how I need to be treating it to ensure that it heals properly.

The previous doc hadn't been nearly so specific, and its just another reminder to me (which I'll try to pass on to you) that these days, we can't count on our health care so-called professionals to tell us what we need to know. We have to be pro-active at our appointments and ask the right questions. Almost makes me think they should be giving ME the $20 co-pay.

With this good news under my belt, and a delightfully sunny day going on around me, I took the opportunity that being further up-Cape provided and did a little shopping, making stops at K-Mart, Christmas Tree Shop and the Mill Stores before returning back to the Nest...where I was met by the withering gaze of our household's executive officer.



I wouldn't say he was in a bad mood, but sleeping pretty hard, apparently, since he didn't meet me at the door. I'm afraid we haven't had quite the snuggle time he might enjoy, as I've been a bit of a perpetual motion machine lately...only ever sitting down for a few moments (except for email and blogging, when I sit a little longer...), before popping up with some new project in mind. I try to stop every now and then to give him a proper scritch behind the ears or under the chin, as he loves...but I'm sure he will be pleased at the additional attention he should enjoy from having a houseguest to boss around this coming weekend.



I'd like to say I was incredibly well organized and that I'm completing tasks before moving on to the next ones...but I'd be totally lying to you. What I'm doing is a little of this, a little of that. The short term effect is that I act and appear a bit scatter-brained. Wifty, you might even say. But as time passes, I'm finding that I'm actually getting a lot accomplished.

For instance, the bathroom is now about two-thirds yellow.


It's only a single coat, and brushed on, because of the uneven surface of the beaded board. In time, I might get around to putting a second coat of yellow on things...but in the meantime, the first coat is looking pretty good and in the few places where a little pink shows through the yellow, it creates a sort of orangey-look I don't totally hate. Still, it's a work in progress, like much of the Nest.

After a short visit to work (it was technically a day off, but I still had a few things there that needed my attention), I was back home, where I got a little more testosterone going as I got out my phillips head screwdriver again and put together the new shelf unit I bought for my music CDs.

At first, I thought I'd done a crooked job of it when I put it in the corner, but really, it's the floor and the walls of the Nest which are uneven. L and P and I had a good laugh about this later on, and they advised me there's a great supply of shingles to use as shims out in the barn, which can be helpful for making everything in this old house seem less uneven.



In the photo above, you can see the progress being slowly made. The modular shelving units (okay, fine...milkcrates), the installed brackets for hanging plants, curtain rods, floral wire for the pothos vines to climb along.

As darkness fell last night, I took a little break to bring some of those milkcrates over to the restaurant for a run through the dishwasher there, and spotted two or three different coyotes in our greater neighborhood. No real surprise there, considering the recent late night outburst, but still...it was remarkable to see several of them in a single evening.

In other news of the Natural World, there's been a lot of excitement and a little bit of concern in our region recently, as sitings were reported of a manatee in a variety of locations. At first, they were just stories, unconfirmed, but now there's details. You can get the full story and video here.

While I was out cleaning up those shelving units, I also picked up a new string of lights to weave into the long pothos vines I was training along/above the wall where the sun and crow are painted.



It's mostly a string of white lights, but I did change out a few bulbs to bring in a little bit of green and amber...and a little blue and red behind the plant basket (for a little purple shadowing). I like the way the bits of color bring out some of the detail of the wall.

By the way, the print I've hung there is A.F. Tait's wonderful Adirondack painting, A Good Time Coming. It's long been one of my favorites, as I am a big fan of the lean-to as a bit of rustic architecture...and my love affair with the Adirondack region is no secret, either. Also, I always like the name as a good omen for entertaining.

So you can see that things are coming along pretty nicely. Like I said the other day, I'm on my own schedule...and I don't really expect things here to be fully settled down for at least another month or two. But I have been encouraged to accomplish a few things in advance of weekend visitors. Still, it remains a work in progress...there's still at least one room that looks like this:



Also - in the interests of full disclosure - Marc, I want to be sure you know in advance that this is the kitchen you will be working in Sunday evening.



It's not one of those big Martha Stewart country kitchen affairs...ha ha...so please keep your expectations low! But the stove works and I'm sure we can find you a little counter space for prep. And I've got dessert all worked out, so no worries on that front!

But lets not focus too much attention on my tiny little kitchen. Instead, let me share with you the sunset over Cape Cod Bay from Tuesday evening, just down the road from the Nest. I think you'll find it much easier on the eyes.

Traveling Show

So, I did have coffee out on the balcony this morning, as the sun rose up from behind the trees. It was pretty delightful.

Also, with Lenny's help and wisdom (he's seen many move in and out of this up-in-the-air space...), I was able to get our first piece of cushy furniture into the apartment. Look, we have a chair!!

The interior staircase is narrow and steep, so that wasn't an option for this and other bigger furniture pieces...but we were able to slide it up an aluminum ladder to the balcony (after sufficient coffee, of course), and then temporarily pop off the feet to get it in the door...and voila, the Cat has a place to sit!

It was a full morning, as I finally got around to changing my address with the bank and post office and also arranged for the transfer of Comcast services (phone/internet/TV)--I'm a bit amazed that they were able to schedule me for an install this Thursday morning. I hadn't dared to hope it could be that soon.

Of course, we still haven't a television, though one is coming my way in a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, once I've got the Broadband, I'll be able to watch the new episodes of HEROES and Desperate Housewives when they appear on the schedule. Meanwhile, though, I'm quite enjoying the serenity of just NPR on the radio.

There was also a stop at CVS, as I was running low on Altoids (it's been 53 days, 16 hours, 6 minutes and 41 seconds now since you-know-what...) and they have a buy-one, get-one deal...plus I needed a grooming kit, because facial hair waits for no man.

And then it was off to Harwich for a visit to the garden. As you can see, it's looking a bit bedraggled and windblown after last weekend's storm.

I'm sorry to tell you the flags were all snapped off the fence, but that was during a rampage in the rain unassociated with T.S. Hanna - I hope he didn't hurt himself doing it. Oh, but I'm proud to tell you it hasn't slowed the morning glories down AT ALL.

After an enjoyable walk around the block with my girl, I got to the business of disconnecting all the cable equipment, so I'll have it for the install (and to prevent him from ordering any more pay-per-view movies, which I found videotaped on the TV table...)...and then went out to the garden to do a little potting.

Dykewife, the photo above was taken special with you in mind, to assure you that at least some of the fabulous orange calla lily rode shotgun with me as I left town.

I also brought along my favorite heliotrope, and then an assortment of black-eyed susans and mums which were about to bloom. Hopefully the move won't be a set-back for them.

It wasn't nearly as well-organized a move as last autumn's was...but there'd been more time to prepare for that one. Today I only had the car, so I had to choose just a few things...but I hope to make another visit with a friend's pick-up truck on the weekend and we'll see what I get accomplished, then.

One of the fun discoveries came when I realized that the over-grown garden was concealing quite a substantial crop of pole beans and I picked as many as I could find to bring along with me.

There were probably twice as many as seen here by the time I was all done. Along with the latest cherry tomatoes, a handful of crunchy beans fresh from the vine made a nice little lunch as I drove off.

And now, a few shots from the new garden...well, the abbreviated, elevated version, for starters. The previous tenants, upon hearing that I was a Gardener, left behind some window boxes of petunias for me, along with a pensive-looking little gargoyle. I've added a few elves, a pot of mother-in-law's tongue (aka, snakeplant) and a tiny birdbath here.

Here's a pair of pots with some of the marine heliotrope I'm such a fan of, as well as my hanging pot of lantana...and one of those tulip-shaped solar lights (the purple).

Because autumn here on the Cape is so often sort of summery, I did take the time to pot up a window box with some marigolds, bachelor buttons and a zinnia and a snapdragon, too, so I'll continue to have some of my own garden on the porch as the season fades. It looks a little ragged just here, but I think it will bounce back nicely.

Here, my Grandma's elf joins the hanging pot of fuschia, another pot of petunias from the previous tenants, and the ginger plant.

As I finished unloading everything, some great looking storm clouds started swirling and rolling in overhead...and I'd sort of hoped for a real ripper of a thunderstorm. There were a few good booms, but really, all we got was some rain...which was just the ticket for the things I'd just planted and/or moved.

And I didn't mind the storminess, since I'd also stopped by our local Benjamin Moore distributor this morning and they loaded me up with paint swatches and brochures about the nature of color. What fun!!

Weekend Jumble

So here's one of those honeybees who were so elusive at summer's start. This weekend, I've been seeing them everywhere...so I'm happy to say that reports of their death may have been somewhat exaggerated. That's a flowerhead of Autumn Joy sedum he's dancing about on, only just coming into bloom as Labor Day weekend gets underway.

Yes, it's that last weekend of the summer, here already, proof that Time doesn't only fly when you're having fun.

I want to say thanks to all of you who've written me your comments or private emails of support, in regards the situation with Owen and I.

I can only really skim the surface of letting you know just how much it means to me...and how important its been to hear from you.

This is probably the last thing I ever wanted to happen; ten years is a long time to be with someone and I know and love him in ways that I don't know many people. Which makes it sadder still that he knows so little about the way my brain works and what has value in Life to me.

You might guess I would be quite happy for us not to have reached this point. And that wish makes me want to be swayed, won over by the somber attitude and thoughtful demeanor I have been subject to this past week. But I know from past experience, and from other peoples' too, that this is a temporary fix...a band-aid on a bigger problem. And thankfully, every time I start to get a little weak in my resolve, one of your comments or emails appears, just in the nick of time.

I really don't want to beat a dead horse, I'm not even sure I'm prepared to declare the horse dead...but there was something else I wanted you to know.

The gardening it seems I've always done...and the blogging started just to show my long distance (and local) friends what I was working on in a secret garden not easily seen from the road...but as you all have discovered it in the last year and come back to visit over and over again, this blog has truly helped me to remember that I have a voice worth listening to, that I am important to the world, in some small way. And that, as much as everything else, has encouraged me to seek a little something better for myself.

So when I say thanks, I hope you know I mean it.

Now sweet Jesus, can we please talk about the Garden again? I am so sick of being on the edge of tears lately.

Here's a Nursery Spider we found in the kitchen sink the other day. I don't believe we have much to fear from them, which didn't mean we both weren't startled to the ceiling when it jumped over a foot to get away from us.

Yikes...

I have made a mental note that next year, zinnia seeds should be started indoors before the season gets underway, or at the very least, planted in the ground the week before Memorial Day weekend.

These guys are only just beginning to reveal their first flower buds and while they are pretty wonderful, there could be so many more by this point.

To the left is a photo taken on Friday. Below is the same flower as seen on Saturday. The whole idea behind the Jumble thing starting to be more clear?


Here are some of those fancy marigolds I bought for the lamp post garden in the spring. In the background there, you can see one flower still bears the distinctive red coloration that caught my eye in the first place.

However, it seems the rest of the plant is a little weary at this end of the summer (I wonder if it needs more water, or maybe some fertilizer), since so many of the other flowers are just plain yellow now.



I don't know what these bamboo-ey like plants are. I know there are a great many of them growing on the side of Mount Dump-it in our yard in Harwich; I see them out our back windows.

Today I noticed this cluster of the same plant out behind the restaurant, in between dumpsters...and noticed for the first time the spectacular clusters of tiny white flowers.



They aren't memorably scented or anything like that. But the flowers themselves are tiny, but kind of exciting when you look at them up close.

Perhaps you don't agree, but there was a crowd of bumblebees and honeybees who couldn't get enough of them





Here's one of the center pieces last evening's custo mers brought for the tables at their Rehearsal Dinner.

I think my favorite arrangements are the ones that don't hold to a particular color scheme, but instead engage all the colors there are. These did that wonderfully, and featured a terrific assortment of flower varieities, too.

I do enjoy the Gerbera Daisies and was a little disappointed that my budget dried before I had a chance to pick up a few for the border this summer.

I used a few as bedding plants in my first garden on the Cape all those years ago, and the effect was pretty terrific.

I have no idea what that orangey-thistly flower is, but it sure interests me. I hope to stop in at the responsible florist and see what I can find out sometime this week.

In just a little more time-travely-ness, here's what the sky looked like over Not Wisteria Lane this past Friday evening.
Thinking of everyone in New Orleans this weekend, as the third anniversary of Katrina's devastation comes and goes, marked mostly by a new evacuation in the face of a much more terrible looking storm called Gustav.

Everyone down there on the Gulf Coast (not to mention all those lives touched by this storm already as its passed through the Carribbean) has my thoughts and prayers for their safety...and hopefully yours, too.

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.

Just Another Day

The annuals really own the garden this time of year. Most of the big ticket perennials have come and gone. Of the fabulous lilies only green leafy stalks remain. Just a few of the former multitude of daisies are still showing their cheery faces. There is still some phlox to tease the eye and scent the air.

But the day belongs to the hardest working residents in the garden: the allyssum, the marigolds, bachelor's buttons and sulphur cosmos.

The other cosmos still have not joined the show yet, though there are buds forming. I can't believe they are waiting so long this year. I think there's some reason behind that I've not quite figured out. The seeds were certainly sown early enough. Perhaps the soil is too rich for them. The plants are tall enough, some of them topping off at nearly four feet.



I hadn't thought I was going to show you any morning glories this morning, though there were plenty in bloom. And then I spotted this bumblebee tight-rope-walking along one of the twining stems, clambering over tomorrow morning's flower buds.

And this pale pink morning glory was a bit of a surprise, since I've not seen any this color before today. At first, I thought it was actually a bindweed flower, but a closer look showed it to be another color of glory heard from.

Pretty, eh?
Here's something for the Big Book of the Minorly Weird: at work today, one of the waitresses was cutting lemons and discovered this lemon with another lemon which had grown inside the first.

Hardly a sign of the coming apocalypse, but vaguely interesting nonetheless.

We heard of a severe storm warning around 1:00 this afternoon, and within minutes it was swirling in on us, thunder echoing in the distance to the west.

In a matter of minutes, the clouds billowed out of nowhere to obscure the sun and the sky grew very dark. It was sort of amazing how quickly it happened. I learned late tonight that there was actually a microburst causing lots of tree damage not far from the Cape Cod Canal at about that time, which explains the speed with which everything was moving.


As the thunder continued booming and lightning flashed across the sky, the gusty winds arrived first and then the rain. At first, it made a sort of fog as it came in contact with the hot pavement and evaporated.

Then suddenly it was falling in sheets and making visible the great gusts of wind that were blowing in a variety of directions.

I understand there was golf-ball sized hail connected with the microburst, but we didn't see any of that in Orleans, just lots of that heavy, heavy rain, sometimes blowing sideways, helping us feel a sort of kinship with our friends and family in Florida who were braving the battering wind and rain of Tropical Storm Fay.

I did download an impressive radar map of the storm's track and another detailing the frequency and location of the lightning strikes...but sadly, I've misplaced those files, so you'll just have to trust me when I say it was a big, unexpected storm.

[EDIT: 8/20/08, 8:20 am: here's a link to more coverage of this storm, if you're interested.]

After work, I stopped by Rock Harbor for a look out across the bay, where it was cloudier than I'd expected, since we'd ended up having a pretty sunny afternoon following the storm. It wasn't until I got home to Harwich that I discovered that they were having a second storm about that time.

It's much cooler this evening, with temperatures dropping down into the low sixties...and now, after midnight, we've slipped down into the 50s. Definitely a nice night for a sweatshirt. I think I'll sleep well for a change.

There's still some fast moving clouds passing by overhead, and I didn't find the right setting to capture those crisply on the new camera yet.

But really, I wasn't so into photography tonight and mostly just sat in front of the TV and enjoyed some more Olympics coverage. Men's diving, women's gymnastics, BMX bike racing, more running and hurdle-jumping.

It's all good, though I am often a little disappointed that, in trying to make sure we see as much of the games as possible, some of the "lesser" contenders don't get their televised moment of glory. We see all those countries' athletes enter the stadium on the first night, and many of them are never seen again.

Succeed or fail, they are all part of the beauty of the Olympic experience.