excavating the rose, excavating a bundle, something tried to excavate my house

Dammit! I had my phone/camera in my pocket. I was going to take a ‘before’ picture. Did I? Fuck, no. But here’s the ‘after’ picture. 

Now that I’m finished editing my friend’s book I put my yard work clothes on and went out with pruners and the long handled nippers on Saturday and isolated the rose bush clearing a swath all the way around. When we bought this place, there was a small chinese tallow tree on this corner outside the chain link fence. It also had the mexican wild petunias but the ones with the fatter leaves which I think are a little less invasive than the narrow leafed ones, key words there ‘a little less’. I wanted a spot with a little more sun and since I had three other tallows on the property, I had that one removed. Anyway, one of the things I planted there was one of the heritage roses I had rooted from the one at the city house. I had three. Planted this one here, planted one over in the shop yard which eventually grew into the monster rose bush that I had to cut back to almost nothing to get the trees and Virginia creeper and wild grape out of it. The third one I sent to Ms Moon.

Anyway, I tried to grow various things in that corner bed between the fence and the rose bush, none of which did very well because of the ‘a little less’ invasive mexican petunias (every piece of root left behind grows into another plant, not to mention the explosive seed pods. I finally gave up. The indigofera is against the fence by the gate and holds its own, the white philippine violet which, as it turns out also spreads easily, has colonized that area as has dayflower and all that plus the mexican petunias had taken over so thoroughly you could barely make out the rose bush. My intention was to dig up the rose and move it until I saw the size of the trunk. So yeah, moving it isn’t happening. Now the plan is to beat back everything closer to the fence, leaving enough space that I can get the mower between that stuff and the rose bush. Still have lots more to clear out.

I was hauling the wagon full of stuff headed to the burn pile and I looked down and saw this.

It’s an owl pellet. I thought I had heard an owl while laying in bed a few nights ago with the window open. Here it is teased apart. There’s way more gray fur than I would have thought for a little mouse or vole.

I didn’t find the skull but the bundle wasn’t tight when I found it so maybe it had already fallen out. I might even have stepped on it or the wagon ran over it during one of my previous passages through there. These little skeletal remains will go in a jar and join the other odds and ends on the shelf above my sink.

Sunday dawned colder, overcast, and wet. Not rainy particularly but damp with short bouts of light rain and so no work was done outside or inside for that matter. Daughter Sarah came by for a visit while she was out running errands. 

The other night a noise woke me up and at first I thought it was Cat doing her job! Nope, she was asleep on the bed. It was loud, lasted about 30 seconds and stopped. Then every time I would relax ready to sleep it would start again. I got up four or five times creeping to see if I could find where it was coming from. It was loud, tearing, banging, construction kind of noise. I’ve had critters under the house and in the walls at various times in my life and none of them made noise like that. I finally tracked the noise down to a spot in the kitchen in a corner of the outside wall and it was underneath the floor, like it was tearing apart the sub-floor or the beams. So I stomped on the floor as loud as I could and it stopped long enough for me to get back in bed when it started again. Now I’m getting really pissed off, this is going to keep me awake all night. Fuck. I got out of bed, threw some clothes on, grabbed the nearly 5’ walking stick out of the garage as I went around to the side of the house where the opening to the crawl space was which just happened to be directly across from the corner in the kitchen where the noise was coming from. I got down on my hands and knees and stuck that walking stick under the house as far as I could and started thrashing and banging it around. I guess that put the fear of god into whatever was doing whatever it was doing because that’s been the end of it. So far anyway. I have possums that live under the house, have always since we’ve been here and I’m perfectly happy for them to live there. They are shy creatures that eat garden pests and they don’t carry rabies. I also have armadillos for the past year or two and they generally just dig holes in the yard and flower beds during the night and drive Minnie nuts. And while they can carry leprosy, transmission is rare and usually involves handling them and eating them. Which, yuck!  The only reason I know they are there is I saw two little faces peering out at me one day from the same opening to the crawl space, that and the holes they dig every night. I can’t imagine it was armadillos tearing up the underneath of the house, they’re foragers and don’t have the teeth for that sort of thing. 

Now Monday, also overcast, cold, and lightly rainy. I have no complaints about any of that since it’s exactly what we’ve all been saying we want after the long hot dry summer. Minnie is perfectly content to lay in her little bed under a blanket 

but Cat is annoyed because she wants to go outside, meowing at me constantly to do something. I finally opened the garage and she’s sitting out there staring at the rain.

I suppose I’ll get out my drawing things after breakfast and noodle out some ideas for the next shadow box.

big beautiful blue and other news

image via https://www.surfertoday.com/surfing/what-is-a-tsunami

I have to say I’m a little ashamed to be taking so much delight in republican MAGAt tears snd chest beating. Woe is us, America as we knew it is dead! Communism! Socialism! Open borders and hoards of brown people speaking a different language! Transgender for everyone! The Muslim takeover has started! Sharia law! Oh, who am I kidding? Cry harder losers! 

Next on the agenda, give Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries their walking papers, award leadership to fighters, not the namby pamby don’t make waves old guard. They had their chance and the last two years prove they don’t have what it takes. Strongly worded letters go straight in the trash.

In other news, I’ve made it through the last chapter of the book and now just have the six appendixes the first four of which are charts taken out of a catalog. Then there’s the three page bibliography which I’ll just briefly scan and last is the list of artists whose work appears in the book with page numbers which she weirdly alphabetized by first name instead of last name. Once I’m done with this time suck, (and I did finish it earlier today) I can think about the next shadow box and working out a bone building routine.

There’s some action finally going on over at Montreal’s old house on my east side. Wednesday morning a guy showed up with a backhoe and dug a big pit and trench next to the house. I walked over there to check it out yesterday morning, new plumbing from the house to the septic tank so I imagine that’s why the renters moved out. The guy with the backhoe returned and filled it all in. Now today another guy mowed the yard (but not the empty half acre they are apparently letting go feral) and the doors are open cleaning out the house. They had a container  hooked up to a truck in the front that looked like it had some furniture in it and the broken down trampoline in the backyard is gone.

I haven’t taken any pictures the last couple of days so I ran out and snapped this one at dusk of a single flower on my tree gardenia. 

queen of the night, foggy morning, election day

I remembered to set an alarm for 10 pm Sunday and then was surprised when it went off. I was already undressed and in bed. Got up, pulled on some clothes, went and got the flashlight and opened the door to the garage (I had not closed the overhead door) and was immediately hit with the lovely sweet fragrance of the cereus blooms.  I turned towards the pot where it sits under the magnolia tree by the corner of the garage and the closer I got the stronger the fragrance. About half the buds had opened, so 20+. 

Foggy Monday morning when I got up.

Today is Election Day. If you didn’t vote during early voting, get your butt out there and do it today. This is a crucial election for this country, a chance to reign in the greed, corruption, destruction, and lawlessness of this administration that has weaponized the DOJ against anyone who opposes Thxump. If Democrats manage to get control of either House, and hopefully both, the next two months, between election and swearing in, are going to be horrible while the Republicans do everything they can do to illegitimize the elections they lost and at the same time trying to ram through as much of their agenda as they can before the swearing in of the new Congress when hopefully the Great Undoing can begin.

So, of course, there’s a 100% chance of rain today. Not a big deal here in this little town but in the city there will be long lines. If it discourages anyone from getting out in it to vote, let it be republicans.

Edit:  We did it! Turned Texas back to blue and Democrats took Congress, not only the House as predicted but the Senate as well! I’ve been smiling since last night and feel elated, like a burden has been lifted. I know there is still a big fight ahead. They won’t accept defeat but the country has spoken. MAGA is done and the Head MAGAt is deteriorating.

where does the time go?

I’ve done very little all week besides work on editing my friend’s book and I didn’t even do that on Tuesday or Friday. I’m all where did this week go? I’ve walked the dog, gone to all three of my yoga classes, fed the outdoor kitties, grocery shopping on Tuesday and dinner which wasn’t the greatest. I fixed stuffed mushrooms, which I have fixed before, but for some reason this time the mushrooms didn’t cook, dinner again on Friday (fried catfish filets, french fries, and a small salad). I haven’t even read more than a few pages of the book I have which is overdue with someone waiting for it and I’m only halfway through so I jotted down the page number I’m on and returned it Friday afternoon and put myself on the waitlist to check it out again when it gets returned. The only other thing I did was patch a friend’s favorite cap that her dog had chewed a hole in. 

Speaking of dogs, when I get up I open the garage and then prop open the door to the garage so Minnie can go out and check on things in her yard. When she was young she wouldn’t go out by herself but at eleven she will go out by herself and even on occasion go on a walkabout to the neighbor’s back yard across the street. Anyway, I looked up the other morning and she was sitting in the garage just on the other side of the door staring at me, willing me to come out with her I guess.

I’m trying planning to work out a 30 minute weight bearing impact exercise routine for two or three days a week, gleaning stuff from different videos I see on FB, without joining a gym. I have two 10 pound weights which isn’t heavy enough so I guess I’ll have to invest in one of those heavier kettle balls. And my weighted vest, now up to six extra pounds which I do wear when I walk the dog and do walking lunges and side jumps. I’m most interested in impacting heels, knees, hips since the femoral neck is my worst score and while it took three years to get from -2.9 to -3.1 I really don’t want it getting any worse. So since I refuse to take the bisphosphates which only holds onto weak bone and I’m not so sure about the injectables that are supposed to build bone but also may interact with the thyroid medicine I take I suppose I need to get more serious about building bone, or at least stabilizing it, by impact training. I’ll know more after I see the endocrinologist this month.

Wednesday or Thursday, I forget which day, I looked at my poor little cabbage plants in the small raised bed that didn’t seem to be growing very much and decided they weren’t getting enough sun, the banana trees behind them providing too much shade in the afternoons. I was able to lift the little cabbage plants, root ball and all, without disturbing the roots very much and moved them over to the sunnier spot next to the second planting of broccoli. The other broccoli plants aren’t getting enough sun in that little raised bed either but I don’t think I can successfully move them. the other three cabbage plants are next to the broccoli but behind the basil upper right.

The weather has been, is, very pleasant. We finally got a decent amount of rain on Friday, not heavy but steady. Blooming things are liking it. The night blooming cereus is set to bloom any night now. This is her sixth time to bloom this year and she has over 40 buds on her. There's eleven in this picture. 

The toad lilies are blooming, the orange cosmos are busy with bees, the yellow angel trumpet has seven blooms.

Between my yard and the shop yard there are other things blooming…roses, yellow bells, pink trumpet vine/shrub, rangoon creeper, plumbago, rock rose, mist flower, the purple and the white philippine violets are still putting on a few flowers but they are mostly done. It’s kind of like spring only in reverse. 

Speaking of spring in reverse, we fell back last night. I knew the time change was scheduled but when I woke up this morning and looked at my phone for the time it was 8 am. That’s been our normal getting up time for a while now so I didn’t think anything about it until I got up and went in the kitchen and the clock on the stove said 9 am. So, yeah, neither of us had any trouble sleeping an extra hour. 

more labor and fall bloomers

This is what we did after breakfast last Wednesday.

It’s a little breezy today and pecan tree leaves are steadily drifting down, as are the oak leaves and every other deciduous life form. I’m not getting any pecans this year and my neighbors aren’t getting many. Last year was a bountiful crop and after a bountiful crop the trees usually rest. Now I’m wishing I had shelled more pecans last year. 

This past week I’ve been digging up all the clumps of spider lilies across the front of Robin’s house in preparation for Rocky to rebuild the piers though I still haven’t gotten an estimate from him. Cooler days but still hot in the sun and by the time I’d worked an hour, hour and a half or so, I was sweating plenty. Monday I had done the pond form and the clump by the bunker, Tuesday was grocery shop day and one of my dinner nights so no work outside, Wednesday I dug up three clumps in front of the house (the two in the empty space and the one on the right).
 

Thursday I only dug up one clump but it was a big one 

and I was useless the rest of the day, even passed on going to yoga Thursday night. Friday I managed one clump, still had three to go. There are so many! I plan on planting some of them back in the front yard but away from the front of the house. In the meantime I’m sharing with neighbors. Loaded up the wagon Friday and gave some to one neighbor and some to another neighbor and spoke to another neighbor on my way home and took some to them today and just dropped some off at another neighbor’s house whether he wants them or not. I did knock but he didn’t answer.

Saturday I dug up the last three clumps. Now that the front of the house where the spider lilies were is exposed I see that the landscape timbers the crew put down before putting up the beige colored skirt is already rotting in places. It's only been six years so I guess those will have to be replaced too. Since I didn't take a before picture just imagine that entire length filled with clumps of long strappy leaves.
 

I've been working on editing my friend’s book in the afternoons. I’m on chapter 12 out of 18 and then 6 appendixes, so maybe I’ll finish one day next week. I didn’t work on it at all on Thursday (and may not today either), besides being brain dead I was sleepy all day.

My daughter Sarah came over Saturday with Harrison, waiting while Paisleigh played with the little girl at the other end of the street and when Paisleigh got here they stayed a little longer. At one point Harrison was pointing at the hooks on the wall that hold my keys, the little bag I made out of the Hmong reverse appliqué panels, and my umbrella so I handed him the folded up umbrella. Then I took it back and told him to watch while I pushed the button and the umbrella unfolded. His face just lit up, I handed him the open umbrella to play with. 

We still need rain badly but at least the temperatures are more pleasant. The fall bloomers are blooming. Even my confused dwarf redbud tree in a pot which is putting out new little leaves and flowers.

The orange cosmos is in full bloom with some of the plants nearly 8’ tall. That’s a guess but I’m 5’4” and when I stand next to them they do look about 3’ over my head. They aren’t all that tall and they tend to fall over when the get that tall. They are a nice magnet for butterflies. I’ve seen a couple of monarchs and a queen and the pipeline swallowtails are starting to hatch I guess. When the sun shines through the petals they just glow.

The pink trumpet flower vine/shrub is in full bloom, better than I thought since it’s been so dry but I did water it a few times in September.

The mist flower and the Philippine violets are also blooming.

Don’t give up on the flying car. There is another company, Doroni, working on the idea and they have also come out with a prototype. Unlike Musk’s circus stunt of a car, this one actually flies. It’s not a car in the traditional sense but it is a personal airborne travel device. What it is is basically a human sized drone, one big enough to sit in and powerful enough to carry you into the air. Here’s a link to their website that mainly focuses on investment opportunities but does have some video of the personal flight aircraft in action. Unless it’s AI. Who can tell anymore.

best laid plans oft go astray

That was the sky Saturday afternoon.

Two items from the Department of Absurdities, Musk’s new ‘flying’ car, a roadster that has thrusters that enable it to become briefly airborne. There’s a video and it’s pretty ridiculous, the jets blast off, the car shoots into the air doing a complete rollover in the air before coming back down. Then it shows the car thrusting into the air as it travels over five vehicles placed side to side, again flipping in the air before it comes back down on the other side. That is not a flying car. That’s a circus stunt. Production said to begin 2028 for a mere $200K but federal regulators aren’t even sure if it will be allowed on public roads. Here’s a link to a video if you want to see. 

The CDC is sending a disease detective to investigate the Pennsylvania measles outbreak. Let me save them the time and money, the cause is parents not vaccinating their children against measles. Duh.

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My weekend plans turned out to be just that. My intention was to get out on these nice cool sunny days and either get the chainsaw out for some major tree pruning or start digging up the bulbs across the front of Pam’s old house, now Robin’s house, which needs to be done to facilitate redoing the piers the house sits on. Instead Saturday, I worked on editing my friend’s book instead of getting sweaty and dirty before Paisleigh’s birthday party at the park which turned out to be mostly family and adult friends. Only one little boy from her class and the three sisters from the street she plays with came but other small children were in the park so hot dogs for everyone and I don’t think Paisleigh even really noticed that only one of her classmates came.

Grandgirl Autumn had come in from Austin for Paisleigh’s party and stayed the night at Robin’s. They came over for breakfast/brunch on Sunday and then Autumn had brought two pair of pants she needed shortened and hemmed so I got the sewing machine out and that took most the rest of the day, that and finally patching the bottom sheet that’s been sitting on my dresser for weeks for the second time. If it tears again it will get relegated to the tub of sheets and plastic for protecting plants during winter. Anyway, I had a nice long visit with Autumn. It’s been a long time. So no yard work on Sunday either.

However, I did get out there yesterday. It was not as cool as the weekend so plenty of sweat happened and I didn’t start on the crinum lilies across the front of Robin’s house. Instead I first dug up a clump of day lilies Pam had just out in the middle of the yard. I’d been meaning to dig them up for a long time. There are three varieties, one of which I already have but the other two I didn’t. Then I tackled the pond form my sister had her future grandson-in-law dig and sink into the ground that she had planted other bulbs in. Since her death it had been being overtaken by weeds and nut grass and I long ago took out all the bulbs so my intention was to dig out all the dirt, remove the pond form and shovel all the dirt back into the hole getting rid of one more thing that looked trashy and needed care that I don’t have the time or energy to do.

So I dug out all the nut grass and most the dirt and thought that was enough to be able to lift and overturn the pond form but…nope. I got one end lifted but couldn’t manhandle the thing any further. Mikey wasn’t there but one of his customers was dropping off a trailer so I enlisted his help lifting and overturning the pond form and then he shoveled the rest of the dirt back into the hole for me. Yay!

That wasn’t the end of my labors though. Way back when we acquired this property and I planted the ponytail palm against the south side of the concrete bunker I also planted some spider lily bulbs next to it. Well that clump has multiplied making it hard to cover the pony tail palm in the winter because I couldn’t stand on one side of the palm. Besides that, some sort of invasive cane type plant and wild grape vine and a fucking hackberry tree got all entangled in the spider lilies and it was just a mess and my daughter wants some of the spider lily bulbs so I dug up that entire clump. No picture of course of the clump of lilies before I started but here’s a wagon full of them. 

So, yeah, by the time I did all that, walked the dog, did some impact exercises, went to yoga which was mercifully a laid back session, and got home I was done. I think I slept ten hours last night.