outdoor work and indoor work

Sunday morning, no tai chi, no yoga. Instead I fed the cat and dog, took my morning meds, scrolled through my email for maybe half an hour and then went outside. I’ve been telling myself that I need to get out there first thing in the morning, before coffee, before blogging, before breakfast because it’s the coolest part of the day if I want to work on the flower bed on the east side of the backyard. Especially since that’s the only time it’s in shade until late afternoon. Today I finally did it.

This is the most neglected of all my flower beds for that very reason. Plus it doesn’t need much attention because it’s the one with the rock rose, the orange fall blooming cosmos, german verbena, mistflower, and the mexican bird of paradise which are hardy and come back and bloom in spite of me. But all that neglect eventually reaches critical mass and something needs to be done. One of my objectives was to dig up the big pot that had the bridal bouquet plumeria in it. You may recall that I didn’t dig it up or the big pink plumeria last winter as they had just gotten too big to deal with and left them to do or die. Well, they died and I need that pot.

I worked for about two hours pulling out a lot of the mist flower because it was taking over and has a dense root system, dug up the dayflower that also has invaded one end, pulled other weeds and grass, got the pot out. Then set the sprinkler up to give it a good watering while it was overcast. I didn’t get all the weeds out, like all the ground cover that is trying to take over that the flood from Harvey generously spread around my yard and every joint of leaves will root another plant though I did get out some of it. Still plenty more work to do but that’s another day and it looks much better.

This morning I got back out on this overcast and humid day and dug up the ground cover. But let’s back up to Saturday. I put up 29 of the 46 ears of corn (had two for dinner) and got 16 1/4 cups of corn, mostly one cup bags but a few 1/2 cup for adding to cornbread. 

Remember our resolve not to turn on the AC until June that I posted on Saturday? It lasted to Sunday morning. It was 83 in the house, so Marc turned it on until the house cooled off and then for another hour or so while I was in the kitchen producing heat and steam blanching the rest of the corn and getting it freezer ready, another 10 cups.

I’ve been going on about the pink angel trumpet and its sensual voluptuousness but my yellow angel trumpet (also in a pot because trying to get them to grow in the ground the last several years was a dismal failure and produced no blooms) had put on a few flowers as well.

snakes, corn, and peaches

I do know what happened to the wren nest. I went out in the garage Thursday night to roll the big trash can out to the street, looked over at the shelving unit and saw

a young rat snake. Oh you little bastard, if you look closely you can see at least three lumps in it’s body, and I guess it’s been laying low hiding behind the other things on those shelves while it digests its meal. I can’t really be too upset. It has to eat too and it does me a service keeping the mice down but now all five nests located this spring have failed. This is my third sighting this year of a live snake. Also found a dead one coiled up about 18” off the driveway. At least the house finches had some successful nests as I seeing juveniles begging food from their parents at the bird feeder, mostly being ignored.

My neighbor’s brother grows hybrid sweet corn (no GMO) and that’s where I get my corn to put up every year. Leonard brought me 4 dozen ears Friday morning. 

Marc and I got all 48 ears shucked yesterday, 

now today comes the blanching, cutting it off the cob, and vacuum sealing it for the freezer. Nearly every ear had some worm damage, even exposed over a dozen worms of various size. 

Some people might think that’s gross but to me it’s reassuring because if a worm won’t eat the corn then I don’t want to either. 

I also got some local peaches yesterday. They're small but sweet. 

My own tree which gave me about 50 peaches last year, isn’t doing that great this year. It bloomed but not as much, set fruit but the little starts are falling off and the ones still on the tree don’t seem to be growing. Been too dry I guess though I try and water it at least once a week.

Summer is pressing down on us. Mornings are still pleasant but supposed to get into the high 80s today. We’re going to try to hold out on the AC until the end of the month but it depends on the humidity.

That’s about all I know. SHARE was busy again last Thursday, mostly big food orders. It was a food delivery day, plus we got some donations in as well as what we get from HEB, Walmart, and the dollar stores. HEB sent us +/- 50 bouquets of flowers. Seems they over ordered for Mother's Day. They came complete with a plastic sleeve with handles and a vase for about $40 I think, so everyone got flowers with their food order for as long as they lasted. I brought home two bouquets and divided them up into three vases, one of just the roses.

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book reviews:

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng - Set in the US after the Crisis, a years long depression eventually blamed on the Chinese for which Americans of Chinese heritage pay the price, the PACT Act, laws written to preserve American culture, credited with bringing prosperity back to the nation based on suppression of anything considered unAmerican. Children are removed from their homes if their parents aren’t considered patriotic enough and placed with ‘proper’ American families. The story centers around poet Margret Miu and her son Bird. One line of one of Margaret’s poems written before the Crisis becomes the motto of the resistance of which she has no part and Margaret abandons her husband and 9 year old son before the authorities come and re-home him. Three years later Bird follows clues left by his mother and finds her in New York where Margaret is in hiding, working on a project to fulfill a promise made to the parents of the missing children, families she has tracked down to bear witness. 

King Sorrow by Joe Hill - Arthur, a college student with access to the rare book section of the university’s library is coerced into stealing rare book to keep his mother, who is in prison, safe. When his friend group, Colin, Donna, Van, Allie, and Gwen, finds out they come up with a plan to free him from the drug dealer who sells the books to pay a debt. One of the books he was ordered to steal is the Crane Journal, a grimoire bound in human skin, which includes instructions on how to call forth the dragon King Sorrow from the Long Dark and one drunken and drug fueled night they implement the plan. they strike a deal with the dragon, Arthur’s tormentors will be dead by Easter and they will be protected. What the group thought was a one time deal was a deal in perpetuity and if they didn’t provide the name of a victim by Easter, the one of them must die instead and so with Colin taking the lead they feed King Sorrow names of heinous people in an attempt to justify murder. When Arthur comes up with a plan decades later to free themselves from the dragon, things go sideways. More than one person doesn’t want to send King Sorrow back to the Long Dark. Joe Hill is an excellent story teller and while this book is long, 870+ pages, it keeps you engaged. 

miscellania and day lilies

Well, I have no idea what’s happening with the wren nest in the garage. I have neither seen nor heard any activity since Saturday. No parents coming and going, no baby bird noises. The nest does not appear to be disturbed but I hesitate to peer too closely. Seems it’s been plenty of time for the little eggs to have hatched.

More car cleaning on Sunday. Saturday I did the outside, Sunday I did the inside, even those hidden areas when the doors are closed where dirt and grime builds up. Monday it was glass and vacuum. I did not try and clean the upholstery besides vacuuming. This car has not been this clean since I drove it off the lot 12 years ago. What brought this on? I have no idea.

The last couple of days my suspect email list sent by the spam blocker on my Earthlink account has been inundated. Tuesday, 109 spam emails on it. WTF? Harbor Freight, AAA, various insurance companies, CVS, CostCo, Lowe’s, and more, all wanting me to claim my free gift! Let chance! Hurry before the offer expires! And then there’s all the meds offered shipped right to my door. Today it’s back to the normal +/- dozen.

My determination to do some yoga or tai chi every morning lasted about two days. I haven’t been rolling out of bed until about 8 and you’d think the two hours until I fix breakfast would be enough time but apparently not, not if I want to stroll around the yard first thing, sort through email, read blogs and comment, answer comments or write. I do need to figure this out because I feel so much better and stronger when I do.

So Tuesday morning my stroll included checking on the tomato plants, blooming like crazy but not setting much fruit. The green beans however are.

We finished watching the mini-series Chernobyl, the nuclear power plant meltdown disaster in Russia in 1986. Human arrogance compounded by the authoritarian state that prized unquestioning loyalty, the belief that the state is never wrong, that Russian technology was superior to the point of erasing the knowledge of a known flaw to the operators of the plant, the insistence of the higher ups to get a safety check done under conditions in which it should have been delayed, the refusal to admit how bad it really was to the people tasked with cleaning it up all led to the disaster and the deaths of everyone involved. To this day, Russia refuses to admit how many people died. I recommend watching it.

Here are the promised day lilies.

unmotivated, blooming things, new bird sighting

Friday morning overcast, cool, and drizzly. Not a day for accomplishing much of anything. And I didn’t. Read blogs, scrolled social media, played a couple of games on my phone, read my book, fed the kitties, walked the dog, fixed dinner. Thursday night we watched episode 6 (of 8) of the last season of The Boys. If you are the least bit squeamish this is not a show you want to watch. Just trust me on this. Last night we watched the first episode of the mini-series Chernobyl, a historical drama about the nuclear disaster. 

Saturday started out overcast and gloomy but not wet. It cleared up mid-day and with the sun out, temperatures are rising. I’m still lethargic and unmotivated to do anything though I did take the boxes of plastic, cardboard, and paper to the recycling center mostly because they were all full. Now every place that I would work outside is in the sun so that’s not happening. I took a cursory look at my art journal and…nah. I think maybe late afternoon I might wash the car which it sorely needs. 

And that is what I did. While I was doing that just outside the garage I heard a wren in there giving its warning call over and over, looked up and Minnie was standing there but she doesn’t usually upset them. Looked again and Cat was sitting there so I scooped her up and put her inside and the warning chirps stopped. This is a new development which makes me think maybe the eggs hatched plus I’ve seen mom flit out several times the last two days. So Cat is housebound for a while. I failed to tell Marc and after I finished washing the car Minnie and I walked over to feed the cats and when I got back, Cat was sitting by the car and the wren was again giving out its warning call. Back in Cat went and all parties have been informed.

I did let Cat out this (Sunday) morning but I’m keeping an eye on her whereabouts and listening for the wrens (she’s now back in). I strolled outside and was immediately struck by a bird call I had never heard before. It took me a while to locate it high in the magnolia tree, brilliant red, smaller than a cardinal, I got a good picture of it with my new phone camera (I love this camera!), did an image search and it’s a scarlet tanager. I have never seen one before.

My pink angel trumpet that did not bloom last year and was not thriving until I repotted it and gave it some fertilizer is blooming profusely right now. It has 22 blooms in various stages; 2 spent blooms, 6 open flowers, 9 almost open, and 5 tight buds. It already needs a bigger pot.

Other things are blooming…spiderwort, althea (rose of sharon), a very late bearded iris, (also daylilies but that's the next post).

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One thing I wanted to mention, that I overlooked in the list of reasons people are leaving this country in my last post, is the brain drain. Because of scientific and medical research funding cuts, higher education funding cuts and control of curricula in our universities, the firing of so many of our scientists, medical professionals, and educators, our best and brightest are being wooed away to Canada and Europe who are more than happy to accommodate them and their research. 

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Dark Places by Gillian Flynn - Libby was seven when her mother and two sisters were brutally murdered. She survived by scrambling out a window and running to hide among the brush. Her older brother Ben was convicted mostly by Libby’s testimony even though she never saw him, only heard his voice. Twenty five years later Libby is contacted by a group that thinks Ben was innocent and starts Libby on a quest to find out what really happened. The story of that January day is told in flashbacks interspersed with Libby’s own investigations culminating in her own life being threatened when she gets too close to the truth. She knows she heard her brother’s voice during the murders but did he really do it?

Rage by Linda Castillo - a Kate Burkholder novel. A dismembered body is found in the woods by a creek, shallowly buried by Amish kids playing hide and seek. The body is identified as a young Amish man, Samuel, and Kate, Chief of Police of the small community of Painter’s Mill begins her investigation, talking to family and friends. Two days the body of another young Amish man, best friend of Samuel, is found crammed into a barrel. Kate finds a picture of a young woman in Samual’s things and sets out to find her leading her to a brewery/pub and a topless club. When the young woman turns up dead, Kate starts putting the pieces together but the closer she gets, the more danger she finds herself in.

beauty and the beast

Another warm overcast humid day, woke to bird song and leopard frogs, took an early morning walk through the yard…

the white althea on the east side suddenly in bloom (above), whistling ducks flew overhead and perched in a tree

love in a mist

found this little egg on the ground, a little larger than a wren egg, smaller than a dove egg, no trees above

the green beans

the first butternut squash to not rot

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I’ve refrained from writing about all the current disastrous things happening here in this country because, well, because it’s just too depressing. But I read this Monday morning…as of early 2026, 2,200,000 people in this country self-deported. At least 180,000 born and bred Americans left the country in 2025 and that number is increasing. This is on top of the 675,000 the T-ru!mp regime deported last year. For the first time since the Great Depression this country lost more people than it gained. American citizens and those who came hoping for a better life have decided that the M-A!GAt vision of America is not a place they want to be, opting for countries they feel are safer, countries that actually care about their citizens; some place where they aren’t trying to take your voting rights away because of the color of your skin, some place where your rights aren’t taken away because of your sex or sexual identity, some place where getting sick won’t bankrupt you, some place where their children aren’t subjected to active shooter drills in school, some place where housing is affordable, some place where getting stopped by the authorities won’t get you shot. Because that is what’s happening here. That and more. People want to live in a country that isn’t being run by spineless ass kissers, unqualified department heads appointed because they look good on tv and have bent the knee to a sociopath in the grip of dementia who’s only in it for the money and the unbridled power, a grievance baby using the justice department to punish every person who has ever slighted him and who doesn’t give a flying fuck about anyone who isn’t wealthy. What’s it say about this country when people who fled their home country out of fear and lack of opportunity are returning voluntarily. What does it say about this country when Americans are leaving for a better life elsewhere. It says T-ru!mp has turned this place into a shit hole third world country.

Meanwhile, as T-ru!mp rage posts his ‘truths’ about all the unfair injustices heaped upon him by the meanies of the world, those meanies were quietly meeting to rearrange the world order leaving the US in the dust. New alliances are being built, new trade agreements are being signed, new international monetary systems are being arranged, new critical mineral deals are being made, all excluding or bypassing the United States. Canada, the European Union, Australia, and Japan have had enough. They are done with the wannabe mob boss cosplaying as president who kicks them in the teeth and then demands tribute so he won’t do it again. They are done with the unreliable has been leader of the free world who complains they aren’t doing enough while he walks through the market kicking everyone’s carts over, they have no more patience for his childish tantrums, lies, untrustworthiness, and the incompetence he has surrounded himself with, they have had enough of the threats of ‘being dealt with’ if he doesn’t get his way. Even China sees the writing on the wall and is steadily selling off its US debt holdings.

How does that Chinese curse go…may you live in interesting times. The T-ru!mp regime will come to an end and hopefully sooner rather than later, hopefully we can wrest control of Congress from the hands of the enabling republicans by an overwhelming majority in November though I have no doubt they will not accept defeat and the next two months will be intense. The damage domestically and abroad caused by T-ru!mp and his sycophants will take decades to repair but the US will not regain its global authority, the other nations are not likely to trust the US again and with good reason. T-ru!mp has destroyed our credibility.

rain, puttering in the yard

Thank you for all the birthday wishes. It was just a quiet day which was fine especially since my daughter gave me a party last year.

The promised break in the heat and humidity came Thursday night when the big storm front started moving through with rain. It rained all night, mostly just light to medium with small breaks, some lightning but no thunder. Regardless, the little neurotic dog panted and shivered in constant motion, this side of me, that side of me, all night. Guess who didn’t get any sleep besides the little dog. Well, maybe a couple of hours. Friday morning, still raining, sky dark, it rained all day mostly light to medium with some bouts of heavy rain and very chilly. The electricity blinked in and out a few times. The third time I declined to start my desktop back up so I plonked myself down on the much cleaner loveseat and read all day. The rain tapered off early evening. I finally got my butt up around 6 pm as it was my night to fix dinner…fried catfish, mustard greens, and leftover rice and black eyed peas from the night before mixed together. Daughter Sarah stopped by on her way home from work with my birthday present, fancy desserts, cookies, and a Lush shampoo bar (some consumption has already taken place.)

Saturday was cool, clear and low humidity, a really pleasant and pretty day. I decided that it wasn’t a possum that got the cardinal eggs but a squirrel which makes much more sense. I see squirrels in that small tree all the time and so I looked it up and yes, squirrels will eat bird eggs if they have a nutritional need and I think a possum would have just eaten the whole thing instead of just biting into it and lapping out the contents. The last time I checked, before the rain, the mockingbird was still sitting on her nest and I’m pretty sure the little wren in the garage is too.Too wet again to do any digging or weeding or getting zinnia seeds in (my neighbor says we got 2 1/2” which just soaked right in) so I just puttered around out in the yard enjoying the day. I cut out some of the foliage on the tomato plants to help with circulation, pulled up the concrete pavers in the corner of my tiny little patio outside the back door that had sunk considerably and leveled them, 

mixed another bag of potting soil and a half bag of compost and repotted a plumeria cutting and the toad lilies, planted some leftover green onions in a pot, picked a handful of green beans which are supposed to be blue lake, so said the packet, but they look more like kentucky wonders. 

The little acorn squash fell off but the other is getting bigger, the butternut vines are growing but so far all the little squashes have failed to grow. Only one of my tomato plants is putting on fruit, the one the late unexpected freeze didn’t affect, but the others are blooming so there’s hope.

Today the agenda includes mowing the little backyard and repotting my struggling miniature rose but I didn’t sleep well last night with the dog on one side and the cat on the other. They both want body contact so I’m penned in with two 14 pound weights and can’t move and couldn’t get comfortable so we’ll see. I’m more than halfway through my current book so I may devote the afternoon to that.

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We Are All Guilty Here by Karin Slaughter - When two teenage girls are abducted on July 4th during the town’s fireworks. Deputy Emmy Clifton must find them before time runs out and it does. Emmy finds their bodies. The ensuing investigation eventually sends a man to prison but was he really the killer? Twelve years later evidence surfaces that says no. When he is released from prison, another teenage girl is abducted and a new investigation ensues helped by FBI consultant Jude who specializes in psychopath serial killers who turns out to be Emmy’s long thought dead older sister. Emmy is now Chief Deputy and becomes acting Sheriff when her father, the sheriff, is shot in a confrontation over the newly released inmate. Now it is up to Emmy and Jude to unravel the town’s secrets and find the real killer.

Whistle by Linwood Barclay - Annie is a successful children’s book author who suffers two tragedies back to back, a child who pretended he could fly after one of her books and plunged to his death and the hit and run death of her husband. Deciding she needed to leave the city for the summer she and her young son move to a house out in the country near the town of Fenelon. When Charlie finds a train set locked up in a shed and sets it up, strange things start happening. Twenty five years earlier people start disappearing and a train shop suddenly appears in the little town of Lucknow several hours away from Fenelon and as the very weird little proprietor sells his sets, tragedy strikes the families. As Annie and her son Charlie are drawn towards Lucknow, it’s up to Annie to protect herself and her son. Seemed like a silly premise, evil toy train sets, but it’s a good story well told all the way to the conclusion.