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.

woes is us; loveseat, AC, cardinals

Easter lilies are finally starting to open.

I can’t remember when we bought our little double recliner loveseat which is big enough for three people without being reclined, a decade, longer, 12 maybe 14 years. Minnie is 11 and it was new enough then that I kept a sheet over it because if we were on it, she was on it. I eventually gave in, got rid of the sheet and went on living. About a year ago I started muttering about renting a carpet and upholstery cleaner and giving it a once over. Last Sunday was the day. I rented the machine and gave the loveseat a thorough going over; seats, foot rests, arm rests, backs, sides, top and OMG, when I went to pour out the dirty water container it was nasty. N.A.S.T.Y. Almost black. I correct myself, black. Monday morning I could tell the seats at least needed another going over and yeah, waste water not quite as bad but still horrible. Could have used a third going over but it was time to return the machine. Maybe this fall I’ll do it again when It’s not so hot and humid because I was sweating profusely by the time I finished Sunday. We have yet to turn on the AC because it’s still only April! even though it was 82 in the house yesterday and this morning when we got up. It's supposed to cool down some and maybe rain this weekend.

Speaking of AC, the AC in the car is still not fixed. It started losing coolant late last summer. Car mechanic grandson recharged it with dye, several seals were leaking, replaced those, recharged and damn if it didn’t all leak out again. Determined the condenser was leaking. By then it was fall going into winter and I told him no rush since we didn’t need it. Come spring into summer he has replaced the condenser. Coolant lasted about a week. WTH. So this weekend he looked at it again. Did you know cars, our car at least, has a filter for recirculating air? I didn’t. He opened the glove box and pulled it out. It was probably about 8” x 8” and in the big middle was a rat’s nest, all shredded stuff and acorn shells. I didn’t have my phone/device on me so no picture. It was pretty horrible. How did a rat get in there in the first place. Mikey surmises an acorn shell got sucked into the interior part of the air conditioner and either plugged it up preventing air flow (because there was no sign of leaking under the hood) or rubbing up against the thin metal causing a tear. He vacuumed out all the stuff, recharged the refrigerant so we’re good for about a week until it all leaks out again. Now he has to remove the dash to be able to get to what he needs to get to to fix it but the boy is busy. He went out on his own about a year ago and has plenty of paying work. Meanwhile, Marc is looking at new cars. I’m really not interested in buying a new car at this point in my life even though our Toyota Corolla is almost 12 years old. This is the first repair (not counting batteries and tires) in all that time.

The cardinals are not having an easy time of it this year. Ms Cardinal that spent three days building tight and cozy nest in the tree outside my window had only just started sitting on eggs the last two days. Woke up Tuesday morning to find two egg shells, broken and hollowed out, clinging to the side of the nest. 

I suspect a possum. How did it know there was a nest with eggs. I don’t blame the possum. It’s just doing what it must to survive.

The garden club plant sale is this coming Saturday. I’ll be taking the many pots (16) of rooted cuttings, volunteers, and divided plants over to a member’s house later today. I’ll be glad to have them out of my care.

A few miscellaneous pictures from the yard….german verbena, mushroom, tree gardenia, leopard frog.

Tomorrow is my birthday, my 76th revolution around the sun! 

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At The Bottom Of The Garden by Camilla Bruce - another book I got halfway through and couldn’t decide if I want to invest the time to finish it. I did ultimately. I don’t know if this is supposed to be a young adult novel, doesn’t say anywhere on the cover, not categorized as one by the library but the writing style struck me as such and two of the three main characters are young girls, Violet 10 and her sister Lily 14. Violet and Lily are recently orphaned, their parents dying on K2, likely as a result of their estranged aunt Clara, half sister of their father, tampering with some of their gear out of jealousy. Clara, a selfish woman filled with grievances, grudgingly takes custody of the girls in a bid to somehow get their inheritance when they come of age. violet and Lily start exhibiting special abilities after their parents death; Lily sees colors on people indicating their emotional state as well as when they are lying or telling the truth and Violet sees ghosts and there are three ghosts haunting Clara’s house. When Violet ‘unsticks’ them from the spots where they appear they start causing all sorts of havoc for Clara who, it turns out, murdered them. When Clara discovers Violet’s abilities she is hell bent on using them for her own personal gain and Lily is just as determined to prevent her. Finally the girls understand there is only one way to win their freedom from their Aunt Clara.

The Witch’s Orchard by Archer Sullivan - I already liked this book better than the three previous (see above) just after reading the first paragraph. Set in the mountains of Appalachia, Annie, herself raised in Appalachia, is a PI hired by Max to find his sister Molly who disappeared, was taken, ten years previous when she was four. Ten years ago in the tiny town of Quartz Creek three little girls, Jessica, Olivia, and Molly, were taken and replaced with apple head dolls and while the Olivia was returned the other two disappeared without a trace. Max, now 18, has saved every penny until he had enough to hire a PI and he chose Annie. Annie agreed to give him one week and she arrives and starts asking questions and stirring up old memories and secrets some people would rather keep buried. As she gets closer to the truth her own life becomes endangered. It’s a good story with some local folklore intertwined and I enjoyed. Really the first book that has fully engaged me in a while.

what the rain brought and my tiny food garden

Mornings with the door open (still but not for too much longer because…summer) listening to the bird song, titmice, cardinals, chickadees, wrens. Ms Cardinal seems to have finished her nest but she’s not sitting on eggs yet. I can see the nest out the window where I sit at my desk.

Speaking of summer, it was a day yesterday. Not hot so much as humid, horribly humid. Some sun yesterday but today the sky is currently overcast, the air full of water, not to be confused with rain which is not predicted. 

Speaking of rain, according to my neighbor we got about three inches of rain over the first three or four days of the week, enough that they lifted the burn ban which is good because the truck already has a load of fallen branches. Our gooey dirt is still too wet to do digging or planting though I might get some weeding done. There’s a short window between gooey and hard as a rock due to the clay content. I still need to get my zinnia seeds in, should have already and I was gifted some pink turk’s cap seedlings that I have to decide where to put.

The rain brought these out. They just shoot up overnight seems like.

Here’s pictures of my little food garden (front row in the first pic)…six tomato plants in all (four in the top pic, two in the last), green beans (seed packet said blue lake but the beans look more like string beans), carrots (hard to see behind the tomato plants), and the squash I lifted from the compost bin. The acorn squash had two good sized fruits but the little ones have all been consumed by pill bugs from the rain, and the other squash is definitely butternut, three different vines I think with little fruits forming. Intended to plant a few potatoes but waited too long so maybe next year.

From the Department of Weird Food, first what the fuck is granola butter, and second, cookie dough?

And from the Department of You Want How Much?

I ordered the shadow box for my next project which came the other day, pulled pictures from my archives, still need to acquire foam core board and some archival adhesive (glue) but I can start on the watercolors.

Just a reminder that Thursdays are a busy day for me and no time to read, comment or answer comments. I’m up early, shower, coffee, breakfast, and out the door to SHARE which has been busy the last two weeks. We had 35 food orders both days which keep me constantly busy for four hours on my feet filling and placing the heavy baskets on the tables for the guys to return to the shelf or going out in the storeroom to replenish my section, then taking the cardboard to the recycling container, stopped by Hesed House to get some lettuce, delivered leftover stuff that won’t last a week to my friend being treated for cancer and a short visit with her, lunch, 30 minute doze, feed the outdoor cats, walk the dog, change and get to yoga class, haul the trash out to the street. That was my day Thursday. 

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Forgot to add the two book reviews last post so here are two I didn’t read.

Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay - Young adults make a low budget horror movie but the movie was never released. Even so it became a cult classic from the three senes that made it onto social media. Decades later Hollywood wants to remake it even though there is only one surviving original cast member. The author goes back and forth from present day to when the movie was being made. I got halfway through and decided I wasn’t interested enough to read to the end for the “unforgettable mind-bending conclusion”.

Going Home In The Dark by Dean Koontz - I don’t know what weird writing style tangent he’s gone off on but I made it 53 pages in and put it down. The ‘author’ of this ‘true story’ keeps interjecting mind numbing unnecessary asides.

all about the birds and rain on Earth Day

I ended up not doing much of anything besides reading on Sunday. Ms cardinal however was very busy. Here’s Sunday’s progress on the her nest. I went out Monday morning when I got up to see if I could get a picture before she started work. 

She did all that in one day while her mate hung around visiting the bird feeder off and on. Sunday it was all little twigs, Monday she brought dried out leaves. But while I was gazing out the window this morning, a new bird came to the bird feeder, one I had never seen before. Google image search says it’s an indigo bunting. Not a great picture, shooting through the glass of the back door on high magnification which focused on the foliage behind but good enough I hope.

We wanted rain, we really needed rain, we begged for rain and finally we are getting more than a five minute shower. It started raining Saturday evening and rained gently for a long time during the night. I actually don’t remember if it rained Sunday, maybe a light shower or two but yesterday it started sprinkling late afternoon and it’s still raining. Last night was long and sleepless for me (neurotic panting shivering dog who cannot be still or consoled) because of a thunderstorm and lightning lighting up the room and I guess bouts of heavy rain. That finally passed before dawn so I got a few hours sleep before and after. Currently a steady gently rain, the kind that soaks in instead of running off. Just in time as the corn field across the road was on the verge of suffering. 

Before it started up again this morning (and rained lightly off and on all day) I took another picture of the cardinal nest, two days progress. Now that the rain has stopped, she’s back at work.

The mockingbird nest has another egg, so three now. It’s so different from the cardinal nest which is composed of tiny twigs and leaves. This one is much bigger and composed of small sticks with a little grassy lining. there’s even a scattering of them on the ground underneath.

Tuesday was grocery shop for the week day and all I wanted to do was go back to bed. Tai chi class last night. Only one more class and then Jo is gone for the summer. Costco run today but no yoga, I’ve already done my routine for the day. One more picture of the cardinal nest after Tuesday’s work, no eggs yet as far as I can tell. But the wren nest on the shelves in the garage is still active. She flew past me out of the nest when I peered too closely this morning. She sits so deeply in the nest and blends in so perfectly that it’s hard to tell if she’s in there but I did get a chance to see she has eggs.

Happy Earth Day! Do something to nurture our poor suffering planet. Pick up some trash, plant something, put out a dish of water for birds, bees, and other creatures, any small or large gesture to show our Mother she is loved.

busy day yesterday, today not so much

I got the bookmarks packaged in cellophane envelopes 17 in all and took them over to the Hesed House market on Friday. So now I have note cards with prints of my colored pencil drawings, hand painted note cards, framed prints of colored pencil drawings, framed watercolors, crystal mobiles, and now hand painted bookmarks. I might work in my art journal a bit next or do the drawing I should have done already before I start on my next little project or two. Or maybe same project but the execution seems to vary as I think about it and get inspired by the work of other artists.

In the meantime I spent Saturday morning to early afternoon moving the sprinkler around every 20 minutes starting with the squash, tomatoes, green beans, and carrots and then moving on to the long day lily (and other bulbs and rhizomes) bed in the big backyard. It’s overcast today, so a good day to water which I did despite the prediction of a storm and rain moving through later today and tonight. I’ll believe it when it starts raining. I had bought three little pots of wave petunias and got them planted in front of the porterweed I planted earlier in the week, 

also a penta in the pot on the deck since the one I had froze this winter. When I came in from that I sorted out my winter and summer clothes, once again putting my winter clothes in the other dresser for the year. And once again foolishly. I knew this front coming in yesterday early evening was going to cool things down but I didn’t realize it would be in the low 50s and windy when I got up this morning. Then I put my sewing machine and art and craft stuff back on the shelves instead of on the floor and table and then swept my office/studio, the room through which all traffic in and out of the house goes. So, busy day.

We did get some rain during the evening and night but since the tube to my rain gauge broke this winter I don’t know how much. I doubt we got enough to make all the watering I did unnecessary. I had planned to work out in the yard more today but not with this cold wind blowing. Maybe I’ll make more progress in the 877 page book I’m reading. I think I’m almost 3/4 of the way through. Maybe I’ll get out my colored pencils and work on that drawing I intend or maybe I’ll vacuum the rest of the house. All things are possible!

Seems to be a rough year for wrens and cardinals. The abandoned eggs and now a night predator got the baby cardinals. Nature can seem cruel but everything has to eat and in this closed system what we eat is each other. Some animals eat plants and while some people may think plants are blind and dumb and feel no pain, they do have an awareness and do feel distress; some animals eat other animals and us humans eat everything. So while I’m sad about the baby birds, some other creature did not go hungry. But a new nest has been found, this one a dove, that has two eggs. Correction: Robin thought it was a dove but I did an image search of the eggs and it says mockingbird. 

And a cardinal is making a nest in the fringe flower tree outside my window right now. She keeps coming back to the same spot with twigs, been busy at it all morning. I tried to take a picture on zoom through the dirty window and screen but she's made enough progress now that when she flies in with a twig she's obscured by the nest and foliage.

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I am so far behind on my book reviews I’m going to include two at the bottom of every post until I get through them. Also far behind on the 100 objects.

Death Of A Perfect Wife by M. C. Beaton - a Hamish Macbeth mystery. A couple from London by an old victorian in the village with plans to open a bed and breakfast. Trixie goes about the village begging for any unused furniture or household goods to furnish the place since they are ‘on the dole’ and can’t afford to buy anything new. She also sets about to improve the villagers lives one at a time causing friction between husband and wives and villagers. When Trixie is found dead, Hamish must figure out who killed her.

Ward D by Frieda McFadden - Amy and Jade have been best friends since elementary school but they had a falling out in high school and Jade landed in the psych ward of a hospital. Fast forward 8 years and Amy is a med student doing her 2nd year rotations and she is assigned to Ward D, the psychiatric ward where she will be locked in for 12 hours from 6 PM to 6 AM. Amy would rather be anywhere but there. the story shifts back and forth from the present to the 8 years previous, the last days of her friendship with Jade. Amy is pretty flakey and Jade is exhibiting antisocial behaviors. Upon arrival at Ward D, she and the other intern are informed that there is a dangerous inmate locked in Seclusion Room 1 in restraints but told not to worry as he is in restraints and they should get to know some of the patients and learn what brought them to the psych ward. One of the first things Amy discovers is that her old friend Jade is one of them. When weird things start happening and the ward doctor and nurse keep trying to calm her fears my, not knowing who to trust, begins to wonder if she will make it through the night alive. 

 

spring is transitioning to summer, NDE, little beasts

I’ve been getting an ad for a t-shirt with this graphic on it on FB. I’d buy it except for the crew neck which is uncomfortable for me. I’d constantly be pulling it away from my neck.

Long ago I read a book by Raymond Moody, Life After Life, published in 1975, the subject of which is a study of near death experiences in which the consciousness continues. This book had a profound effect on me especially coupled with the expanding consciousness I was experiencing in my LSD and psilocybin days. It describes the overwhelming feeling of peace and love, a review of the person’s life without judgement focused on love and learning, hovering outside the body watching events before being drawn to the bright loving light though I don’t agree with the bit at the end that suicide is negatively received and perhaps that was added to prevent a wave of suicides by people who had read the book. I don’t believe that loving light, the all that is, is anything but loving acceptance. Decades later my sister was in a head on collision with a drunk driver entering the freeway through the exit ramp she and her husband were exiting. She had never read the book and yet she described to me her own NDE. She saw and felt the pull of that loving light and turned towards it but she kept hearing her husband’s voice calling to her, telling her not to leave and so she turned back and re-entered her broken body.

Robin was out of town for the weekend visiting her friends in the city so I go over there twice a day to feed and spend some time with her cats (indoor as opposed to the three outdoor cats I feed) and the last three times I walked under the rose arbor 

past the nest I noticed that the mama cardinal was gone. The fourth time as I was leaving Sunday evening, wondering if something had happened to the babies, I held my camera above the nest and snapped a picture. 

So of course, mom is not on the nest, she’s out foraging for food to feed the little beasts.

Speaking of feeding little beasts, I’ve been meaning to report for weeks now that Ghost, the black feral male cat that I’ve been feeding for a couple of years and who took up residence at Pam’s house with the other outside boys has gone missing. He didn’t show for three or four days, showed up for another two or three and we haven’t seen him since. This was at least five weeks ago now. 

I’m making a new effort to do some kind of exercise every morning, yoga or tai chi, even if I’m going to class that evening. So far, two days in a row! Not to be all ‘look at me’, so far today nada. I got up late and then took a wander around the yard taking pictures and then went through my email and then read blogs. But the day is still young. There is still hope.

I finally got a garden task accomplished Monday. I had a coral porter weed in a pot, a volunteer from a few years ago that has gotten pretty big and is pot bound, in the ground. I meant to get it planted last spring but never got around to it because where I wanted to put in, in the little backyard outside my bedroom window, the dirt needed to be dug up and turned and compost et al added because it is/was hard as a rock. Our mornings have been fairly cool so I finally got out there and added an entire bag of landscaper’s mix and got it planted. Now I want to get some annuals to plant around it.

I have another garden task for the little backyard that I meant to do last year as well which is to plant some aspidistra around the turret of the septic tank that the nude lady stands on. Maybe I’ll get that done this year too. Today a woman came by to get some shrimp plant. She had posted on a local chat group asking if anyone had any to sell so I told her I’d give her some for free. She left with that and a morning glory bush, confederate rose, and pink angel trumpet as well. Less for me to take care of until I donate these various rooted cuttings to the garden club plant sale.

Another new bookmark inspired by the work of Jane Chipp who makes wonderful little things called nature boxes. This after one with a white feather that she had painted with silhouettes of birds in flight.

Maybe the nest on the shelving unit in the garage is not abandoned since the little wren flew out when I walked through a little bit ago.