roulette of the nose, yard work, blooming stuff

Saturday and Sunday, both still hot, all I got accomplished Saturday was getting the rest of the monkey grass planted 

and getting the oxblood lily bulbs that I bought last spring in the ground. Sunday I woke with a bit of a runny nose and a scratchy throat which I ignored and after breakfast I swept the garage and raked the leaves on the concrete apron of the driveway, the rest of which is gravel, into three big piles and then I tackled the barn raking and sweeping the leaves out and neatening it up, getting it ready for leaf season. 

before

after

The oaks and maple and tallows and pecans will start losing their leaves in earnest now.

I was going to spread the three piles of leaves out on the areas where grass doesn't grow on Monday but by Sunday evening I knew I was getting sick, whether it was allergies (which I really don't suffer from), a cold, the flu, or covid I wasn't sure and I didn't sleep well Sunday night, basically had to try and sleep sitting up. The whole right side of my face hurt from my eyeball to my jaw. Monday morning I got out one of the covid test kits that government sent us all on request and it came out negative but according to the package it had expired at the end of July. So I went to the pharmacy and got 4 current test kits, came home, swabbed my nostrils again and still negative. Took some ibuprofen and a benadryl cold medicine knock off and basically laid around in bed all day reading and by evening was feeling better.

cat at my feet

dog at my shoulder

This morning I feel almost well, on the tail end of whatever bug took up residence in my nose. I tried to think where I could have picked it up. SHARE on Thursday and yoga that evening, I think I went to the Evil Empire on Friday but wore a mask, Saturday I went to the Market for honey and tamales and only chatted with three people and then went to the Earth Lab talk at Hesed House on edible native plants. Everyone seemed well so who knows where I picked it up. I'm glad it was just one of those 48 hour things and weird that it only affected half my face.

I think there must have been some squirrel attempts to get to the bird feeder under the hood because I looked out there yesterday and the yellow butterfly ginger was practically laying on the ground. They do lean towards the sun but were more upright so it looks like some squirrel or two went sliding off the hood and onto the ginger underneath. I would have liked to see that.

We got our first real cold front which came in last night. It was only 56˚ at 9 AM and is supposed to get down to 40˚ tonight. It will start warming almost immediately but we'll have a week or more of really nice days. No rain though. Still dry as a bone. I have to do the weekly grocery shop today and fix dinner tonight but I'm going to try and get the three leaf piles spread out in between.

Allright, I need to get going so here's what's blooming...

Firespike among the ginger.

Confederate rose blooms high up, must be 10' (the picture was so dark I had to tinker with it so the colors are a little weird).

Orange cosmos putting on its display.

White phillipine lily doing the same.