A gardener's heart

I miss gardening. It's hard work if done right. The digging, the hauling the planting, and watering. All of it is beyond me this season. And I admit that summers in Georgia will get to you. I take it in small sips. 

I don't mean growing roses or pansies, that I can manage within limits. I miss growing something you can harvest and use. Planting seeds and bringing something to the kitchen to serve and eat is a special kind of magic. If I lived in a state where it was legal, I would be in ganja glory. There is a weed that takes some coddling. 

My people on both sides grew or peddled produce. Victory gardens were not a wartime novelty. Mom's father sold fruit and vegetable from a cart in the streets of Providence - that's all I know about him. 

My father's family were tenant farmers in Connecticut and ran a roadside produce shed. As a very young child, I was left there in the care of my aunt or uncle. I played in the dirt with potatoes, eating all the freshly picked berries I could hold. I snapped beans and shelled peas with my grandmother before I was in kindergarten. A life in the dirt. 

Tomatoes and broccoli are really all I've ever gotten right. When I showed the boys the two fat stalks of broccoli I managed to wring out of the soil, they ran and hid. Both of them wildly averse to eating vegetables, I gave that struggle up when their pediatrician said, "If they eat some kind of fruit every day, that's good enough."

So I got the broccoli all to myself. Steamed it in a Pyrex bowl in the microwave. Butter, a little salt. Colin yelled, "What's that STINK!". I sat at the table and enjoyed it down to the last morsel. In the bottom of the bowl were three fat, well-poached worms, green as the broccoli had been. No extra charge for the protein.

  

I'm disappointed with the Wood Chip pile Chaos garden out front. My pumpkins accidentally got mowed, The watermelons died from lack of water. I forgot they were out there in the weeds. The balance between perennials and weeds is out of whack. The tall stuff is poke weed. Privet is popping up everywhere and there's plenty of poison ivy and some low creeping stuff that carpets the ground and sticks to you like burrs. The cats won't even hunt in there anymore. I'm tempted to call Jose and order another truckload of wood chips and just bury it all. 

Out back on the dye deck, the dumpster rescues flourish without any attention from me at all besides a good soak if we don't get rain on the fifth day. Lately, it's been every night.

I think this is Bougainvillea. I know it will die if I don't bring it back inside in the fall. Good luck.

This is Swedish ivy on the steroids of the heat and humidity of our summer. 

 My lone tomato plant. Those are about the size of a quarter and I will eat them as they ripen.  One by one.

Dirty Threads

 

With a post title like that, I will likely haul in any number of people stumbling around looking for the Twitter replacement. If that's you, sorry. I won't be going there either. It's bad enough that I am contemplating fooling around with AI to generate an image that keeps popping up in dreams.

 I'm talking about hand-dyed, six-strand, cotton embroidery thread. 

These are waiting for their groupings and glamor shots, but I created a new page to handle more postings. 

It's likely to be August before another dye fest. 

Pain

 

I caught her up on my bed wrestling with the stuffed octopus. After about five minutes (while I staggered around the perimeter to make sure she didn't fall or jump off) she just snuggled up to it and fell asleep. No complaining, no whining, just doing the best she could under the circumstances.

I am taking lessons in pain management from a cat. 

Camilla and I are deeply grateful to distant friends. 

Hearts & Wheels

 

This one took a little longer, but I've had idle time on my hands keeping an eye on Camilla. Whatever the drug they gave her on Saturday, she's still under the influence. Wiggling and rolling around on the floor, looking for contact, but happy to draw blood in her clumsy exuberance. She may be happy now, but I'll be happy when the drug wears off and she returns to her quiet, mostly gentle ways. 

I'll never get good pictures, but the youth of the bluebird gang have been splashing around in the big clay dish I keep up in the grove. Yesterday it was a muddy mess and they were having a ball. I felt bad about the state of it, so I cleaned and refilled it. To spite me, they are keeping their distance so far. 

Hearts I have. Wheels, not. On the way home from the store yesterday Jumping Jack Flash spiked a sudden fever, but not so bad that I had to call AAA. Home safe. Jake and Missy arrived to pick up his truck and Jake diagnosed a cracked thermostat housing. Parts will be here on Wednesday. Till then, we chill.

Big little lives

 

She'll be just fine, in time, according to the vet. 

Colin couldn't find her when he got home from work.  The little girl wasn't missing at all but locked out on the high deck because I didn't look twice and was hurrying to get out of Dodge. I feel terrible.

No one saw it happen but she had a compression fracture of her right wrist due to a fall and lousy landing. Bad landings are the only kind Camilla has, even from a chair to the floor, due to her rough start in life. I have never seen a clumsier cat.

The X-rays were straightforward. The same cluster of bones we break when we put out a hand to catch a fall was pretty jumbled up. He said with rest and inactivity they would mostly sort themselves out. To help the healing they administered a high-powered painkiller that will last up to a week. The little girl is stoned out of her gourd and getting a Masters degree in chilling out.

She's eating, drinking and using her sandbox - all good signs. 

Her buddies are concerned...

...but not so concerned about eating her food.

(The underneath of my new bed is cool, clean, dark, and clutter-free. I'd nap under there if I could fit.)