I'm on deadline today, so all I have to share is a giveaway for free tickets to the 2013 Kansas City Home Show and Flower, Lawn & Garden Show on Surrender, Dorothy: Reviews.
Took Buttonsworth to the vet today and we upped his insulin again. More later.
The vine kept wrapping itself around my flowers and strangling them, every year for four years. It was impossible to kill, no matter how many times I ripped it out, because its roots are under the deck where I can't reach them.
This spring, as it reached its little tendrils toward my pepper plants, I wrapped it around the deck railing in frustration. I told it I would let it live if it would keep to itself.
It did.
It just bloomed this past week, and now there are at least ten very happy bees belly up at the bar.
In addition to peppers and tomatoes, this year we tried growing cantaloupe. I've never done that before. Initially we had tons of yellow flowers, and we were so excited. Then the heat came, and though we watered and watered, I guess they couldn't stand the weeks of triple-digit temperatures. Because after the temperature fell below 95, we saw little yellow flowers again. And then, miraculously ....
There's even a baby. I never thought of fruit as cute before.
Happy Friday!
Gardening Note to Self Number 425: Do not use too much mulch.
Last spring I had one of those "if a little is good, a lot is BETTER!" moments when figuring out how much mulch to buy for my flower beds. I ended up with a lot left over. The intelligent thing to do would've been store it for later. But no, I just went ahead and put it down anyway.
Beloved took one look at it and said, "That is way too much mulch."
And I completely ignored him.
Fast-forward to last week. I started noticing mushrooms. And the sort of huge black flies that come up from the maws of Hell to announce the sequel to Ghostbusters. And a ... stench. Of rotting things.
Yesterday, I removed all that mulch. I have blisters and aching muscles and the woods behind my neighbor's house are filled with a four-foot pile of half-fermented mulch, mushrooms and one-eighth of my immortal soul.
But it is gone. Lesson learned! I WILL NEVER DO THAT AGAIN.
I am preparing for a last-minute business trip (read: what, my toenails look like I live in a cave and I'm not sure what I have clean to wear), but today when I picked up the little angel from summer camp, she said:
"Mommy, I have a green band! I can swim in the big kid's pool!"
And we did a little happy dance around the parking lot.
And I told her over and over again how proud I am of her.
Then we went to swim lessons and made a bunch of extra sandwiches for lunches and picnic dinners at swim lessons while I am gone, and she helped me pack, and the Celebriducks had a show in the bathtub in which the Celebriduck Dorothy may or may not have sung an extremely off-key version of Over the Rainbow.
That's the best way I know to celebrate. Hope you're having a good week. Posting this week will most likely be bizarre as I attempt to navigate the NYC subway system on less sleep than I would prefer. This month is totally bizarre for me.
Also -- I saw all your comments about ladybugs. I went to Ace Hardware after swim lessons, but alas, no ladybugs. WE WILL PREVAIL. The search continues.
Ever since my sister pretended Mike Wolfe of American Pickers was her BF, I made fun of her on Twitter and ended up interviewing him over the phone for BlogHer, my family has been all about the pickin'. The Easter Bunny even brought me an Antique Archaeology tshirt.
But this Mother's Day, the pickin' got serious.
I know, right? Aren't they so creative?
My mouth hung open, sort of salivating in anticipation. It's possible being from Iowa makes one prone to sorting through people's junk. Maybe it's because we didn't have any cool stores growing up, so we were forced to make do with vintage. Maybe it's because people in Iowa have sheds where they can store forty years worth of crap no urban dweller would have room for. Whatever the reason, I've always liked looking through old stuff even if I had no intention of bringing any of it into Chateau Travolta or wherever I was living at the time.
We headed to breakfast, and then we pulled up at my favorite antique store/flea market in Kansas City. It's four stories tall, you can see through the floorboards to the people walking around below your head, it has a wicked-scary freight elevator that swings eerily in an open shaft, and by the time you've walked through and made eye contact with all the stuff, four hours have disappeared -- along with your nasal cavities, any liquid left in your eyeballs and your common sense.
I got a potting table.
Mike Wolfe would be proud.
It sprouted before everything else. It was pretty close to where I knew there was a coneflower.
But as it grew, I felt edgy. It doesn't look right. It looks broad-leafy.
It looks like a weed.
But I don't know.
So I keep watering it, waiting for it to flower so I'll finally understand.
But it makes me nervous to water it, because if it is a weed, it's putting down roots and stealing nutrients from the flowers around it.
Have anything like that in your life?
In keeping with the backyard theme, check out my review of the Backyard Guide to the Birds of North America on Surrender, Dorothy: Reviews!
