Gotta love it. No, really. Well, maybe not.

Last weekend, DH covered up our ‘maters and zucchini and brought in the flower basket due to a frost advisory for early Sunday morning. All was well for our little garden, it being snug and warm.

Yet another frost “sort of” advisory followed for the wee hours of Monday morning — but neither of us made a move to cover up or bring in anything. How lazy can we get?

Fortunately the garden survived our unexplainable neglect. The sweet potato vine looked a bit sad, but snapped out of it. The jacob’s ladder was worse for the frosty morning, however I think it will come back. Everything else didn’t care and looks fine.

So today – Wednesday – we are supposed to be very close to ninety degrees.

Ninety.

Oh my word.

The farmers are working like crazy — which means DH is also. He’s already been told he’ll be working this weekend — and Memorial Day — so looks like it will be me and Soph cooking out.

…and your little dog too!

It was such a nice early evening that Soph and I went outside.

I tethered Sophie out in the middle of the front yard, then went back to sit on the steps.

Soph likes putting her nose to the ground to “track” in the grass, eating the bugs, sniffing the air and watching the traffic go by.

After a while, I took a swing around the flowers — my sorbet peony is full of buds and the Japanese painted fern is as pretty as I ever have seen it!  The ninebark is all dark-leaved and starting to get buds on it. It looks like the clump of fireworks golden rod we moved likes where it is at. The transplanted Becky daisy and purple coneflower both are good too.

Then I though to call Mom.

Back on the steps I went to sit a spell because Mom can talk … quite a bit!

This time when she answered, I asked if it was the dog pound, that I had a stray in my front yard… She said no, it was the Doggie Daycare…

Anyway we visited for a while — then I saw Sophie look up into the sky.

She never really looks up like that, so I wondered to Mom what the dog could be looking at.

It was this.

And not just one, but six, seven, or eight!

And they started circling our yard.

Mom, I gotta get Sophie inside!!

I unhooked her tie-out, which is incredibly tangly — and she thought she’d start grabbing at it and getting under my feet and jumping and biting…

I could have sold tickets!

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Yeahyeahyeah…they MOSTLY eat carrion. MOSTLY.

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NP: American Idol on mute while I wait for the season finale of Fringe.

Just out of the oven: Rhubarb crisp. Not so crisp though. I tried to cheat on the topping and it sorta didn’t work. Sigh. Still tastes good.

Coming up: The weather man says nasty storms tonight and tomorrow.

In the garden…

…we have:

• asparagus — and we have been eating our fill!
• rhubarb — DH cut some for cobbler…now if he’d eat the brownies faster…oh, wait! Take the brownies out of the pan, wash it up, fill with cobbler. Got it.
• tomatoes…bigger girls? better boys?
• zucchini — hoping it stays disease free this year.
• a row of pansies — for you, Grandma PoPo!
• Yes, it’s a real small operation…

And new this year in the perennial beds:

• Creeping Jenny. I think it will be just the thing for the north side of the house, amongst the grape hyacynth and painted ferns.
• Creeping Phlox. On the border on the west side, in front of the Fireworks goldenrod, next to the steps.
• Mulch. I give up trying to fight all the combatants in The Year Of The Violet. Covering ‘em up.
• Less of sedum kamtschaticum. It does its job way too well – covering the ground — but it is taking over the purple cone flowers and daisies, and just everything in its path. So I yanked about a sackful of it up. It didn’t seem to mind at all. In fact, I think it laughed at me…

As for the yard…

• I can’t say when the yard has looked better! The grass is coming in thick and lush — all the better to keep the weeds out — you too, violets — so I imagine as long as we don’t cut it too short, it should stay nice for most of the season.
• DH edged the yard — looks great!
• He also shoveled in some soil and seeded a couple spots left over from the new porch building last year.

What about the house?

• Put the window air in. Wish we had one that fit proper.
• Took down the plastic from the windows. Yay! If the windows were clean, we could see outside…
• Nothing else much got done and it shows.

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NP: JoC’s Long Fall Back to Earth

What’s Sophie doing? Eating her treat from her obedience class instructor — because we practiced walking at the fairgrounds and after a bit, she was getting the hang of walking correctly by me. Practice make permanent, I hope.

Waiting for: DH to get home. Looks like another long day for him.

Tonight’s TV viewing: Wah! No Chuck.  But there’s 24 and Castle. Seems I blogged about this last Monday. How dull.

Musings of a mind too tired to think straight, or…

…“Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.” Margo Channing (Bette Davis, All About Eve)

• I love my little R2D2-like single serve coffee/tea/hot water (really?) maker. Had to retire the nifty 12 cuppa unit that J bought me a long time back — the hard water did a number on it…wah! Right this very minute I am enjoying a Dunkin Donut medium roast w/creamer. It is very good.
  
• However, I still can taste a bit of the bergamot from the loose leaf “Earl Grey, hot!” tea I had yesterday…hmmm. Must clean the filter better…
• DH will be late coming home tonight. I have no food to feed him.
  
• So glad work is over for the week.
• I spent too much time being Counselor Troi (without the hair extensions) one day at work — an inordinate amount, actually…so guess my workload is not obvious to others.
• So the next day I tried the wild-eyed, wild-hair look (well, it was windy out)…and suddenly I became leprous. I need to try that more often.
  
• DH wants to try raised bed gardening. He has no time to plan. I would, but…
• Really need to get the kitchen floor replaced. Think ugly and hard to keep clean.
• Got the new Jars of Clay CD today via Amazon…listened to part of it on the way back to work after lunch. Jury is still out, but it seems likeable.
• Why do wild violets have to be so prolific and hard to kill?
• Southern Cousin had two interviews this week…not sure if either will pan out.
• Hard to believe, I know, but seems my workplace has become a tornado shelter. I would explain, but…
• While cutting some more asparagus, I jammed a bit of last year’s asparagus fibrous material underneath my fingernail.
• OUCH!
• I wonder about that little boy who joined me and Sophie on our walk at the park. Nice kid. I hope he stays that way.
• I wish I had the yet-to-be-family room cleared of all the cardboard boxes we throw in there with such wild abandon.
• And I will abandon that idea once the weather gets hot. Like tomorrow.
• What?! GM is going to get rid of its Pontiac line?!
• What!!?
• Tomorrow is Sophie’s last class. She’s such a good dog. Even when she’s rotten. Did I tell you she’s just about got “sit pretty” down?! Yep.
  
• Wish we could go to rally, but it’s at a bad time schedule-wise. Sigh.
• Need to go see Mom & Dad.
• Can I have a serving of simpler times, please?
• Sympathetic co-worked threw a dollar in the lotto ticket pool for me so when the group wins big this weekend, I won’t be left to do it all in the department.
• I tried to tell them me being in on it will dash any hope of winning.
  
• I’ll have to remind them of that on Monday. Or maybe not.
  

Two and one-half hours later

…and we cleaned up the biggest share of the overwintered perennials and leaves this afternoon. It took six recycle bags to contain it all!

In addition to that, DH moved a clump of the solidago ‘Fireworks’ from behind the hibiscus and put it next to the front steps. Next he moved three Walker’s Low nepeta a bit farther out from the side of the house.

The solidago and nepeta are greening up as well as the coral bells and Oertel’s Rose yarrow and Autumn Fire sedum.

Got a lot of moss growing in the north flower bed…not sure what’s up with that…

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Both of us are a bit stiff in the hinges now.

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NP: David Copperfield, but I am only half-watching.

Thinking about: getting a bowl of Cheerios…

I am here…

…but just.

Have a bit of a rough go of it — but I suppose things will get better.

Sigh!

Spent a good two hours cleaning out the flower beds and bagging up all the oak leaves. My sadly neglected flowers managed pretty well on their own this year as did the weeds…

Oops. Well — guess there will be more to pull next year. More Preen to spread.

Something I wish I had a picture of: the ninebark! It loses its leaves for the winter, but not before turning a rich, dark burgandy — not bright like a burning bush — but rather deeper color.

Obviously words are failing. You’ll just have to trust me!

I left the autumn fire and autumn joy sedum for “winter interest” — and also because right now they are still gorgeous with their yellow green foliage and dark brick red flower heads

Next spring I’ll be moving the goldenrod to the vacant space next to the new porch. Right now it gets hidden by the hibiscus and ninebark. It’s way too pretty to have a backseat any longer.

Oh! And there were a couple pansies bravely blooming under the leaves on the north side of the house — it was the blue one with the little black monkey face.

Didn’t get around to cutting down the asparagus or nepeta — hopefully there will be one more good weekend to finish up before the snow gets here.

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NP: Sarah Conner Chronicles

Where’s the Sophinator? In her bed in the dining room. We went for a cold but good walk at noon today. Soph was very cooperative.

What was supper? Comfort food: Cheeseburgers, krispy oven fries, baked beans, cottage cheese.

Just in passing…

• The prettiest hollyhock this year:

• The weather is giving me a headache again today.
• Still doing the 10,000 steps thing — but not really doing it. The closest I have come to it was 9000 something. That’s a lotta steps…
• Had a pretty good 4th of July. Saw family. Took a couple walks. Ate good food — did I tell you that my mom makes the best baked beans on the planet and several other solar systems?
• Had a blowout on the highway going home. (There’s always drama — now a little action, eh?) Don’t know what I hit, but it took a slice out of the rear passenger side tire. I read the instruction book; DH and H did all the heavy labor. Half hour later we were back on the road, our doughnut tire “good for 3000 miles at 60 mph”
• Went to R-town and bought new tires the next day.
• The Japanese beetles have arrived for their annual visit.
• Puppy pick up day is August 9…whee! Sophie and her sister are such cuties.
• Southern Cousin and I have more in common than is to be believed. Except comedies.
• Of all the muzak I get inflicted with at work, I had no idea that the stuff I liked was by Coldplay and Duran Duran. Yeah…that rock right there is where I have been living.
• Our zucchini look pathetic. I am sensing crop failure.
• The tomatoes looks extremely promising. Bumper crop.
• …so I just might go to the theatre to watch the X-files movie. Five-buck club.
• I am reading Martin Dugard’s Training Ground. You should too.
• Might be a while before our porch gets done. Got the permit though.

Why we moved the bird feeder…

…to in front of the dining room windows:

This picture was taken from the garage door — had to do some zooming in.

What’s really cool is that now we can watch the birds from the dining room, looking down through the slightly opened blinds — and the birds are none the wiser!

Besides Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal, there have been chickadees, a gold finch, and a nuthatch come to visit. No so sure what’s up with the house finches…they used to be regulars when the feeder was by the sunroom…maybe they don’t like the new location.

The Gardenator

This time of year I get a bit reckless in the garden. My flowers just don’t “grow themselves” without a bit of guidance — so with trimmer in hand, I … guide them. No wait…I need gloves, the dandilioner, a spade, bucket and recycle bag…

Gruesome, eh?

First to go was the excess stonecrop. I trimmed it along the driveway and along the sidewalk. Ruthlessly trimmed. Then I started yanking… See this patch of stonecrop right in the middle of the fulda glow?

…well, it’s gone now. It will take over that whole corner if I let it.

Next I went to the north side of the house and pulled violets by the bucketsful. They are pretty in their place…but they were getting all over the place.

I next trimmed off most the flowers from the lady’s mantle.

Finally I gave Joe Pye a haircut…

…and for the first time ever, I cut back my Alma P aster. Here she is last fall, not all bloomed out:

She is forever getting out of hand in the fall. Just when she is the prettiest, a big wind and/or rain will come and send her leaning against the hoops she is in. Now I am hoping she will stay smaller and bloom even more.

Then after pulling some maple tree/oak tree seedlings and a couple thistles, I was done for the day.

Oh…take a look at the penstemon!

I like it! Last year it was hidden by the ninebark…languishing in its shadow, but I moved it and now…wow!

A perfect day…

…was happening outside while I was at work.

The vending machine lady told us so.

“Come on, ladies! We are going outside today — it’s beau-ti-ful!”

I wish.

But instead, I did my duty and sat in front of a computer all day, first recounting all the excitement at our house the past few days and then settling down to catch up on a day and a half of work.

…but in the background, there were some wheels whirring in my head, devoted solely to gardening. Shhh! Don’t tell anyone.

So over the noon hour I went home and took a walkabout the yard, making note of a dandelion I missed digging out over the weekend and moaning at how all the violets are taking over the southwest corner — right where the groundcover sedums had thinned out.

Ugh!

I somehow made it through the afternoon back in front of the computer — still not quite caught up — but when 4:30 PM rolled around, I was out the door, in the car, Annie Lennox on summer-time loud, lowered the windows and gracefully hit the open road home.

It makes me sigh how perfect it was to be out decimating those wandering violets.

Poor things. Last year they went way too aggressive in their self-sowing and really exceeded their boundaries.

Two bucketsful later I went on to the next thing on my list: transplant some of the Becky daisy.

I love that Becky daisy. It is the prettiest thing when in full bloom, usually around Father’s Day. The earwigs love her too, so this season I need to read up on some sort of earwig deterrent.

I hadn’t divided the daisy since it was planted five years ago and now it is just growing in a ring around a bare center. It will hide that space once it is fully up — I hope — a daisy comb-over…

I was surprised at how willing it was to give up some of the edges. Being a bit hesitant to overdo it, I only moved a few cuttings to the front yard.

Then finally I dug out some of the grass that sprouted on the wrong side of the edging.

Not knowing when DH would be home, I decided I’d better go in and start the chicken and noodles. He is on a soft diet for three weeks, but he should be able to manage some noodles. I had cooked a whole chicken in the crockpot for Sunday dinner — it came out so tender.

Wish I had homemade noodles — but I can’t make them worth a lick. DH has the knack for that. Hope he doesn’t mind the no-yolks.