Opportunistic

The lawn gets mowed every other week. I probably could have mowed it last week, but I did other things.

I still don't know where I'm going to, ultimately, put the recycling, garbage, and yard waste cans. To mow the lawn, I moved the garbage can up by the AC unit, to get it out of the way.

Forty-five minutes later, when I finish mowing the lawn, I see this.

I mean, 45 minutes is all it took for this spider to spin a web between the deck and the garbage can. I am impressed. I was going to move the can away from the AC but decided to just leave it after seeing this. The web was gone in 3 days and I've since moved the can, but the ingenuousness of spiders is quite astonishing.

Beverage:  English Breakfast Tea

Deb

Deck Watcher

A couple years ago, I gave one of these to my sister for Christmas.

I've wanted one for myself ever since.

Back in May, I stumbled across a sale on collegiate merchandise at a fan site I've frequented in the past. This guy, usually $24.99, was on sale for $10. I also got another Hawkeye tee shirt because I realized all the shirts I have are from bowl games. I didn't have a shirt which just said "Hawkeyes". As shipping was a flat rate, I got a shirt.

He's happily amongst the flower pots on the deck.

Come winter, I'll bring him in and find a place in the living room. Makes me happy to come out here and sit.

Beverage:  Scottish Breakfast Tea

Deb

It Only Took Two Months

I have some interesting friends. One of them posted a silly horoscope to her Facebook page. I responded by writing something totally off the cuff. She challenged me to write the whole story to go with that sentence.

Immediately, work got crazy. I was traveling every week, sometimes three to four days out of that work week. In so doing, I figured out where the nearest Panera was to my travels.

I printed out the horoscope and pasted it into this journal I was going to use for the collection of quotes from the books I read. (I have abandoned that idea in favor of post-its because I don't want to stop, copy a quote, and read on. It breaks the rhythm. I have the post-its handy for ripping off a sheet and slapping it into the book where it marks the lines I liked.) When I had time to kill, Panera was great. I could get lunch and work on the story and they didn't mind. Around me, people were hooked up to the internet, doing whatever they needed to. I had my journal and my gel pens and I wrote and wrote and wrote.

I was very proud of myself when, after a couple weeks of this, I'd reached paged 23.

No, the journal pages are not numbered. I have to do that myself, but that simple task delivered a great feeling of accomplishment. How far in advance should I number them? Was 30 enough? No. Not even close. 50? I might be half-way through. I'm not sure. I settled on 100.

I wrote in various fragments of time; at the doctor's office at the end of May; at the office when burning CDs or processing data tied up my computer for long stretches. May was cold and damp and I felt the words struggle to flow through my pen onto the pages. Some days, I could barely manage a page. Other days, three and four pages of text seemed to sprint onto the lines. I went through one pack of gel pens and had to buy another.

And then life caught up and all these things I needed/wanted to do called to me and the journal was set aside for a time. I knew exactly how the story would end. I knew the characters. I knew, mostly, the dialog. It was getting it committed to the pages of the journal. I wasn't feeling inspired.

Then, last Saturday, a glorious day of moderate temperatures and warm sunshine, I got the deck into sitting mode.

All the plants are planted, although I need another marigold for one which didn't make it. The statuary is out. There is a table for a drink and supplies, and there is the comfort of flowers.

The geraniums, as I've said, are rather spindly and will be cut back in the next week. This space is inviting now. I don't feel like it needs more than the usual deadheading of flowers. I can sit out here and work on whatever project I have in front of me, be it a book, a cross-stitch, or a story. Of course, my flow gets interrupted by "Hamlet! Deck! Now!" He was so good but has since regressed, although he comes when I call. He's timid, as the girls are, so I probably could let him loose while I finished a chapter or a line of stitching, but I worry and that not good for concentration.

Anyway, Sunday, finally, after two months of off and on writing, I could write "The End".

It's 82 pages in the journal which might type up to 40 pages on 8.5 x 11 inch paper. I changed verb tenses in the last quarter of the story, preferring the ending tenses to the beginning. It made more sense. I'm probably the worst editor of my stuff. I agonize over punctuation placement and whether this word is exactly what I want to use. I didn't do much editing of the raw product but it was hard, when I had to go backwards a few pages to remember where the story was and where it needed to go. Oh gee. That's not the right wording there, and out comes the editor in me.

The next step is to type this up so my friend can read it. After that, I have no idea what I'll do with this, other than mark something complete and move on to the next idea. She mentioned, while driving in the rain one day, seeing a book, pages flapping in the wind, in the median of the road she was on. Did someone leave it on the top of their car and drive off? Or did they heave it out the window during a rainstorm, on purpose? If so, why would you do that to a book? She never specifies the size of the book. So many ideas.

This is a great victory for me. I got the deck set up for a summer of relaxation AND I finished something I'd started. On to the next project!

Beverage:  Water

Deb

A Promise of Better Things

I have been noticeably absent this space since early April. It's been a combination of things. I have not felt well. The warm spring days were followed by chilly and damp days. I don't do chilly and damp very well anymore. It settled into my joints and I found myself aching much more than usual. My rheumatologist agreed that this spring has been hard on people with joint problems.

Then, our work load quadrupled, which sounds like an exaggeration, but is not. I found myself doing day trips two, three and four days out of a week. I appreciate that fate or God or karma decided last year I needed a newer car because the drives to all these places was ever so much nicer when it was done in a car with adequate heat and windshield wipers, as well as cruise control and the ability to sip, not guzzle, gas.

This became something of a bad circle. I ached because of the wild swings in weather. I ached because of all the driving and walking. I couldn't get comfortable at night to fall asleep and stay asleep because I ached, which made me tired. Weekends have been something of a fog. I didn't have the stamina to complete a project so my house is littered with unfinished things. This made me sad and, let's face it, depressed, which contributes to the uneven sleeping. Everything accumulated making writing a chore. I just felt overwhelmed and unable to put thoughts to paper.

That being said, I've been working on a short story based on a writing prompt a friend gave me. She "double-dip dared" me to write a story around a silly Internet photo; a photo I had made an off-hand comment about. I know how the story ends. I just have to write the lines to that point. Now that the weather has moderated, it's inspiring to sit outside with my pen and write. I bought a journal to use for book quotes, but picked it up to use to tell this tale. It's probably a pedantic sort of tale, but I haven't done anything like this in years so it feels fresh and exciting.

I probably have 8 more hours of writing left to do. In true "Sagittarius mode", however, there are more shinies calling for my attention. That's what can overwhelm me and leave me feeling depressed. I love having projects to do, but completing them has always been a problem. The simple act of setting up the project is exhilarating to me. What do I want to do and what supplies will I need to accomplish this? But I get into the thing and have to set it aside because something else crops up, like the need to have clean underwear, and then I lose the drive to finish. It was extremely acute during April and, now, May. Then, I feel like I can't do anything and you see where this track goes. I'm ever so good at beating myself up.

The weather seems to have moderated now. I had a doctor visit last week where I poured out my frustrations and my rheumatologist was so understanding. She reminded me that living with RA means doing small tasks. "Just finish one thing and celebrate that; dishes, a load of laundry, pick up the living room so you don't see lots of piles." I got the oil changed and tires rotated. I spent 3 hours writing on the story; advancing the plot by leaps and bounds. I did a load of laundry and swept half of the floors. Just those things made me feel as if I could accomplish more.

Memorial Day weekend was a series of small victories which I'll detail below. Each step leads to another step which leads to a feeling of accomplishment. The business of business is still astonishingly hectic, but it appears, like the Tetris game, things are falling into place so I am not quite so overwhelmed. I still have to travel, but it's not in a rushing sort of way.

And then, as if to rubber stamp my sense of worth, I managed, for the first time in 3 months, to carve out time to go to cross-stitch club at the Wheaton Public Library. I haven't felt any inclination to do any stitching on the project since January because I've been coming back from somewhere on the day of the club. I stepped out of the house and headed to the car. There was a small rain shower going on. It wasn't much; more like the last bit of water was being shaken from the watering can. I got to the car and turned to slide in and saw this.

I do not remember when the last time was I saw a rainbow this brilliant. Look at the colors. You can see all of them; red, orange, yellow, green, indigo and violet. Excited, I quickly drove to the end of the drive, got out and aimed my ancient cell phone skyward.

Yes, please. I'll have a double helping of rainbow.

If you've followed me for some time you know I'm not a very God-y person anymore. I believe in an almighty, but I don't feel he pays too much attention to me; checking in on occasion, to see that I'm still hanging in there. Sometimes, he takes pity on me and things align, but most of the time, he smiles and moves on to someone with way more cares than I have. I don't want to make too much of a scientific occurrence, but I think this was nature's, karma's, "God's" way of telling me the storm has passed and, while things won't be smooth sailing, because, after all, it is raining, it won't be quite as bad as it has been these past 2 months. I've come through a choppy time and now there will be quieter seas ahead.

(On a strictly scientific note, I was quite surprised the rainbow was so vivid. We didn't get enough rain to wet the deck all over. It really was simply a sprinkle. Yet look at the colors, how clear and dramatic they are. Everything was at the right juncture to create this scene. Science is fascinating.)

So, dear reader, if you've progressed to the bottom of this post, I can't promise I will be as dedicated to this space as I was at the beginning of the year, but I have hundreds of photos I should blog about. It appears life is on the upswing. Things are, indeed, better. I have a double rainbow to prove it.

Beverage:  Earl Grey tea

Deb

It's Deck Time, Part 1

We've come through a highly erratic spring with snow, rain, chill, damp, 80 degrees in February, which I know isn't spring, but it plants the seeds, so to speak. This past weekend marks the unofficial beginning of summer. For me, what better way than to spend an hour at Planter's Palette, oogling the offerings. I came home with four flats and one pot of flowers.

Take note of the really dirty birdbath. I have no clue what that red stuff was. I do know birds weren't using the bath at all.

There are 6 flowers in that light blue container to the left. Those were ordered from Select Seeds. I love their plants but I can't, for the life of me, get the delivery correct. They sat in the kitchen for 2 weeks because it was too cold to put them outside. I think it's best that I just don't try to order plants and simply go to the nursery when I'm ready to plant.

Now that I've got most of what I want, it's time to decide what to plant first. The Diva was there to keep me focused on the task at hand. Friends, seeing this photo, have said she has "resting annoyed face".

I decided the first thing to do was liberate the raised bed.

The weeds really took off this spring. The tall stalks are the leftover sunflowers which weren't going back in the bed. They are going out front this year. I've seen one hummingbird around so I need to get flowers planted which are attractive to them. I think I will also put up the feeder. I found it over the weekend. Nothing like a 2 ounce bird to get you inspired.

After weeding, I mixed up the soil and found these.

It's a bit tough to see, but those are earthworms. I am elated! That means, to me, the soil is a good consistency and healthy. Into this box went peppers.

What 15 minutes of weeding can do to transform an area. I should get weed killer and spray around the box to help keep the weeds down. I added the metal poppies although I probably should have washed them out.

The one on the end has a bent stem. I couldn't bend it more straight so it will always be an end poppy. There are orange, yellow, orange, yellow, orange peppers in the box. Those are my favorites. The plants already have peppers on them so perhaps, by July 4th, I'll be eating home grown, assuming the squirrels don't have a taste for peppers.

The peppers are right across from the hosta which has been off the northwest corner of the deck for well 'nigh 20+ years. It's huge this year.

I don't know if the removal of the trash trees to the north and the freeing up of sunlight or what, but it's never been this big. I'm thrilled. The daylilies in the background have started to spread into the lawn to the northwest. That's annoying, but I can mow over what I don't want.

Now on to part 2.

Beverage:  Earl Grey tea

Deb

It's Deck Time, Part 2

The next step was to wash the birdbath. Oh was that nasty. I took it into the house and scrubbed with dish soap and a stiff brush. Thankfully, it didn't smell. It was just red and weird. It's really important to thoroughly rinse the bath after scrubbing like this because who wants to ingest soap.

That made me feel so much better. The birds haven't been using the bath so I'm hopeful cleaning it out will make them return.

I turned my attention to the southwest corner of the deck.

Perhaps the spring weather encouraged growth. I can't have all this greenery in front of the air conditioning unit. That makes the motor run harder. Here, too, the daylilies at the upper right corner of the photo, were encroaching everywhere. But it's not just them. I don't know what all the plants are which took over the space. I just know they needed to be removed.

This was a 40 minute bit of work. I should probably pull daylilies from the side of the unit, too; move them back a foot. What this area now needs is for me to get mulch and lay landscaping fabric in front of the unit. There is old fabric buried in this area. Daylilies reproduce by roots so they simply burrowed under the fabric and spread. A spray of weed killer, then fabric, and top that with mulch will keep the area clear. It's overgrown to the right, but that's a project for another day.

I have, in past years, put datura in the pot, but the last two daturas I bought didn't do very well. This year, I'm trying nicotiana; tobacco plant. The colors are dark purple and chartreuse. I usually add alyssum to this pot, to surround the datura, but I think I'll forgo the alyssum here this year. I need to get a bag of washed stones and dig out the ground under the pot so it stands more flat.

After finishing this, because I had to trim to the ground, some small trees, I trimmed back some trees around the compost pile. What you can't see is, to the right, a mound of plant life which I'm going to bag up and put out for recycling. I thought about adding everything except the tree trimmings to the compost pile, but daylilies love compost and, since I can't, currently, find the top to the compost receptacle, I knew stuff wouldn't compost. Instead, I'd have a pile taken over by daylilies. I think the top is in amongst stuff near the composter. If I find the top, I can drop all this greenery into the bin and have good compost for the yard.

I was getting tired and although the day was wonderful, I knew I needed to not push myself and to take a break. But there was a bit more I wanted to do.

Beverage:  Earl Grey Tea

Deb

It's Deck, and More Time, Part 3

Having pulled weeds from around the deck, it was time to look at deck flowers. The big thing is where do I want to sit when I'm out there. Last year, I sat with my back to the west deck wall. That was nice, but surrounding the birdbath with flowers, while pretty, didn't seem to be conducive to birds actually using it. To me, it appears big enough to find, but maybe all the foliage around it was scary to them. In placing feeders, you are told to put them where birds have a visible means of escape, should a predator come by. Perhaps that is true of birdbaths.

I think I shall put the chair up against the house this year, adjacent to the back door. I moved the geraniums to the deck, which means it's officially deck time. I have to repot all but the large one as those eggs I saw last year are all over the tops of the small geraniums. I also think the white one will have to be replaced. It didn't overwinter very well.

The geraniums will go along the north deck wall, where they get full benefit of the afternoon sun. Then, I'll put a couple of pots along the west deck wall and leave open, mostly, the birdbath.

I started with the small pot which will, probably, sit on the southwest corner at an angle.

It contains two different colors of sweet potato vines and a plant in the middle that opens during the day but closes at night which I can't remember the name of, but I left the pink tag so when I can't remember, I can look at the tag. Below that is a pot of all marigolds. I love marigolds.

Next up, I filled a couple pots for adjacent to the birdbath.

There are petunias, including a "wave" petunia in shades of yellow and orange, in the back pot. In front is a verbena, a Gerbera daisy, and a strange plant I knew I had to have. I'm not sure I left the pink tag in that pot so I don't remember what it was. The verbena is supposed to cascade over the side. The daisy just called to me. Such a vibrant color.

Yesterday, before heading to cross-stitch club, I took care of the front step flowers.

I keep coming back to begonias. I tried impatiens but they did not do well here. Normally, the plants are on the south side of the steps but I had to replace my dairy box this year and it's an actual Coleman cooler, twice the size of the old box. It couldn't be at the top of the steps where the old one sat. This means the begonias have to be on the north side of the steps. I don't know how that will work since begonias prefer shade and this side gets half again as much sun as sitting against the south handrail, but we'll see.

In the span of three days, I reduced the four boxes to two. What's left are more verbena for a pot, three cosmos, and the plants for the front by the arbor. I have seed packets I want to try this year so one pot is being given over to seeds. The arbor area needs to be weeded and a couple of volunteer trees trimmed way back and sprayed with Round-Up in an attempt to kill them. That's a weekend project, not something to tackle after a full day at work. Also on the docket is weeding the front flower bed to the north of the steps. You can see the green through the hand rail. That's where another birdbath sits and where the hummingbird and seed feeders go.

All of these projects take 90 minutes to 2 hours to complete, at best. This is what I need to remember to do. Pace myself. Do a bit here and there. It's important to create an inviting space, one I want to be in. Small steps this past weekend toward that goal.

Beverage:  Earl Grey tea

Deb

September Progress

September afternoons were spent on the deck. I would come home from work, toss a load of wash in the machine, grab my stitching and go sit on the deck. The weekends were marvelous and this lead to a lot of progress with the beach picture. Of course fall is my favorite season so days spent on the deck are among the most pleasant.

I bought another table for the deck. Usually I would put everything on the plastic ottoman I have out there, but Pilchard likes to lie on that when there isn't another chair out there. I opted for just one chair last year, but I will have to put a second one out to accommodate everyone who wants to sit on something. I have a spot for all my supplies AND, most importantly, a mug of tea. On this particular day, I had washed bathroom rugs and draped them over the deck rail to dry.

That morning and afternoon saw the pants and seagull completed and the next item started.

On a roll, I stitched all week and was able to complete the swim goggles. A week later, the "floaties" were done.

Things don't look like much, particularly the seagull, because I've not done any outlining. The goal is to get the whole of the picture done and then add the outlines. It's coming along.

Beverage:  hot cocoa

Deb

Fleurs

A couple of things from the deck flowers last year which were successful.

1) Zinnias in a pot.

I sat next to this pot all summer, when I was stitching on the deck. It never failed to provide cheer. I adore zinnias. I'm pretty sure I have some old zinnia seeds in the basement seed packets. I should dump a mix out front when I plant the sunflowers. I'll buy plants for the pot on the deck.

2) Chocolate cosmos.

This was a new find from Select Seeds. It does not, unfortunately, smell like chocolate. I put three plants in a pot with a "wavy" petunia.

The petunia cascaded over the sides of the pot and it's green-edged pink flowers were most striking. But, as the summer wore on, it required lots and lots of water to not shrivel. In the end, it was dessicated long before any other flowers were. I did not get it in my order this year.

I did get more of the cosmos. I think if combined with white snapdragons, this could be a very distinctive pot pairing. We'll have to see. the cosmos tolerated the few dry spells we had and kept blooming, as long as I deadheaded it, well past the first light frost. I love wild colors in flowers so this definitely is a keeper.

Beverage:  Dunkin' Donuts tea

Deb

The Next Cross-Stitch

After finishing the wedding sampler, I went a good three months without cross-stitching. It was about reading and making good on my goal to read through all of Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. But the itch, so to speak, needed to be scratched. Picking out the next project also gave me a chance to organize the box in my closet.

I dragged out all the crafting books and pamphlets and dumped them on the living room floor.

I decided my next project would be to liven up the bathrooms at work. We have no art in the office, beyond what people have in their personal offices. I have art, my boss has art, but that's as far as it goes. In the women's bathroom, we have some knick knacks representing the beach. I decided I needed to do a beach cross-stitch. Finding something was going to be the adventure. Oh sure, I could have googled "beach cross-stitch" and come up with something, but why do that when I'm sitting on hundreds of patterns? Plus, the box needed to be organized and this was a prime reason to do so.

Viola.

The pattern on top is not the one I chose. It's cute, but I felt it was a bit too detailed for what I can do. My goal was to find a pattern which used full cross-stitches as opposed to one, like this beach scene, which uses half, quarter and three-quarter stitches. I'm not good at those and they frustrate me. If I'm to get this done with any speed, it must be something I'll enjoy doing.

I also discovered I need a bigger box. I still have magazines piled on top of the box in the closet. One of the issues is the floor space where the box is stored. A box which will hold all my cross-stitch or craft magazines probably will take up all of the floor space. I'm not sure that's entirely what I want. I have, however, decided not to renew a couple of the magazines I get. One was expensive, even with a discount and the other was veering into non-cross-stitch crafts more than when I subscribed to it. I think I will continue Just Cross-Stitch because that's all I want. As it's published 6 times a year, I'm not adding to the pile quite so quickly.

After a couple days of looking through everything, organizing and contemplating what I wanted to do, I decided on this pattern.

It's all full cross-stitches. The header, "Home is where the Beach is" will be removed. I might do "Life's a Beach" or I might just redo the cloud lines above the clothes line. There is also the ability to shorten the sides so there's no white space when the wording is removed.

For the guy's bathroom, I found this.

My office mates probably aren't going to care, but I really like our office. I like how we were allowed to personalize our spaces. This simple act makes going to work so much more enjoyable and I see this art as part of that. Plus, if you'll allow me to be a bit selfish, it leaves a bit of me behind. Our lease is for 7 years so we'll be here awhile. I can see this being our office until Mike leaves and that should be after I leave.

The fabric count was for 26-count linen with the cross-stitching done over two threads. I have never, ever been able to master that. I always work in 11-16-count. It's easier to see and I don't have to worry that I'm not stitching over two threads. But I had no idea then, how much cloth to buy. My local cross-stitch shop came to my rescue. When it's 22+ count fabric, halve the stitch size and use whatever fabric amount is closest. It's the same size. In my case, I'm using 14 count. In my head, it doesn't seem to  work, shouldn't it be double the amount listed? So far, it's working out just fine.

Ivory material was suggested, not white. I'll go with that, but I didn't have any ivory material in my stash. The shop said they aren't stocking much in the 11-18 count fabric. Stitchers have gravitated to the higher thread counts for more detailed images. That makes me sad. "You can find all sorts of 11-18 count online," the proprietor said. Well, yeah, but that's not the point. I want to shop local when I can. She had a piece of fabric which she thought I might like.

It's kind of tough to see the pattern on the fabric. It's a white with a faint sandy wave-like pattern. It's perfect for a beach pattern. With fabric in hand, over Labor Day weekend, I jumped in.

You can see the fabric pattern a bit better in the images.

Cross-stitching is the best thing to do on the deck, I tell you. I made great strides in September.

I would come home from work, grab the stitching and go out on the deck. An hour of stitching made the troubles of the day just melt away.

This represents three days in September. I'm much farther along with this than these photos show. I'll be posting more as I get to them. Lots of photos yet to blog about. The green stripey thing is a pair of men's swim trunks, in case you're wondering.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

Denizens

Growing up on a farm, surrounded by plants and animals, can spoil you to the wonders of what a yard could hold. When we first moved into this house, I admit to trying to tame nature to be something it wasn't. Over the years, I've gone from seeing it as something of an adversary to a friend. I realized if I wanted to grow organic, I couldn't use synthetic pesticides or herbicides. If I wanted butterflies, and I remember clouds of them in the garden on the farm, I was going to have to call city hall and ask that spraying for mosquitoes occur sporadically, rather than every week. The pesticide used to kill mosquitoes was killing butterfly larva. A golf club yard isn't necessarily the most diverse and can be a desert for birds.

It's taken awhile and I still have some things in the basement, like Round Up, which I use on tree stumps and to control the spread of Canadian thistle. I'm not feeding thistle seed to finches in my yard. Sorry birds, but you're messy and I want to be able to walk barefoot through the yard without stepping on those things. Gad that hurts. There are other foods I can put out which will be good and then I'm not wandering around with Round Up worried about the repercussions of spraying whole sections of yard for thistle.

It takes awhile for the wild life to figure out what you're doing and to return. Squirrels, no. Raccoons, no. Opossums, no. Put some stale peanuts in the ground feeder on the deck and the next morning, well...

Such a mess. Fortunately, I could just sweep the shells off into the lawn but as much as it's a hoot to watch the squirrels take a couple of peanuts off into the back of the yard, it's not worth the morning mess. I like feeding peanuts but I make a pile on the tree stump where the raccoons and opossums can feast and not tip things over.

One creature I had not seen in any form in years was this.

It's a dragonfly. The body was irridescent green. The wings were black with hints of blue. It's extremely hard to sneak up on a dragonfly to take a photo, but it flitted around the back for a good hour, alighting on various branches.

I also had hummingbirds. I have to post those photos, as I work through all the photos I took last year which never got blogged. What I hope is getting the birdbath in the front fixed so it retains water and redoing where the birdbath is on the deck will encourage more dragonflies and hummingbirds and just wildlife in general to hang around the yard. I should look into suet posts and probably hummingbird feeders, too, but one step at a time.

Sometimes, when I'm watching squirrel acrobatics to get into the north feeder, I think I should have done this years ago; kept it up when I had one feeder. One feeder got to be a chore. But you make choices about what you can do and I can do this now. It gives me immense pleasure.

Now is when it will be done, then.

Beverage:  English Breakfast tea

Deb

Garden Planning

The days are getting longer. After what seemed like a full two solid weeks of gray skies, there have been brilliantly blue sunny skies. Even though I start to get seed and plant catalogues after Thanksgiving, I simply pile them on the ottoman and don't really start looking at them until now. It's kind of useless to plan when I haven't the cash to make any purchases.

Over the weekend, I sorted through the stack, recycling over 75% of them. It's time to start thinking of what I want this year. I reconfigured where the flowers were on the deck last year.

Usually, this corner is flowers. I had zinnias in a pot to the left, as you're sitting, of the chair. I bought that mesh table because Pilchard likes to sit on the ottoman to the right of the chair where the ground feeder rests. That didn't leave a spot for me to put my book, my tea, my cross-stitch projects. So another table was in order. I wanted to sit and watch the squirrels to the left when they feed on the tree stump.

Mainly, changing where I sat was a function of sunlight. It's at my right side and back, instead of my left side and front. So that left the south side of the deck free for the organization of plants.

By the time I got the plants outside, due to chilly weather, they'd spent a couple of weeks in a box and in the sink getting watered.

They were leggy and a bit awkward. I wound up losing three of them. But that taught me when I order this year, delivery can't be until May 1st. April weather is just too dicey and I need to be able to put these out within a week of arrival. 

The rest recovered nicely. 

The wave petunias, grown to cascade over the side of a pot, lasted until early September. I have to quit ordering primrose. As pretty as they are, they do not blossom for me and don't do well in pots on my deck. They are akin to pansies in that they don't like hot weather.

I don't like the strawberries I ordered last year, but I can't remember what the name of the ones were I ordered the year before. Maybe I should forego strawberries as the squirrels get to them before me. The geraniums were a bit leggy when I put them outside, but a trimming back made them nice and bushy.

This was a nice arrangement. The birdbath, however, was not used nearly as much as it had been in previous years. I don't think creatures felt safe. One of the issues is that the gutter is bent to the south of the door and when it rains heavily, water cascades onto the deck and anything below it. I'd move flowers to that section of the deck, but they would be drenched and probably destroyed by rain. I have a problem, as it is, with squirrels digging in my plants.

I think I need to move the birdbath closer to the deck steps this year. I also have to put the pot on the railing up onto something to allow air to circulate under the pot. I don't have enough of those plastic things I use under deck pots. I have had them for years and don't know if I can find anything like that anymore.

The moonflower, datura, which goes in the pot by the steps, didn't do as well as in the past. The alyssum did wonderfully, but the moonflower just didn't grow very big. I missed the giant trumpet blossoms and the intoxicating fragrance. The area around this pot has been cleared, but this year, landscape fabric and mulch is going down in this location. It's near the air conditioning unit and that area is going to be cleared so the unit is free of weeds for air circulation.

So the temperatures are going to be in the mid to upper 40's this next week. The back yard is a swamp. I'm itching for spring to get here and for flowers and plants to brighten the yard again.

Beverage:  Assam tea

Deb