Back From Canada

Well, my brother Normand and I made it back from Canada about 5 this afternoon.
We got around to seeing a whole lot of people in a pretty short time. My mother's birthday was Friday and we had a lovely dinner of mussels in a wine and garlicky sauce with jullienned zucchini and some chanterelle mushrooms served over cappellini spaghetti. Normand also made a very technically constructed angel food cake that looked very much like a bee hive. Friends and neighbors came over to wish my mother a happy birtday and have cake and a glass of wine.
Saturday morning we headed to Quebec city for my cousin Sarah's wedding. The couple had a small civil ceremony and everyone met at a bring-your-own-wine restaurant that served very good food at a very reasonable price. It was great to see everyone....I met lots of new to the family children that I hadn't seen yet. Sarah herself is expecting in October and although tired and achy-backed she was positively glowing.
My mother stayed at my aunt Charlotte and uncle Christian's house. Normand and I stayed with my cousin Linda and Yvon's house. Linda and I stayed up yacking and emptying Molson Dry bottles until 4:30 this morning. It was a little rough waking at 8:30 this morning but we got underway and stopped over to say bye to my mother and aunt and uncle who were going to tour the city a little today as it's Quebec's 400th anniversary this year and there's a lot going on about the city to see.
Still - I'm glad to be home again with my cats who did seem to miss me and my feeding and petting abilities.
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'73BuickCentury

When Hannah was little she always got a little sad and upset when we got a new car. I think she worried about the old car (I always felt sad for yellow lollipops and always volunteered that I wanted them as we pulled away from the drive-thru teller at the bank). We had a '73 Buick Century that was bequeathed to Reta (Sarah's sister) who I lived with for a year during a bout with searching for independence. We made good use of the Buick for a couple of years.
This weekend Hannah has brought the new boyfriend over (a newer model) He seems nice enough and it's pleasant to have company for a change. But.....wouldn't you rather have a Buick?

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Spider Deluxe Weather Report

My friend Mary told me years ago that if the spiders hung out their sheets in the morning it won't rain that day. I seem to remember having seen these sheets out to dry yesterday morning too but we'll see if it holds true for today as well.
It's quiet this morning. Hannah and her friend are sleeping in the living room and I'm enjoying my coffee and the late summer garden. The sunflowers look like a group of gossiping school girls. Perhaps comparing themselves to the shorter plants' much less elegant blooms. Good thing they're far enough apart.
I have to go to the store and get the fixings for the Coq au Vin that Hannah requested. Then maybe we'll work on the arbor project. It would be a fine fine thing to have done on this vacation week.
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Standing Watch

If you've ever experienced a broken heart yourself you might well have almost as much pain watching someone you care about who's having the same experience. You want them to feel better, to help them realize they have to find a way to move forward - and try not to discourage them when you see them taking backwards steps. It's part of a process you know, but still there's the ache of remembrance of your own experiences. Is it all you can say - It will get better?
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Fist Ripe Red Tomato

It looks like most of the tomatoes will be ripe around the same time within the next couple weeks. This one was under some greener ones. My complexion will be irritated the next couple weeks too but I can't resist a tomato sandwich with mayo, salt and onion powder....wah! Other things are doing well too but it looks like I'll have to thin the chinese cabbage more. Lettuce round two will be starting probably next week just in time for tomatoes and any other veggies from kind hearted people who have too many.
There's four days left of the work week then I'm off for ten days - four of which I'll be heading to Riviere Ouelle Canada with my brother Normand and possibly my daughter. It's going to be my mother's 84th birthday on the 29th, so we'll be there for that and the wedding of cousin Sarah too.
I didn't get the arbor project completed, though I did buy the wood and started trying to pre-drill and screw it together. Alas, I found I was about two hands short of able. I later called on friend Wally to come with a nail gun later this week so we can tack it together, then drill and screw it solidly....there're other projects to do during my time off but I figure it's worth doing the outside ones while there's good weather.
I'm getting a call in from a Tom A. To - gotta go now.....
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Morning's Glory

I just realized why they're called morning glories when I came home from work yesterday and found the bloom I wanted to get a picture of "closed for business" that had been open when I left in the morning. Some connections aren't automatic but with a little thought - there they are!

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Still Gardening

I didn't get much done over the weekend but somehow the garden is still thriving without my attention. These are the lettuce and chinese cabbage plants coming right along. I'm still waiting for some of the big tomatoes to even start ripening although the little yellow plums are going pretty strong as are the blackberries.
Things have been rather quiet around here and although I didn't buy wood for the future arbor I did go investigate the possibilities over the last weekend. I'm pretty sure it'll be this weekend's project besides doing the general cleaning and mowing stuff.
Today was the first all sunny day we've had in a long time. It's not humid and the evenings have been very sleep worthy. You can almost feel a touch of fall coming dare I say? I don't really look forward much to winter but having been a New Englander all my life I feel it's necessary and right that there be some time to contemplate the next gardening season to really appreciate it when it's here. I couldn't happily live anywhere else really - It's all here for me. For you? It's all wherever you are or you'd be somewhere else no? Although I sometimes think more money or a new relationship would make me happier, I don't feel driven to strive for either thing because at the end of the day I'm just happy to be home with what I have. It has been always been the seasons and the goodness of people that has made me feel most alive....it's hard to say if our lives are any easier than they were 100 years ago....we support so many things they didn't have to then but we want all those things....things that make us feel connected, important parts of the society we live in. But is the end result better for us than our predecessors? Another evolutionary turn that has yet to produce a definitive answer....still gardening though.
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I'm Stuck In a Loop Lola! Help Me!

Sorry Moos, I'm busy looking outside right now. Another busy day today at the Tilton Hilton. No, not really or the shop vac would be on and removing the fur from everywhere.
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Black Fly

I think this is a White Admiral Butterfly and how is it they are so beautiful and still an insect? We generally don't care for insects but I'm sort of partial to the pretty ones. And I find even the less spectacular ones are often little jewels when you look more closely. It' just the stinging and biting ones I find less attractive... And still - I look forward to seeing the bumblebees in the flowers every day. Flowers need the attention.
There is now another Sunflower to keep the orange one company. It's a wine red color but the back of it looks like the puffy pants that the Swiss Guards wear - orange and red. I wonder if that will earn me any Papal indulgences - whatever that means.
I have the afternoon off - what a wonderful thing! I stopped in on Sarah at McGowan Fine Art in Concord on the way home and we decided to take Monsieur Henri for a walk about town. Much to our delight there was a Joy fm van parked in front of the State House and some very nice young ladies offered us FREE ice cream. Being a warm and muggy day it only made sense to accept so we enjoyed the peanut butter cup ice cream there on the State House lawn. It's been a days of being in the right place at the right time - both ice cream and butterfly-wise.
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Enough For a Tiny Salad

I found a few golden plum tomatoes that were ripe for a salad when I got home. The lettuce has a couple more weeks before it's big enough but I have some other lettuce in the interim as well as a couple cukes.
I hope I didn't plant the fall veggie seeds too early - they sure are coming up fast! It's been so rainy this summer and the gardens seem happy but there's a point when things will just start rotting. I noticed the tomato plants sent their branches out into the grass and took root there too. I had to pull them back to mulch between the 4x4s because it's impossible to mow there now that there's a plum tree in the middle.
Everything else is so lush including the crab grass. There were a few taking hold in the new fall veggie garden but they had a little "falling out" with me.
I think the happiest things are the bumblebees. They love the bee balm and veronica and I find them sleeping there in the morning as I'm leaving for work.
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Hummingbird Quickshot

Well, I managed a quick glimpse of the female hummingbird with the camera. It's not a great picture, but you can see her. They apparently didn't like me sitting so closeby. After I moved my chair further away and put the camera away, the little female came by and hovered a couple feet away looking at me. I said hello and she flew off. As I watched them I noticed that whenever the female came to the feeder, the male would come and divebomb her away from it....wonder why that is? You can tell the male from the female by the bright red throat on the male, and the female is mostly just green.

Other than the big mulching project this weekend there wasn't much else that got done, other than laundry which didn't have much opportunity to dry. Maybe today if I make it home before the daily thundershowers I may have some mostly dry laundry.

The Sunflowers in Booboo gardens have started opening and look spectacular (albeit wet). They are of course, a good bit taller than me. I hope all this rain doesn't shorten their flowering life, but it seems there are several flower buds on each stalk so there'll be more chances for flowers. Keep blooming and growing...good thoughts for us all.

Mulching Prophecy Holds True

This morning I went and got 5 bags of cedar mulch then came home and started laying out the weed guard. So far it looks like I'm about halfway done and it looks and smells good too.
Right now I'm taking a little break before I go back to the store. This time I'm going to try and fit eight bags of mulch in my Civic. Two of them will probably have to ride shotgun. Does that all sound like great fun? I'm also thinking about eating sometime today.
The pictures are before during and after the mulch. Big improvement aye?
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I See More Mulching In My Near Future

Today I bought a big roll of lanscaping weed guard and a bunch of stakes. Four years ago I got 20 very small Blue Spruce and Cedar trees and although they've grown some, I think they'd do much better if they didn't have all the crabgrass and blackberry bush wannabees to contend with. I had in mind to make some sort of privacy hedge with them and want to see if they'll be a bit happier with a little blanketing. At any rate they'll certainly look a lot neater and be easier to mow around. I've also been so impressed with what a difference the mulching made for the other gardens so...
It's been sort of a long week, made longer by having to close up at work which made for a twelve hour day. Sure am glad to be home with the kitties and a baseball game on the radio. Really, Friday night is my favorite.