Aging and distressing...
Canna and Dahlia
My garden book has a chapter on 'aging and distressing'. This is perfect reading for an older-lady gardener about to spend up large at - aargh! - THE DENTIST! Please, no - I prefer the garden nursery!
Thursday 19th February
A sign at breakfast. Reading my latest gardening library book about 'aging and distressing' while waiting for my egg to boil. Beep goes the oven timer. My plate is ready - eggcup, pinch of salt, tiny teaspoon (very important). Ah - the anticipation of a lovely, bright Moosey hen egg, cooked to perfection. Hmm... I'd been carefully boiling eggless water for 3.75 minutes.
Today I am back in the garden, after walking in the mountains yesterday. I have a few distractions - horrible things like another visit to my dentist (sorry, dentists), where yet again I contemplate the large amount of money to be spent on the Moosey teeth. Aargh!
Minimus :- Minimus started life wild - my dog Rusty found him in the woodshed. Thanks, Rusty, for saving this little kitten!
Minimus the kitten is inside again, playing one of Rusty the dog's toy teddy-bears. I haven't had a solo kitten for a while - pairs of kittens play-fight and scoot around the house together. Minimus play-fights with my legs (ouch!) and my hands (ouch!) and then scoots around trying to trip me up. Hmm... Did I prefer him all frightened and fragile? No, but...
My new gardening book is a bit of a treat. I am advised to 'dig with my eyes', which sounds important, though I don't think my eyes work like that! I have temporarily dismissed the chapters on aging and distressing my large terracotta pots (a la Sir Humphrey Repton).
- 'Real-life gardening is much simpler than book-gardening.'
- -Moosey Words of Wisdom.
What my garden needs today is neither aged nor distressed - it is a keen, centred, hard-working older-lady gardener who will dig with her shovel (and not wear her gym shoes in the garden). Real-life gardening is much simpler than book-gardening. It just requires simplicity in the attitude - less is more, that sort of thing.
My Colourful Garden Mess
Later...
Yes. I've been weeding away in the Shrubbery, which is remarkable tidy considering I haven't popped in here for some weeks. Now I need to get stones to edge the paths. And the most exciting thing is that there is a lot of room for - ahem - new plants. After I've paid for my teeth, that is... Aargh!
Friday 20th February
I'm listening to the gentle, driving rain which is falling and irrigating my scruffy garden. Minimus the Woodshed Kitten is playing with his toys. He is spoilt for choice - magical bouncing balls, catnip mice, small soft toys (including a thin roadrunner and a tweety-bird), tissues on string tied onto all the kitchen chairs... The Moosey legs have once more transformed into sctatching posts. Last night Minimus had his first night inside, sleeping on his maroon Mongolian blanket on a chair. Lucky!
The nicest thing about a really rainy day are the noises outside - the slopping and dripping of the water and the singing (well, more like chirping) of numerous tree frogs. Yippee! My forgotten tree frogs still exist. And one notices odd visual details on ones drippy journey to feed the hens - like the lacecap Hydrangeas, the fountain grass seed-heads, and the purple Angelica in flower, covered in bumble bees.
Flowering Annuals
What Plant Am I?
Inside I've been very busy working on the website's What Plant Am I? Quiz. Suddenly I have a host of beautiful annual flower photographs to include, as a result of some mad roadside snapping apres-dentist yesterday. I really like the red and purple Salvias...