Time to reflect...
Cat in a Box
Nice - drizzle! Time to reflect and do some web-work, before getting down and dirty in the garden. I am surrounded by cats snoozing in cardboard boxes. I provide super-groovy cane baskets, adorned with snuggly, woolly, merino blankets, yet my cats choose function over style.
Tiger in a Box
Tiger has now claimed the box that my new video camera came in (great excitement for meeeeee, but I have to get a memory card). As far as the kitchen bench is concerned a cat in a box is a much better look than a cat not in one...
Thursday 10th December
Fluff-Fluff is honking in his sleep, and Mugsy is snoring - well, I think that's what's happening. Percy the ginger gardening cat is noticeably absent - he's probably snoozing on the bed upstairs with Minimus. They've all turned into outside cats - just because there's a little bit of drizzle...
Mugsy Art :- Mugsy is the oldest surviving Moosey cat. This is a detail from Clara's black and white rendering.
I've been shown a wonderful piece of art which features Mugsy the cat. Her heart-warming story pops up on Clara's blog. So Mugsy lives on, though some days are better than others. That's life, I guess, for a geriatric cat.
Right. Today I should find places today for the last of my new old roses. My plant collector friend is laughing about the potential that Kiftsgate and the Rambling Rector have to spread seriously all over my garden.
Plant in Haste, Repent at Leisure
To quote him: 'Plant in haste, repent at leisure'. He lives a few country properties away from me, and I have threatened to point them towards his back paddock... And I'm going to plant my new Agaves, and the new Camellias, and if I'm not too muddy I might even weed the vegetable garden.
The Shrubbery Extension
The tomatoes need feeding.
The borders need weeding.
While I'm wasting time
Making things rhyme.
Hee hee hee. Silly old me... Enough! I'm going outside. I don't care if I get wet. Wet is fine. In summertime...
Mid-Afternoon...
I have been so good. For I have been doing 'maintenance' (nothing rhymes with 'maintenance'). I've raked and burnt hedge trimmings, weeded by the Birthday Garden Mural, planted three Camellias, and picked some more drooping peonies for the house.
Two Cats in a Box
Now I'm inside I remind myself that not all garden days can be glamorous or deeply meaningful. Yesterday there I was gazing at Omar Khayham (an old fashioned rose) and wondering about the first seeds that were collected from the tomb. Today I've been dragging sodden pieces of other people's pine tree rubbish out of the water race and over to the bonfire (definitely a non-spiritual experience).
No Cat Company!
And not a whisker of cat or dog company. Now I find Fluff-Fluff and Histeria the tabby both jammed into one cardboard box, and Rusty the dog slouched on his armchair. More lazy bones animals!
Friday 11th December
Right. I'm off swimming and morning tea-ing, and on the way home I'll be checking the charity shops for garden gnomes (as one does). Then hopefully I'll get those Agaves dug in - lots of talk and no action, as far as they're concerned.
Other things on today's garden hit list are as follows:
- Glass-House Garden
- Weed, trim aquilegias and foxgloves.
- Vegetable Garden
- Weed and water, feed tomatoes.
- Pond Garden
- Plant the two Rosa Moyesii geraniums on the fence-line.
Then I must do a quick rose check of the Glass-House Garden with my camera. Princess Diana my free, rescued rose is doing well (though she looks more like a boring Iceberg than a Princess), there's a beautiful striped cherry red (Michelangelo?), a lovely new orange-apricot single rose which could be Just Joey, and several floppy pinks...
Rescued Rose
Rose Awareness
All of these roses need to be processed into the Moosey Rose Awareness System. Several were bought for small amounts of money in online auctions, name and colour unknown. Others have been shifted in from other garden areas, naturally with no paperwork. If I can't name them then at least I can see what they look like. My latest promise to myself - notice everything!
Much Later...
I've done most of the things on my list, but some of the toddler Agaves are still unplanted, and I didn't totally weed out the grass from around the big ones. I can do that later. I hope that Non-Gardening Partner doesn't mind a family of spiky Agave squatters around his water tank.
Now I'm having a cup of tea, then I'll put the hoses on and set up the vegetable garden watering. I am very pleased with me and my day, with only one slight problem - I left some bags of horse manure in the back of my car, forgetting to get them out. The fragrance is overwhelming, and I will not be driving anywhere for a while. Country smells are fine and OK, but this is a bit excessive.