New Year's Resolutions...
Kitten Welcomes 2012
Yippee! 2012 is the year of the New Year's Resolution. I've got lots, which I've tried to make into a sort of sandwich. For the garden, for the piano playing, for life in general really...
New Year's Resolutions
Give thanks when I wake up in the morning. Give thanks when I go to bed in the evening. And keep what's in between really simple and really enjoyable.
Oh - there's a purely functional gardening resolution, too. See something that needs doing - OK, maybe walk past it once. But see it the second time and do it! And since I did just than earlier (that is, I saw that the white foxgloves need trimming in the Septic Tank Garden) I'm off to do it! Little Mac the new kitten can come outside on the house decking and maybe do some gardening...
Half an Hour Later...
Done! See how easy this New Year's Resolution business is! The house garden is also clear of larger weeds, and I've now noticed that the rose La Marsellaise is a bit rusty. Ha! I'll get my rose fungus gun. Done! And that was only the first time I'd noticed - I'm getting ahead of myself, hee hee.
House Gardens
Monday 2nd January
Aha! It's already the second day of January, and I've played with the new kitten (Little Mac) much more than I've gardened this year. As I type Non-Gardening Partner is stretched out on the couch, semi-snoring, with kitten curled up asleep in his arms. Cats are really meant to share life with nice people, I reckon! So how about that final hedge trimming clean-up? Think it can wait 'til this afternoon. It's a bit drizzly outside anyway, and I have lots of houseworky things to do - and a backlog of TV to watch.
Cats at Play - Fluff-Fluff and Little Mac
Yesterday I gardened in the house borders while Little Mac zoomed around on the decking and grass. He's a bold little chap, yet still so tiny, and loves playing with big Fluff-Fluff.
Rusty :- Rusty is behaving really well, though he keeps on banging into doors.
Rusty the bucket-head dog continues to mend well, although we found (and pulled out) another three grass-seeds which had punctured the skin underneath his front armpits. It's a really bad seed season, so as soon as the vet gives the post-op OK Rusty is off be shaved. First a bucket-head, then a skin-head...
Later...
Ha! I did proper gardening - four hours' worth. I weeded and trimmed in the Birthday Rose Garden and then cleared some hedge trimmings. I had my first bonfire of the year. Such things are not terribly exciting, but they are a marked improvement on mooching around doing housework, playing with a zooming kitten, and watching The Bachelor (oops).
Tuesday 3rd January
I feel like having my first mini-moan of the year, as many of the house roses have picked up black-spot and a bit of rust. But just when I get a sniff of down-heartedness (?) I remember my no-spraying rose rule. I add the fact that my borders are mixed and roses tend to be poked in here there and everywhere. I puffed some fungal spray over the visible offenders. And I'm not going to moan properly - honestly!
Flowery Island Bed
I took a barrowful of weeds and rose dead-heads (mainly Sally Holmes) from the Island Bed to the bonfire, and added two barrow loads of hedge trimmings. I am doing little things slowly. My flower gardens seem to be reasonably high maintenance at this time of year - I knew that!
Yellow Dahlias
Dahlias!
Yippee for the dahlias, including the big ones that I've staked for the first time. I hope they'll behave. I know it's mid-summer when the early dahlias need dead-heading. Lots of Nicotianas are flowering now, and I'm still finding old forget-me-nots. Eek - how many more are lurking in my garden? I keep on getting seriously 'biddi-nidded'.
Oh, before I forget, I did lots of other things today - like playing chamber music (love JS Bach's trio sonata from the Musical Offering). Escher the bouncing brown puppy visited, and I did some Little Mac kitten-sized gardening around the decking. I made a breakthrough with the Christmas jigsaw while listening to the Australia-India cricket test. Multi-tasking me...