No time for dreaming...
Escher the Brown Puppy
Aargh! The Moosey social calendar flexes its tough, older-retired-lady muscles. Book group, some lovely garden visitors, two daytime parties... There's been no time for garden dreaming these last few days.
Sunday 26th February
Actually I've had a whirl of a time, with much anticipation, and twinges of worry that I would completely forget something (oops). And of course, in the middle of all this, I have been dog-sitting Escher, Son of Moosey's big brown bouncing puppy - Escher with the best dog-nose in the business.
Should you wish to present your lovely garden visitors with either a desiccated, totally flattened rat, or a fresher, still-squishy maggoty mouse, then Escher is the dog for you! His top-class brown nose discovered everything remotely smelly, including copious lashings of horse manure that I'd recently put on the Frisbee Border. Oh dear - no, honestly, I really tried to keep the MOST watchful eye on him. I did! I only took my eyes off him for a few seconds...
Kronenburg Roses
And we had serious fun! The two dogs had kept returning each day into the orchard to reroll in a rotten hedgehog (another garden treasure found by the Nose-Of-Escher). So we spent rather a lot of time in the water race getting clean.
Ligularia Flowers
Ooops...
There was a moment - just one - of personal hygienic doubt. There I was the next day, playing the piano at my (first) party. I was in the most elegant of rooms, overlooking the most beautiful of country gardens. Suddenly I thought I caught the faintest whiff of dead hedgehog. Oh dear. On my shoes? In my hair? Fingernails? Eek! 'And I think to myself - whaaaaat a wooooonderful world...' I played on, sheepishly, hoping that nobody would come over and talk to the pianist.
I just wish that Non-Gardening Partner had mowed my lawns properly for my visitors. No -there's more. After seeing what sweeping country garden lawns should look like (at my piano-playing party) I am green (ha ha!) with envy. I fancy a contractor, brought in to lift all the scruffy old paddock and relay some proper grass.
Non-Gardening Partner thinks not. 'But you like your garden to be natural, and a bit messy' he comforts me. 'It suits you'. Hmm...
Goodbye, Daughter of Moosey
Now it's Sunday, and (in the midst of dog-dramas, book-group, and parties) Daughter of Moosey has departed for the first stage of a six-month world adventure, based around trekking in the wild world's outdoors. As I write she is on the way to Kathmandu via Singapore. Aargh! My gourmet cook has gone!
Lunch Cats by the Daisies
Hello, Moosey Garden
Hello, Moosey Garden. What would you like me to do today? Do you have great expectations? 'Do I look like a library?' replies the Moosey Garden, hee hee.
I'd like to clear up all the gum tree bark from the pond paths. There are also a lot of gum leaves on Rusty the dog's lavender Garden. Perhaps I'll just have a little bonfire day and test out my new little incinerator. I will miss the big brown puppy, but his absence means that Little Mac the kitten and big Fluff-Fluff the cat will be back on proper, visible gardening duty. And my piles of horse manure will be safe. Back soon.
Three Hours Later...
I've been clearing old Lychnis and dead-heading the Dahlias in the middle of the Island Bed. Island Beds always have middles which tend to get a bit messy, don't they. The tomato red Penstemons (I must get some cuttings) and the spiky yellow dahlia are still flowering, and I've trimmed the big weeping Phormiums. Then I did a quick tidy up along the driveway, dead-heading roses and trimming the lupins down to a few fresh ground-level leaves. I haven't done any burning yet
Kitten Up A Tree
I had lunch with Non-Gardening Partner (who has promised to do my lawns in the late afternoon), three cats (kitten, Fluff-Fluff and Tiger, senior cat) and Rusty the dog (begging for crusts) on the patio. The house gardens look gorgeous from a distance, as usual! Click went the camera...
Much Later...
Another delightful day in the garden has ended. Little Mac has been zooming up and down the Ginkgo tree, my little incinerator has been puffing away, looking really comical with its chimney top on. Useful for small burn-ups of gum leaves, but not for much else, and I'd expected less smoke, too...
But I remind myself how easy and quick it is to rake up gum leaves off a lawn. One just stops grumbling and gets on with it. There really is no need to get cross with gum leaves. In fact, they are quite inconsequential in the grand garden scheme of things
.Oops - the lawn mower's blade shear pins have been broken, and it wasn't caused by NGP mowing one of my abandoned garden hand tools. So my lawns will have to wait.