The Garden - July 2019

Bachelor Buttons

The flower garden continues to bring new things and the return of my favorites. The Bachelor Button seeds were actually planted last summer and didn't do anything, and then came in like crazy this spring along with the Larkspur. The California Poppies re-seeded themselves and came back in beautifully as well. The Dianthus came in stronger this year, and there are actually 4 different varities/colors in one pot for a extended burst of color. The thing I am most excited about is my first attempt at Gladiolus and they bloomed with one of my favorite colors, the beautiful coral red, and a lavendar/blue one is set to open soon too. As I type this there is a green Hummingbird feeding on the red Crocosmia on the side of my front porch, so much color happening right now!

Dianthus

Penstemon

Gladiolus

Spring Flowers May 2019

Russell Hybrid Lupine

 Long time no see (me). This continues to be a crazy year at work, and I have been working 6 days a week for I think almost two months. It has left me little free time and energy to be posting here, but I have been spending as much time as possible with gardening and starting seeds when I can.

I continue to try new things, some I have success with more than others, but I am becoming a big believer in direct sowing some seeds outdoors because I can't always manage to get seedlings strong enough to handle transplanting.

One of the funniest things that happened this spring is that I got a bunch of volunteer Larkspur that came up in the flower bed in back. The plants that I had started from seed indoor last year didn't do that great in 2018, but they re-seeded themselves and came in better, stronger and taller than all of the ones that I planted last year.

The other plant that didn't do anything when I planted seeds last year were the blue Bachelor Buttons, and several of them came up this year. Mind you, both of these are annuals. Go figure!

Clematis

Russell Hybrid Lupine

Begonia

Looking Forward to Spring!

Savage Chickens

Pickles

Pearls Before Swine 

Well, February was a really rough month to say the least. Here in Whatcom County we had overnight (and quite a few day time) temperatures below freezing for the whole entire month. As I right this there is still snow on the ground around my house and in piles around the county, accumulated from several snow storms from over three weeks ago. I joke that it was like having a Michigan winter all in one month. We also had several very strong wind storms, and the cause of most of this cold is air coming down from the arctic via the Fraser River Valley in British Columbia.

My neighbors lost a 50 foot+ evergreen, and my landlords had half of their 20 foot+ lilac bush split in half. I was so excited in January starting to see things show signs of life for spring, and now I'm wondering if any of the spring bloomers are going to survive this brutal cold.  The other fun was catching a cold at the start of the month that caused me to miss a few days work and total sapped my energy for at least two weeks. Like a lot of folks, I am really, really looking forward to spring and it warming up. I just started my first seeds this afternoon, my hope for the future, Cherry Rose Nasturtiums ☺ 

Cherry Rose Nasturtiums from Floret Flower Farm

Happy New Year 2019

Baby Blues - January 2, 2019

So obviously I don't post very often. I intended to do a thoughtful post reflecting on 2018, and looking ahead to 2019 on New Year's Eve, and clearly that didn't happen. So here I am after a long day of work, and running an errand after work, and it's now 12 hours after I left the house for the day.... and I'm posting a comic strip that really hit my funny bone because it was so relateable. 

After I got home, and started to get settled in, I had to move the couch to retrieve not one, but two toy mice the cats were playing with when I encountered a small pile of pine needles from the Christmas tree! I got a Christmas tree on the Saturday right before Christmas - this was the first tree I've had in around 20 years. I was kinda bummed that it didn't last longer, but I had to take it outside on New Year's eve because it was dropping so many needles. I thoroughly vacuumed the living room (or so I thought), but, well, you get the picture.

I really enjoyed the tree for the short time I had it. I really love the smell of a real tree, and it was nice to see ornaments that have been boxed up for what seemed like forever. Some ornaments from childhood along with some I got for myself or received over the last 30 years. This was the first tree that all of my cats had experienced and they actually did pretty good at not messing with it, but I did manage to find two small ornaments on the floor as I was cleaning up. 

So long story short, I'm alive, my days are just long with work, and so I'm not on the computer sharing stuff that much because it's a lower priority with the little free time I seem to have. I do post on my Instagram because it's convenient to do on my phone, it's where I do most of my web-surfing to get the news and entertainment. I am doing okay, and like everyone else, I'm looking forward to spring and working in the garden and seeing everything new that I planted last year.

The cats are all doing okay; they all got to the vet in September, and Munchkin was diagnosed with Diabetes, but he's doing much better now that he is getting insulin shots twice a day. Tommy is feeling older lately, but he's at least 16, so it's to be expected.

I hope everyone that reads this is doing well, and forgives me that I'm not a prolific writer.

Happy New Year! Maria

Munchkin

Boo & Tommy