Category Archives: house

gardening

Spring Daffodils

The two bunches of daffodils I had ordered from the American Cancer Society for Daffodil Days arrived this morning, delivered to my desk at work. I wasn’t sure if they were going to arrive in pots or cut — turns out they were cut flowers, which was a slight disappointment. (The ones from the University were potted bulbs, as I recall.) This morning, they were completely closed buds; by lunch, half of them had started to open, and by the time I left work today, all but a few were starting to open.

That made me wonder how the mini daffodils I planted last year are faring. Once I got home, and after Aaron left for work, I went outside to take a peek — and they’re growing! I had planted them in six or seven clumps, and it looks like all but one clump have a good inch of leafy growth popping up. Yaye!

I feel all springy and excited now. I have the windows open, even though it’s cooling down outside, and I’m pumped to do my new Push workout that arrived today. Yeah!

Too bad it’s going to be 30’s and flurries for the next week. 😛

house

Dancing In The Dark

I had spent probably an hour or so fiddling with the new LSM site, saving to the server every few minutes.

Thank goodness for my particular choice of workflow, because shortly before 9pm, the power went out. I had been listening to some Oakenfold (generally my soundtrack of choice while doing webstuff), and suddenly I heard a popping noise outside as my monitor winked out. Then silence. And frustration, until it occurred to me that I’d been saving every two minutes. 🙂

I got up from my desk, walked over to the cabinet o’ candles, and pulled out a couple. Lit one for the basement, one for the living room, and one for the dining room. It wasn’t actually dark yet, but I like to be prepared.

Anyway, it was too dim to really do anything indoors, even with the candles lit, so I went outside to see if the neighbors’ power was out, too. (Yes, I left the candles lit like an irresponsible Diana.) Sure enough, the neighbor lady was outside, and so was the one a couple doors down from her. Our whole end of the street was out.

Went back inside and located the old-school phone that doesn’t need plugged into a power outlet. Not the cell, although that would have worked, too. Anywho, I dug out the electric bill and called the 24-hour Emergency / Outage number I found listed there. I was expecting some surly switchboard operator, but it ended up being one of those automated voice recognition systems. At first, I thought it would be voicemail hell, but once I figured out that it was that voice recognition shit, it wasn’t bad. Just weird.

Once our power outage was reported to the nice computer, I grabbed a book and sat out on the front step to read for a while. After about 20 minutes, though, even the light outside wasn’t sufficient for reading. So, I went inside, blew out the rest of the candles (I’d extinguished the one downstairs before I went out to read), put on socks and shoes, grabbed my keys and my cellphone (it has a built-in flashlight) and went for a walk. Hell, nothing better to do, right? And maybe by the time I got back, my power would be back on. Right?

Wrong-o. Got back half an hour later, and still no lights. Not even any streetlights. Went back inside, re-lit the candles, and got out the Palm IIIc to write this entry. Thank goodness for backlit screens.

So, here I sit, at… *checks watch in glow of Palm screen* …10:45pm, covered in a thin film of perspiration thanks to the impotent and powerless box fan—

Holy shit. The power just came back on. I’ll be goddamned.

Two hours without power. Could have been worse.

Now to go upload this entry, and see whether my computer’s fried…

gardening

Gardening Update

Well, it’s been over a month since I planted my first batch of garden goodness from Michigan Bulb. I wouldn’t have bought any more this year, but Scott ended up getting the Fall catalog in the mail, replete (resplendent?) in its fantastic coupon-bearing glory.

So, before the new arrivals arrive, I thought this would be a good time to recap on this season’s gardening progress. Read on for photos and descriptions of my cute baby plants and not-so-cute weed gardens.
Continue reading →

gardening

Gardening Update

Today, when my co-worker Scott came back from lunch, he brought with him my Moonbeam Coreopsis plants which had arrived from Michigan Bulb today. I had been hoping to plant those today, but the rain had other plans.

Yesterday afternoon, it occured to me that I hadn’t planted the bare-root Lilies of the Valley and Delphiniums that I’d picked up from Scott’s house the week before. When I went to check them out, to see how they were faring in their little plastic bags, I discovered the Lilies of the Valley growing absolutely apeshit *inside* the sealed bag. It’s like going under the kitchen counter to that sack of potatoes you forgot about, and discovering a freaking garden growing in your kitchen: kind of fascinating, but kind of weird and gross. Except these were *supposed* to be growing, so it wasn’t as gross as it was weird.

Anyway, after I put the laundry in the dryer last night, I went outside and prepared the dirt in front of the house—basically, I turned over the soil and removed the skeletal remains of last year’s gardening debacle—and planted my six Lilies of the Valley.

So, going back a little further: last Friday, as I was getting ready to leave for work, I took a look at the baby plants I’d just gotten the day before. And, to my dismay (but not my surprise, exactly), I found that the cat had knocked my Morning Glories onto the floor. They looked pretty sad. Wilty. Of course, I was running late to work, so all I could do was beat the cat and scoop as much soil as I could back into the pot around the limp leaves. I emailed Aaron once I got to work, and he was a sport and vacuumed up the soil.

Over the weekend, I put all my baby plants outside in the sunshine, still in their happy little plastic containers, and watered them. The healthy plants became even healthier. One Morning Glory perked right back up, but the other one is pretty much dead now. Ah, well. I guess that’s why I got two.

So, next on the agenda:

  1. Install decorative white wire fence border from Big Lots around the Lilies of the Valley.
  2. Pack topsoil around mailbox, since some nice person decided to hit it with their car and knock it loose while we weren’t home.
  3. Plant Delphiniums, Coreopsis, and Lavender around mailbox.
  4. Plant the Morning Glory underneath the little tree by the street.
  5. Plant Sheryl’s miniature daffodil bulbs under the small maple tree in the front yard.
  6. Figure out where to plant Snapdragons and Calamint.

If all this stuff lives to see another spring, I’ll be pleasantly surprised.