Take Joy!

I Think I Can, I Think I Can

Ocie climbs a tree, with some difficulty . . .

Wordless Wednesday—Thistle

Hats, finished

Two more hats to afghans for Afghans: the foreground one, two shades of turquoise, is Brown Sheep Lambs' Pride in Aztec Turquoise and the last of the Perry the Platypus yarn. The other is wool also, various oddments and Cascade 220 green.

Local Honey

. . . from the backyard bees to the kitchen table! Fourteen  pints, from one super—these are from the hive housing the swarm John retrieved from a neighbor's pine tree last summer. This ('this' being both  honey and picture) was taken the middle of last week; more honey will be coming along this week. The oldest hive has three supers that need to be robbed, and I'm not sure whether there are any others ready. One of the others needs to have its insides rearranged; there is plastic base (I forget the term) in the bottom racks, and the bees aren't doing as well as the other hives, so John will be taking out those racks—and vowing to use no more plastic!—and replacing them with whatever the other stuff is. (You can tell I have a lot to do with the bees, can't you?)

In other news, Mr. Bear returned last night, nosed around the stack of empty cat litter containers on the side porch, and left when nothing to eat presented itself. We think he's coming over the fence up on the front side by the driveway; there's a tree down over it. Mr. Poozle and E.J. Katt have been using it as a path to visit each other, but I'm afraid that is about to cease. Meanwhile, I suppose I will have to bring the empty containers inside. Yet another thing to find room for . . .

More Growing Things, Late June

Black Pearl ornamental peppers, with apple mint (The pepper on the lower left was attacked by something and bitten off, but is coming back out nicely.)

Birdbath, with peppers in the foreground, along with the occasional sunflower and peanut plant; also shasta daisies, gazanias and galliardias, blue salvia, hummingbird sage, valerian and gladioli. On the right, the smaller fig tree.

Silvery fir container tomato plants, along with (alas!) sprouted birdseed . . .

Beebalm, Stella d'Oro daylily, echinacea, anise hyssop Tutti Frutti, dusty miller, sunflower, lemongrass and a vagrant corn plant or two

Catnip in an old leaky chicken waterer

Half a whiskey barrel planted with silver and regular thyme, a few garlic chives and yet another volunteer black walnut, pot of red-veined sorrel, and metal pot with chives and cutting celery

Moss roses.

My grandma Burgin used to grow these when they lived on Monroe Road in Charlotte; she had them on both sides of the walk up to the house. The house is still there, or was when I lived in Charlotte (until 2002); I remember it as being huge, with an upstairs attic with dormer windows and a chest filled with paper dolls from my mother's childhood, and a grape arbor in back. It really isn't, though; it's actually pretty small. Last time I was by there it was a beauty salon. I grow these because she did, the same way I grow petunias because my grandma Carroll always had a bed of them by the back door. She used to give us a salt shaker and sent us out to hunt slugs when we came to visit. That house isn't there any more; it was sold after she moved in with  Mom and Daddy, and I've heard that it since burned down.

Growing Things, Late June

Catnip and lemongrass on the left, behind coreopsis. In front of the blue tub, dianthus (clove pinks), marigolds, lantanas; basil, marigolds and garlic chives in the metal pot; tulsi in the black pots. All the little plants in the mulched area are peppers, mostly hot. These pictures were taken last week; we've had rain since and the peppers are  twice as tall, at least.

Echinacea and beebalm, hummingbird sage, salvia to the back right, and lots of weeds to the left. The large black pots hold basil and marigolds, and dill and a sweet potato vine.

Cutting celery and parsley (not doing well this year; too hot too early, probably), coreopsis in front, lemongrass in black pot on the right, catnip in the blue tub. The pink is dianthus, with pots of lantana and marigolds behind it.

Mullein flowers, with Jerusalem artichokes and rosemary in the background

Stuff on the table (clockwise from back left): a pot of mixed stir-fry greens (or what's left of them after chickens, which is why they're on the table now), tarragon, another pot of greens, hen-and-chickens, clary sage, calendula struggling along, annual dahlias (they were in the flower bed, but something was eating them. I suspect slugs.), and marjoram.

Polyantha 'The Fairy' under the fig tree, with nettles (If I'd realized the fig was going to spread this far, I'd have rethought my planting.)

 

 

Summer!

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

—Mary Oliver

(I have, of course, posted this before . . . but it's one of my favorite poems. Especially the last two lines.)

Darla, in the heat of the afternoon

Weigh In

Doctor's appointment today.

March 18: 235.6 pounds

Today (June 21): 206.6 pounds

Waking blood sugar reading down nearly 60 points. Should have my new A1c readings next week.

That is all.

Gratuitous plastic lion photo, with dust (so footprints will be obvious).

Wordless Wednesday—Chicory