Front paged at My Left Wing
Good morning, and isn't it just peachy? Welcome to Saturday Morning Garden Blogging.
This has been a very strange July here in Denver. I'm not complaining, but we've yet to hit a string of sweltering, 100°+ days, with accompanying nights never dipping below 70°. Instead, we'll creep up into the low 90s for a day or two, then go back to lovely days in the 80s, with thundershowers in the area to provide a nice cool-down into the 60s.
The week ahead is forecast for the low 90s but with our low humidity and the swamp cooler, that's a cakewalk. All in all it's been a lovely — if odd — summer.
I've not been able to spend a lot of time outside, despite the perfection of the weather — life here at the Casa has been a bit strange.
First, unhappy news. On Monday, I took Mukluk the kitten to the vet. She had become increasingly inactive, didn't seem to be growing, and was eating very little. Even going outside to play didn't entice her to activity. The vet determined that she had a congenital kidney disorder. With no way to help her, the only option was to have her euthanized.
I can't tell you how devastated I was. During her short time with us, Mukluk had become my constant companion, a small puddle of purring fur in my lap. Losing Mukluk, just two weeks after euthanizing Strut, and a month after my father's death, well: I was a complete mess.
So Tuesday after work I went to the municipal animal shelter (it's only a mile away from our house), and chose a new puddle of fur: a gray tabby/tortie mix, about 10 weeks old. I chose her because physically, she reminded me of Master Blue Balls, a gray tuxedo tabby and my best cat ever, and because she was so lively, affectionate and, obviously, healthy. If Mukluk was a still pond, Zasu is a dancing mountain stream.
Wednesday was another crammed day. I bought tickets for me, Da Boys, and the neighbor's family to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in IMAX 3-D. Because there were too many of us to fit into my car, we took light rail (there's a stop near our house, and a stop next to the IMAX theater). So, adding time for taking public transportation, and knowing that we'd need to get there early to have decent seats, going to the movie was a 4-hour adventure.
I did take the opportunity, early in the day, to do a little puttering in the garden, where I found this shy katydid on a datura. I also found a handful of almost-ripe cherry tomatoes, which means tomato season will be upon us in a week or two. And I've been "stealing" water from the neighbor. Their swamp cooler is set on their roof, and drains into their rain gutters. The float obviously isn't set correctly, because it drips constantly, and it really, really bugged me to see all that water just running off into the ground. So I slipped a garden trug under the downspout and, with the help of a short piece of tubing to act as a siphon, I've been collecting enough water to keep the back-yard planters watered, and to dump extra water on the most beat-up portions of our small patch of lawn. Yeah, I do have to carry buckets of water, but it's no worse than hauling the hose around!
After the movie, Da Boys and I jumped in the car, and went to pick up the kitten from the animal hospital where she'd been spayed and chipped. You know how they give you those instructions to keep the kitten calm, and discourage activity, and give only a small amount of food, after surgery? Well, it was not an option with Zasu. She raced out of the carrier and immediately was going over and up and under and around — and hoovered up the small dish of cat food I gave her so quickly, and kept going back to look for more, that I didn't have the heart to deny her more food; besides, she was mewing like mad — she was hungry, goddamnit! Writing garden blogging has been an adventure this morning, as Zasu has been "helping" — kitten on the keyboard does not make for coherence.
Meanwhile, sheddhead and dmsilev have been scouring Chicago looking for a place for the garden bloggers to meet Saturday morning. They came up with Istria Café, 1520 E. 57th St. — it's open early, has WiFi available, and is reachable by public transportation from the McCormick Center. However, it is not very large — the estimate is room for about 10 of us. So, we need to figure out: how many garden bloggers will be there? Drop me an e-mail and let me know.
I've been reconsidering how early to meet, and I'm thinking perhaps 7:30 would work better. 8:00 seems too late, but 7:00 — after what is sure to be a long night on Friday — seems too early. Also, I'm still looking for a laptop to borrow, so we can actually write garden blogging and get it posted! Perhaps I could meet with someone on Friday to do some of the preliminaries?
Also, I told sobermom that I'd plug the 12-step caucus which will be meeting at 8:00 a.m. on Thursday morning. I know there are a lot of kossacks in recovery (I'm among them), and it would be a fine thing to start out the weekend meeting some of you.
Finally, another plug for a new series. plf515 and I have determined there is a need for a regular series on parenting, education, and disabilities. It will be identified by the title "A Little Bit Special", tagged with albs, will be appearing regularly on Sunday mornings, and will be a group effort. If you'd like to contribute, please e-mail plf515 or me. plf515 set up a private yahoo group for ease of organization, so we'll need your e-mail address so he can "invite" you to join.
That's what's happening here. What's going on in your gardens?