Just about...

I've planted perennial poppies in my garden every year for ten years.  Until last year, I've never had one survive the season, let alone bloom; but last year three made it.  This year, they're still alive and about to bloom.

So, without further ado - ten years in the making - I present to you my very first (almost open) poppy bloom.

Also, the first peony blooms finally arrived today too. Have I mentioned that I love peonies?  I really do.

The weekend project

This blog entry could also be called 'what I didn't do on my vacation', or 'what I was supposed to get done during my last vacation'.  But I didn't do it then.  I would have had to take off my pajamas, and I didn't want to do that.

So, this weekend I decided that the new shade garden would be dug in, edged, mixed with compost and filled with plants.    I dug out manageable chunks of ground, and then I spent eight hours yesterday breaking them up and separating soil from the grass, and sifting out weeds and roots.  (That plastic that I laid down on the ground in late May to kill the grass?  It didn't work.  It was starting to, but I didn't want to wait.  So I dug.)  Today, I edged for 3 hours, and then finally filled it with plants.  I may never stand tall again.

As always, I ask that you pretend that I've got a lush, healthy, green lawn.

I buy baby plants to save money.  When they grow up, I'm hoping that you won't be able to see the soil at all.

Hey, RR - I've got a sittin place!  It's hard to tell, but I've got baby steppable ground covers planted all around, between and in front of the concrete blocks so that you can put your feet down in front of the bench and not get muddy feet.

I need to stain that bench.  I inherited it from the former owner of my first house.  He was a professional gardener who worked on the provincial grounds before he retired.  By the time I came along, he was 97 but unwilling to give up his gardening.  He had a few chairs and seats spread around his garden so that he could take a rest, and he left most of them when he moved out.

I didn't know it then, but he was planning to come back.  He did pop in fairly regularly for the first few summers.  I'm not sure if he was checking in to make sure I kept up his gardens, or there to pass on the skill.  Either way, he taught me a lot about gardening, so I left the seats out there for him until he stopped coming.  Most were in pretty rough shape, but this one is still good.  It needs to be stained though.  I've got purple, blue and brown stain that I could use, but somehow I feel as though it would be disrespectful to paint his bench another colour.  I might end up going out and getting a small can of red stain, in his memory.

ps - the disco balls.  Fun and whimsical, or tacky and wrong?

I hope...

...that you don't mind.

Times are tight.  The house needs a new roof and the basement is leaking.  I caved and signed up for advertising on my blog.  Chances are, this is such a small blog, I'll net $10 a month (if I'm lucky.)  But, it's $10 I didn't have before.  If it doesn't work out, I'll remove them.

I'm also working to learn some HTML so that I can make this place a little nicer.  Hopefully that'll  hide the unwanted commercialism.

How often?

My hairdresser has been bugging me for about a year to not wash my hair as often as I do.  She says I should ideally only wash it twice a week, but should at least aim for no more than every other day.

I'm a shower every day person, and that includes washing my hair.  This girl's got to be clean.  Actually, I thought that everybody liked to have showers, until a few years ago when I took in a tenant as a favour to a friend.  It didn't work out too well.  To summarize only a small portion of her freakishness, she showered on average once every eight days.  In the four months that she stayed with me, she did her laundry twice and I washed the sheets on her bed (my sheets) three times.  Had I not walked into her room and demanded the sheets, I suspect they'd have gone unwashed the entire time.  Needless to say, I wore a has-mat suit to muck out her room when she left.  However, I've got to say that I really thought she was an anomaly in this world.

Then, I read a post over at Carma Sez that says otherwise.  Apparently, there are people in this world who look for ways to avoid showering as long as possible.    That, I don't understand.  When it comes down to it, I can't be comfortable if I'm not clean; and that includes my hair.

So, it took a lot for my hairdresser to convince me that hair doesn't get all that dirty unless I'm doing some serious sweating, and that I should cut back the number of times that I wash my hair.  I finally broke down and agreed to give it a try, but I don't think it's going very well.  Tuesday night, I tied up my hair in a clip and carefully showered so as not to get it wet.  Yesterday, I had to wear my hair in a ponytail because otherwise it looked limp and lackluster to me.  I felt as though I was walking around with a sign saying that I hadn't washed my hair.

Lord only knows why, but I tried again to not wash my hair tonight.  Once again, I carefully tied up my hair and contorted myself in the shower (I've got a rain-head shower) to keep my head dry.

Then I went outside to water the gardens, leaned over and stuck my head into a peony bush that's about to bloom (and therefore loaded with nectar-loving ants).  Apparently, that's a great way to piss them off, because they very quickly climbed on for the ride and then started to bite.  I managed to shake them out of my clothes, but when I had to pick two of them out of my hair, I ran for the shower and washed them out.

I think... my hair will continue to be washed daily.  If that dries it out, then I think that probably means that I'm meant to have shorter hair.  Is that really so bad?

No More Ears

I honestly wasn't planning to follow up yesterday's blog entry this way, but Jen and the Bullies invited Tula and I to go to the dog park with them tonight.  There are ponds at the dog park, and Tula loves them.  She's a total water baby, and I don't normally stop her from running into the ponds because they usually aren't any deeper than her knees.

I forgot how much it's been raining, and before either of us knew it, she was under water.

(How come red eye reduction doesn't fix green eyes?)        

She went back again, and again and again.  I swear, she yelled Cowabunga once as she jumped in from a raised bank.  She could have happily swam all night, but eventually I'd had enough.  In fact, I'm pretty sure she's giving me the stinkeye in that picture because I made her come home.

Or maybe it was because I hosed her down to remove the smell of eau de pond scum.  It was either that, or she'd be sleeping in the garage tonight.

Either way, the floofy ears - a result of over an hour of grooming - are now gone.

Da Ears

They're big.

Things I know to be True

• Peanut butter goes with everything.
• The best way to get the dirt out from under your nails after gardening is to wash your long hair.
• Sh*t My Dad Says is one of the funniest books I've ever read. (Apparently, it also wins the award for being mentioned more times on my blog than any other book ... )
• Sugar and olive oil mixed together make a great exfoliate.
• There's a lot of vacuuming involved with owning two dogs and an angora cat

Vacuum the rug. Move stuff onto the rug. Vacuum the rest of the house. Wash the floor. Put stuff back. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

• The cat loves his cat hole.