from a place of wrath and tears
Speaking of Yaroslava, I've created a blog for my alter egos. Chances are that I'll have the time to write up some of her adventures when I'm on vacation in France.
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Showing posts with label garden. Show all posts
Showing posts with label garden. Show all posts
Reaping what you sow
I'm wading through all the digital clutter that has piled up while I was busy in the flesh and slowly getting back in touch with the here and now. The business has also meant I did not work as much in the garden as I wanted to; I only had time to pick some fruit today, which in the blueberries' case means at least a kilo has been lost to utter over-ripeness and other decay. But not to worry, the yield is more better than usual, and as this picture shows they only become more gigantic. That blackberry's over an inch tall, y'all. Poor little Yaroslava should know better than to face this dark-skinned danger in daylight.
Speaking of Yaroslava, I've created a blog for my alter egos. Chances are that I'll have the time to write up some of her adventures when I'm on vacation in France.
Speaking of Yaroslava, I've created a blog for my alter egos. Chances are that I'll have the time to write up some of her adventures when I'm on vacation in France.
Jungle fever
Too little sleep because the damned birds are too noisy at 5 a.m.
Now, birds are always noisy in the morning. First light, they all do their interpretation of "Good Morning Vietnam" in their racial twitterese.
Loud, happy, chirpy twitterese.
Then they decide they're hungry and go hunt for worms and stuff and quieten down.
That's how things should be. But nowadays they are so damned chirping noisy, for so long, that I'm wide-awake come 5:30.
And I think it's my own fault too. You see, last autumn should have been Serious Pruning time. Not just a little snip here and there, but the real tree-killing work that's needed once every two or three year. But silly me, I managed to sprain my thumb real bad with fencing (a sports injury bearing the frivolous name of "ski thumb"), and so no snipping and sawing and hacking that season. This means my garden, a long overgrown tunnel of 4,5m wide and about 65m long, becomes the safe haven for all sorts of noisy birds, who feel safe from the three clawed hunters and thus make some noise.
I was going to tackle the overgrowth in spring, but I don't really know what happened to spring. Came and went, and now I'm here with jungle fever.
So today, since it was dry enough, and much much cooler than the last couple of weeks, I got out the axe and the saw and got to work. One third of the trees and bushes I needed to tackle are done. I'll continue Saturday if the weather keeps up, so my poor blistered fingers and still sensitive thumb can rest some. Also, tomorrow we've got visitors, which means I'll have another kind of cleaning to do.
I only hope that I managed to keep free of phototoxic juice, but I'll guess I know for sure tomorrow...
Now, birds are always noisy in the morning. First light, they all do their interpretation of "Good Morning Vietnam" in their racial twitterese.
Loud, happy, chirpy twitterese.
Then they decide they're hungry and go hunt for worms and stuff and quieten down.
That's how things should be. But nowadays they are so damned chirping noisy, for so long, that I'm wide-awake come 5:30.
And I think it's my own fault too. You see, last autumn should have been Serious Pruning time. Not just a little snip here and there, but the real tree-killing work that's needed once every two or three year. But silly me, I managed to sprain my thumb real bad with fencing (a sports injury bearing the frivolous name of "ski thumb"), and so no snipping and sawing and hacking that season. This means my garden, a long overgrown tunnel of 4,5m wide and about 65m long, becomes the safe haven for all sorts of noisy birds, who feel safe from the three clawed hunters and thus make some noise.
I was going to tackle the overgrowth in spring, but I don't really know what happened to spring. Came and went, and now I'm here with jungle fever.
So today, since it was dry enough, and much much cooler than the last couple of weeks, I got out the axe and the saw and got to work. One third of the trees and bushes I needed to tackle are done. I'll continue Saturday if the weather keeps up, so my poor blistered fingers and still sensitive thumb can rest some. Also, tomorrow we've got visitors, which means I'll have another kind of cleaning to do.
I only hope that I managed to keep free of phototoxic juice, but I'll guess I know for sure tomorrow...
Nothing says summer like
BLACKBERRIES
These are thorn-free blackberries, which are supposedly less tasty, but not mine. Maybe the trick is that they grow against a wall that gets a lot of sun and heat on the other/neighbor's side (so they don't suffer the sun's onslaught), and they also get a whole lot of cat pee for vitamin (and if that makes you go Ewww: must I remind you of the egg and its origin?). They're über-delicious, and gigantic (for size comparison: that's a 20 eurocent piece and my current rpg alter ego of 25mm).
This is the first week of the harvest, so with over three kilos in a week it's promising to be a very good year again. Which is good because my yellow plum tree's on sabbatical (exacerbated by the drought and heat wave into three yellow leaves and two shriveled plums).
It's obviously too much to eat (yes, the weeks after this harvest will still see a harvest of about a kilo a week), so plenty goes into the freezer.
The End of the World is near
No really, just walk a bit in that direction and you drop right off!
Nothing much has changed the last few days, still reading too much blogs, novels, tinkering with Shtuff, with some added Necessary Things of Life that needed doing. So, still not doing enough real writing.
Spring is really here, with everything flowering and shooting green sprouts skywards, while the Icelanders are doing their best to completely screw their chances to join the EU.
My main problem this week (except for the not getting myself behind the thing that really needs writing) is that I can't do any gardening* this week because I need to spare the tendons for the upcoming weekend and fencing championship. This makes me sad, because catching up with nature's grow spurt is a bitch.
*gardening in my world consist very much of killing trees, trimming shrubs, and trying to turn loam into something manageable with a shovel: hard work.
Nothing much has changed the last few days, still reading too much blogs, novels, tinkering with Shtuff, with some added Necessary Things of Life that needed doing. So, still not doing enough real writing.
Spring is really here, with everything flowering and shooting green sprouts skywards, while the Icelanders are doing their best to completely screw their chances to join the EU.
My main problem this week (except for the not getting myself behind the thing that really needs writing) is that I can't do any gardening* this week because I need to spare the tendons for the upcoming weekend and fencing championship. This makes me sad, because catching up with nature's grow spurt is a bitch.
*gardening in my world consist very much of killing trees, trimming shrubs, and trying to turn loam into something manageable with a shovel: hard work.
plea to the Easter Bunny
Between studying and working on fencing club related stuff I've had no time whatsoever to:
work in the garden
but hey, it's been crap weather since Friday, a week early according to the historical wisdom of farmers and old witches: "maartse buien en aprilse grillen" is a Flemish saying about the weather of this season, but both statements are translated by my Dutch to English dictionary as "April showers", which is wrong.
Here, in the ancient granary of Europe, the showers come in March ("bui" meaning "shower", while "gril"should be "whim"). Translation should read: "March showers and whimsical April".
March was not so wet this year though, but since Friday April has begun: nice blue skies suddenly interrupted by the appearance of a black cloud and a 10 second shower, which magically disappears while you cuddle under a dry roof, you go outside because the temp's all summery again and then suddenly a gust of wind picks up your garden furniture and drops it at the neighbor's. Weird weather, during which I like to walk outside, but not work in the garden.
do writerly things
Except trying to keep up to speed with some blogs. Cow-watcher doesn't mind though: Sunday it handed a me a page of here's-how-to-fix-the-mess-you-made-of-Barynn2 notes which I scribbled down on the backside of the course I was studying. I really want to look into it, but hey, study and club first.
create order
because order is really needed in this workroom. I've really got to make work of the Barynn Companion because if I can't keep track of whoiswho, how's my reader going to? There's little papers with snippets and remarks for other projects, and piles of books, fiction and non-fiction that simply won't fit into the library. Library needs expanding before I fall and break something.
Dear Mr. Easter Bunny, please bring me this thing called time, because I need it more than chocolate.
work in the garden
but hey, it's been crap weather since Friday, a week early according to the historical wisdom of farmers and old witches: "maartse buien en aprilse grillen" is a Flemish saying about the weather of this season, but both statements are translated by my Dutch to English dictionary as "April showers", which is wrong.
Here, in the ancient granary of Europe, the showers come in March ("bui" meaning "shower", while "gril"should be "whim"). Translation should read: "March showers and whimsical April".
March was not so wet this year though, but since Friday April has begun: nice blue skies suddenly interrupted by the appearance of a black cloud and a 10 second shower, which magically disappears while you cuddle under a dry roof, you go outside because the temp's all summery again and then suddenly a gust of wind picks up your garden furniture and drops it at the neighbor's. Weird weather, during which I like to walk outside, but not work in the garden.
do writerly things
Except trying to keep up to speed with some blogs. Cow-watcher doesn't mind though: Sunday it handed a me a page of here's-how-to-fix-the-mess-you-made-of-Barynn2 notes which I scribbled down on the backside of the course I was studying. I really want to look into it, but hey, study and club first.
create order
because order is really needed in this workroom. I've really got to make work of the Barynn Companion because if I can't keep track of whoiswho, how's my reader going to? There's little papers with snippets and remarks for other projects, and piles of books, fiction and non-fiction that simply won't fit into the library. Library needs expanding before I fall and break something.
Dear Mr. Easter Bunny, please bring me this thing called time, because I need it more than chocolate.
Spring is also
Hard work in the garden. Which leads to pain, so I'm going to whine for a bit.
Since it's going to rain the next few days I went the extra mile with the revamping the rasp- and blueberry plot, and crapped out my cracked spondylus, which wasn't doing so great anyways the last couple of days. And with the snipping away at dead raspberry wood with the pruning shears, the sprained thumb is also back from being nearly gone. Stupid thumb is probably the only thing keeping the usual De Quervain at bay. Nagging posterior tibial tendon chiming in. And of course, because I've been accommodating the back and ankle in my sleep the last few days so now my lateral collateral ligament is acting up. Accommodating the sprained thumb in my sleep is still with me in the frayed tendons of my deltoid. All I need now is the good old ITBS rearing its head and this picknick will be complete.
I've strapped in my right hand with extra care, and taped the ankle, and will be wearing my knee support. Training is going to be ball! Mummy fencing, yay!
Since it's going to rain the next few days I went the extra mile with the revamping the rasp- and blueberry plot, and crapped out my cracked spondylus, which wasn't doing so great anyways the last couple of days. And with the snipping away at dead raspberry wood with the pruning shears, the sprained thumb is also back from being nearly gone. Stupid thumb is probably the only thing keeping the usual De Quervain at bay. Nagging posterior tibial tendon chiming in. And of course, because I've been accommodating the back and ankle in my sleep the last few days so now my lateral collateral ligament is acting up. Accommodating the sprained thumb in my sleep is still with me in the frayed tendons of my deltoid. All I need now is the good old ITBS rearing its head and this picknick will be complete.
I've strapped in my right hand with extra care, and taped the ankle, and will be wearing my knee support. Training is going to be ball! Mummy fencing, yay!
Shtuff
Difficult weekend.
Stuck at fencing training doing no fencing: chronic tendinosis acting up and teaching me about a couple of tendons I never knew I had. I just love my genetic heritage.
It sort of sucks extra when you can't do any fencing and the next day you're stuck at an epee tournament (designated driver). I can only appreciate epee if I've had my saber training. Seriously. Epee goes on forever. And ever. Especially if the organization got surprised by the turnout of women which screwed up the timetables on the men's competition. Also, for some reason they put all the real judges on the women's poules, which meant the men had to judge their own matches, which is pretty usual for local tournaments, but dudes. Epee fencers. Not in a hurry. At least with real judges they'd had someone to keep some tempo.
So it went on forever. And ever. And then some more.
Okay. Done ranting.
I did finish another book from the pile and started a new one when we arrived at the tournament and I'm already halfway through. Might finish it later, in the tub.
Saturday evening, whilst coming back from the city with the hubby after dark, we noticed the Trek of the Toads has begun. There they were, sitting in the roadside grass, pretending to be rock and leaf. Some of them had already tried to cross to the ponds of the castle on the other side, and a whole lot probably made it. Others try to pass through our house when I leave the backdoor open.
The Trek of the Toads is an annual event (though this year it was huge, must have been a good toad year), and an even surer proof than ladybugs and fleas that spring has begun. I'm already looking forward to the bundle of fun which happens later in the season when cats meet young toads on their way to new territories. Remember to not go barefooted through the house.
Other annual events are the Trek of the Grasshoppers (end of summer, grasshoppers migrate through and over our house towards the busy road) and the Trek of the Polecats (start of autumn, sadly, known by roadkill). And no, end of summer does not equal start of autumn.
Okay, time for those ice-packs.
Stuck at fencing training doing no fencing: chronic tendinosis acting up and teaching me about a couple of tendons I never knew I had. I just love my genetic heritage.
It sort of sucks extra when you can't do any fencing and the next day you're stuck at an epee tournament (designated driver). I can only appreciate epee if I've had my saber training. Seriously. Epee goes on forever. And ever. Especially if the organization got surprised by the turnout of women which screwed up the timetables on the men's competition. Also, for some reason they put all the real judges on the women's poules, which meant the men had to judge their own matches, which is pretty usual for local tournaments, but dudes. Epee fencers. Not in a hurry. At least with real judges they'd had someone to keep some tempo.
So it went on forever. And ever. And then some more.
Okay. Done ranting.
I did finish another book from the pile and started a new one when we arrived at the tournament and I'm already halfway through. Might finish it later, in the tub.
Saturday evening, whilst coming back from the city with the hubby after dark, we noticed the Trek of the Toads has begun. There they were, sitting in the roadside grass, pretending to be rock and leaf. Some of them had already tried to cross to the ponds of the castle on the other side, and a whole lot probably made it. Others try to pass through our house when I leave the backdoor open.
The Trek of the Toads is an annual event (though this year it was huge, must have been a good toad year), and an even surer proof than ladybugs and fleas that spring has begun. I'm already looking forward to the bundle of fun which happens later in the season when cats meet young toads on their way to new territories. Remember to not go barefooted through the house.
Other annual events are the Trek of the Grasshoppers (end of summer, grasshoppers migrate through and over our house towards the busy road) and the Trek of the Polecats (start of autumn, sadly, known by roadkill). And no, end of summer does not equal start of autumn.
Okay, time for those ice-packs.
Nothing says spring like
A LADYBUG!
First draft of the Remix Project done. Getting colder again outside, so I just as well might use the afternoon to finish it instead of gardening.
