Disturbed

Since it’s lovely hot summer weather here (totally unusual!) I decided to get my behind outside early this morning and get some watering done before my brains cook. I didn’t do any but the tiny seedlings and the deck pots yesterday (actually T-Man did most of the deck pots) so the whole garden was Dry Yet Again. It wasn’t a particularly pleasant experience though because there was a lot of stuff going on around me: the neighbours across were fighting again (why doesn’t she DTMFA?), another neighbour was having her trees pruned with a huge cherry-picker and a chipper (she kindly warned me ahead of time), and the next-door neighbours had their new concrete patio painted with a stinky epoxy. Phew! Even with my earphones in and listening to podcasts, it wasn’t particularly pleasant to be out there on what should have been a lovely morning.

I did manage to get some more coreopsis picked. For the first year ever I can’t keep up with them! So T is happy as well because he gets his flowers and I get my dye. I still need to pick more blueberries and the raspberries on our new plants:

I have been able to keep up with the marigolds. There aren’t nearly as many flowers to pick. I grew these mostly from saved seeds:

The really tall ones that I get are more immune to being decimated by the slugs. Guess because they are farther for the slimy creatures to climb up! I just love the contrast with the deep blue-violet lobelias. Much of my garden’s flowers are in the yellow/orange and blue/violet range. I just love those colours together. They vibrate.

Well, I went to the doctor’s yesterday afternoon to discuss an odd lump in my neck. Of course it had subsided a lot from the time I made the appointment. But it’s good to get things like that checked out. It turns out that it was a swollen lymph node due to the many bug bites I’ve been getting on my neck. Vampires in the night! Doc was surprised that I get so many bites in the city. We’ve already cleaned out the water garden weeks ago and destroyed the mosquito larvae in it. We’ve checked constantly since then. I’m not even sure it’s all mosquitoes and not something like no-see-ums as well. Whatever – I’m obviously delicious. I’ve got a new bite on my collarbone right now. I puff up quite badly too. No scratching, damselfly.

Meanwhile, I’ve been knitting peeenk! The 1824 cotton is a bit hard on the hands for an extended knitting session so I’m trying to pace myself. Though with a deadline of only a couple of weeks there’s only so much I can spread it out. I’ve also found 2 knots in one of the balls. Does not make me happy. You’d think commercial manufacturers could get a measly 84 yards without a honking join in it? Apparently knot…er, not. I’m going to have even more ugly ends to darn in than usual.