shifting Monday

Adjustments had to be made. The weather is bringing us an erratic week of rains, heat, chilly nights, with the possibility of strong storms. When I wake up just after six, I see that there is a big rain shower coming straight at us. Best to walk Millie soon, before we have another downpour. Up early? The girl is more than happy to oblige.

 

 

 

We eat breakfast on the porch. Warm enough.

And now I have to think through the day: at 8:30 the landlord is doing some kind of an inspection of Sally's House. It's best to get Millie out for that. We go to the farmette.

(It's the month of Allium)

I notice that Millie is positively shaking when I take her for a "car ride." She is no longer getting motion sickness, but she does seem to have a fear of the unknown. I can reassure her, and label destinations, and still she shakes.

Once at the farmette, she's happy again.

I had planned on separating some daylilies and hauling away a few, to be planted in a couple of weeks at Steffi's House. But this plan is just not working for me today. The grasses are wet. Everything is wet. When I loop Millie's leash around a post, she does sit down patiently to wait, but in so doing, she, too gets wet. And she nibbles on the surrounding plant life. That's not good! It may well be toxic. 

Basically my babe is a distraction. I can't focus and make decisions, and dig out plants with her there. 

We go inside and she relaxes on the couch as I chat with Ed. We decide to postpone the digging until Wednesday. Maybe I'll crate her, maybe I'll take her to day care. Today is just not a good day for it.

After a while we leave and I drive over with her to K&A Greenhouses. To look at their perennials. Maybe to pick some out. Millie is welcome here!

It feels very strange picking flowers for a brand new flower bed. For years, I've just added stuff in corners or expansions. Over the decades (I've been doing this since I was about 30), I have worked my way through many hundreds of perennials sold around town or sometimes in distant nurseries. I've watched some fail over the winter, despite my appropriate zone, some spread where I did not want them to spread, some topple without stakes or cages, some die off with bug infestations, some turn a ghostly white with powdery mildew. I know which ones finish their blooming season quickly, and which ones get smothered by their neighbors. Decades of growing perennials have left me a bit hardened. I want to avoid trouble. And so I pick carefully. Garden design will come later. Right now I just want plants that will thrive in our growing season and give repeat blooms for a good many weeks. I want strong color and textural variety. This isn't a time for impulsive cart loading. And because K&A's selection is a fraction of what the Flower Factory (where I shopped most often until they closed down a couple of years ago) offered, I walk away with very little.

I bring it all home -- the perennials, cut flowers from the farmette...

(iris, false indigo, and a peony bud)

And I give Millie time to recover! 

 

 

 

And then, just after noon, I take her to doggie daycare. Now we are in our standard Monday pattern: kids, Millie, Sally's House. 

In the meantime, the construction company that's putting up houses across the street from Sally's House has chosen to dump soil and rocks on the lot right next to me. The noise is horrible. The dirt covers everything on the porch. Time to write those letters of complaint! Blissfully, at 7, the dirt dumping stops. The noise stops. I open the door and look sadly at the nest a finch family built in the lilac tree I placed temporarily just outside the porch. The birds gave up on it with the arrival of the construction monsters. Such a shame. It was grand to listen to them early in the morning. Even Millie quieted then, dozing next to me to the sound of chirps, flutters, squeals. But of course, who can blame the birds for moving on. It's no place for a mama, looking for a restful home for the little ones.

Tomorrow? Who knows. The weather, like our political climate, is shifting frequently in directions that make no sense and give little ground for optimism. Though at least with the weather, we know that splendid late spring days are just around the corner. Short term troubles. Unlike in our nation's capital. 

with so much love...