Day in the Life of an Idiot

 
Image: A bright blue spiderwort blooming in a literal sidewalk crack.

I sent in my Lawns2Legumes reimbursement request for the pocket habitat that I spent a couple of hundred dollars on, and, lo, in a literal sidewalk crack on the side of my house, a bright blue prairie spiderwort, native to not only Minnesota, but specifically Ramsey County, where I live, has volunteered and bloomed. Rather than consider this THE GREATEST IRONY OF ALL TIME, I shall imagine that this lovely native bloom is a thank you gift directly from the Goddess. 

Because it's either laugh or cry.

In other news, we ended up spending a fuck ton of money on Willow, our Void, who had been throwing up a lot. Because this is the self-same cat whole swallowed an actual needle, I did tell the vet to go ahead and take x-rays just to make sure that she wasn't barfing because of some insane (insane intestine!) obstruction or another. Willow was perfectly clear, though the vet did see a lot of gas and whatnot in her intestines. The best guess was, in fact, a bout of stomach flu, or some kind of minor bowel infection. The vet prescribed some antibiotics, but Willow has been deeply resistant to the squirt (to be fair to her, is smells like that fake banana smell. Why? Why not, I dunno, tuna~!) and has taken to hiding under the bed for a lot of the day. It might be the humidity? But her hiding is not very like her and so now I'm all worried again. Does she have an actual infection? Should we be more aggressive trying to get the medicine in her? Or is the medicine what she's hiding from?? 

I wish she could tell me. 

Other than that, we spent the 4th hiding from the fireworks, ourselves. I've started another "ugly" Christmas quilt, though this one I like quite a bit more.


Image: red and green and white quilt, my second "ugly" Christmas quilt

Here's a close up on some of the fabrics:

Image: Close up on some of the fabric in the quilt, there are a lot of snow persons and creepy Santa clones.

And, yes, I did notice after I got this section together that the army of Santa clones are kind of all bunched together. At this point, I kind of don't care? It's visually (from a distance, at any rate,) more about the green and gold star bowties and the solid red bowties. 

Tell me what you think (so long as it's a compliment! I'm not in the mood for critique of my stitching or fabric choices right now, sorry!)

 
Image: Newly blue bedroom wall, obviously still being touched up with a ladder and paint containers in full view.

The photo does not do this color justice. We have begun repainting our bedroom "Baskerville Blue," so named because of a funny story. The story goes like this. Shawn and I were watching Sherlock on the iPad back when it was popular. We got to the "Hounds of the Baskervilles" episode, which wasn't one of the better ones, BUT as we were watching it we noticed that the Baskerville dude had a LOVELY blue library wall. It is seen, in passing. We must have circled that image several times before finally getting a decent screen shot. I took the screen shot to my local paint store and said, "Match this color." They claim it is "bluebell," but we know this is "Baskerville Blue."

I only did one wall, because I am OLD (and only recently recovered from my back injury). And, because we only had one full day for this project, as we planned to spend yesterday (Sunday) making a fancy meal for Shawn's brother, Keven, who was over for dinner. You can see the old color, which Ralph Lauren called "Kalahari Sunset," but which we have long though of as "dusky rose." We liked the rose color for decades, but we are generally feeling like the house could use a pick-me-up and so it was time to unearth Baskerville Blue to see how it felt. It feels wonderful, so I will be painting the next wall next weekend. 

I am also starting to seriously plan my Lawn2Legumes "pocket habitat" project. As you know, Bob, I got a small grant to do something that would be pollinator friendly in our yard. Today, I went out to take some "before" pictures of the site we are considering. 

We have this hill in front of our house that has been at a loss since we lost the giant pine tree to a storm several years ago. I actually despair to imagine EXACTLY how many years ago, since we have done almost NOTHING to this area since. The one thing we did do is make a path for the postal carrier at the top of the hill. 


Image: The path Mason and I lay at the top of the hill for the postal carrier.

Obviously, the flat section of this part of the yard would be an ideal place to start putting in a pocket habitat. We have a ton of unused space here, with literally nothing except weeds to pull out and replace with natives.

However, I would LOVE to be able to use some of this money to do something with our hillside as well. 


Image: Hillside with our little free library--taken this morning when it is cast in shade.

It might be too ambitious to try to conquer this hill at the same time. However, I feel like the grant is such a good time to consider our options. We've long wanted to add a bit of a retaining wall, and the grant will reimburse us for a percentage of landscaping. As I mentioned, we had Shawn's brother over for dinner last night and we were talking about this project. He has access to a literal (as well as figurative) TON of rocks and boulders which he can harvest from a section of land that he owns just north of here. So, if we could enlist his help (muscles and trailer, or at least just trailer), we could actually get the materials for a dry stone retaining wall for FREE. All we would need to "charge" to the grant would be whatever fill we would need behind the stones, like gravel, sand, etc. We get to count our labor as 'in-kind" donation, so I mean... it's something to seriously ponder. We do need to so SOMETHING about the erosion problem that this hill represents, otherwise we're not really  doing our part to upkeep the natives. Because, you know, with no SOIL, plants, natives or not, aren't really sustainable.

But, the upper section is absolutely going to be doable this year. 


Image: Empty space (8 x 12) waiting for native plants

Shawn would also like a small water garden somewhere in here, if only because out drain pipe really needs somewhere for the water to flow other than backwards towards our house. (We had new drains put in some time ago and they really were not the best at actually angling them in the right direction.) So, now I am thinking about how that might be done, too.

Besides the "usual suspects" like Narrow-leaved Purple Coneflower (Echinacea angustifolia,) Wild Bergamot (Monarda fistulosa,) Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta,) and  New England Aster (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae,) I am considering:


Purple Prairie Clover


Common milkweed

and nodding onions


Of course, we are supposed to get colder than average temperatures for the next two weeks, so I guess I'll have lots of time to plan???? (<--she says, disappointedly.)  I did make Shawn go with me to Mother Earth Gardens just to talk to the people and see if they had anything out yet (nothing but pansies and a few perennials, of course.)

Anyway, that was me this weekend. I went on one HeyGo tour, but it's nothing to talk about just yet. I will save it for a round-up of any others I might go on this week.