a bulletin...

This will be brief, but I am easing back into regular blogging, I hope.

So this is a horticultural report. I DID go and invest in rose bushes...a "Cuthbert Grant," a "Hope for Humanity," an "Adelaide Hoodless," and a "Morden Fireglow" -- all of them RED. They are getting acclimatized and have made some lovely blooms but there is much about them I don't know...

Also flourishing -- a new rhubarb planting, next spring, OH BOY, I tell myself.

And I planted a small clematis, which sat perfectly immobile and unchanging for a month? six weeks? but is suddenly now putting out some new green shoots.

In the meantime the potentilla (pink!) has begun to bloom, somewhat diffidently (it is in a droughty corner of the yard).

And insdoors...a pothos and an oakleaf ivy hung up in the front window, doing well; four African violets, two finished blooming, one in bloom, one just coming on; a very small orphaned spider plant which just now seems to be really taking hold. But it won't require me to go and hunt out yet another macrame hanger for some time yet!

Also two ridiculously leggy geraniums...today may be the day I take a deep breath and pinch out all their tops and "start" them in water.

And the elderly amaryllis has come struggling up into view again (does this make it an EMERGENT amaryllis? no doubt)

And on the kitchen windowsill, a whole lot of basil that needs to be gently put into a more capacious planter -- I'm going to try to keep it over the winter as a houseplant.

Thistles and crabgrass all thriving too, alas. This yard still needs an awful lot of work. Some of which I hope to give it today.

Now I am going to go and roast a little beef chunk while the day is still cool and then I can have cold roast beef for sandwiches for a while. And I have sweet peppers to chop up for the freezer...and four nice really truly ripe avocadoes to make some guacamole.

And I've taken my meds and said morning prayer. Time for the 1/2 hour walk...