Think like a bumble bee...
Today I'm tempted to list all the gardening things I don't feel like doing. No, no, no! Eliminate Mister Negative! Find nice things and do them. Pretend you like doing the not so nice things. Think like a bumble bee. Buzz around the garden, be busy, and enjoy all the blue flowers.
Bumble Bee on a Blue Flower
During the last three days I've garden-worked for seven, six, and five hours respectively. So maybe today I should just do four? Arithmetically (in terms of sequence, that is) next Wednesday would be zero day. Hmm...
Four Hours Later...
Aha! Four! Arithmetic legend! I watered my Pittosporums on the fence-line, planted two more, weeded a bit, and then started clearing the last piles of burnable rubbish. Non-Gardening Partner was busy helping chain-saw the big felled Wattle tree over on our opposite boundary. Oh boy - so much firewood! Like many other of our country neighbours.
Windemere Roses
Quite a few roses are growing near the site of my bonfire. One of the newish David Austin roses, Windemere, deserves special mention. What a fine pearly-pinky-creamy-white rose this is! A wonderful late bloomer...
Salvia Uliginosa
Dear Bees...
While poking at the bonfire I watched some dear little bumble bees swaying on the stems of blue Salvia uliginosa. Two years ago I shifted clumps of this autumn perennial into the sunny perennials garden. Last autumn - a few flowers, but this autumn - lots! The bees love it.
Actually, the borders near my bonfire are very flowery at the moment, which is very easy on the eye (when the smoke billows off in the other direction). The autumn blue asters are just gorgeous, well worth bending down low to look at closely. Tall strawflowers, pinks and yellows, stick up here there and everywhere. The red dahlias keep on blooming, too.
Sunday 23rd March
Hee hee. Big Fluff-Fluff is trying to bring a live mouse into my kitchen. 'She tells me I'm a really clever cat, a gooooooood boy, and all that, and then shuts the door in my face!' I'm not having him lose interest and the mouse scuttling underneath my pantry door. Last week's mouse came in with Tiger the cat, but that's another story...
Tiger!
Which, at the risk of offending, I am about to relate. I have never seen such odd cat-mouse behaviour, and Tiger does NOT come out of this in a good light. Her 'style' (aargh!) is as follows. As you read it, you might like to refer back to her big belly...
Tiger the Cat
A sensible mouse knows the advantages of playing 'dead', and her mouse does just this. Tiger stares at it, and then - then - aargh! She lowers her furry belly very slowly down, and lies on the mouse. Obviously it then wriggles a bit. This produces an exciting, thrilling tummy-tickle, and Tiger, ecstatic, leaps high into the air. She shakes herself, stares at the mouse, and then lowers her bulk once more... Sorry about this.
Voting in my Most Valuable Pet Competition
Thanks to a Canadian mining engineer whose dog shares the same name, Rusty the dog usually wins each month's MVP competition. But this March is different, and my dearly departed calico cat B-Puss (short for Beige Puss) is giving the dog a run for his money. So it wouldn't be too naughty of me to give B-Puss some extra bonus points, would it?
B-Puss my calico cat
+15No matter how many years pass by, we always miss the cats that are no longer with us. We lost B-Puss in October 2007 to lung cancer - his house-brother, big Fluff-Fluff, is still going strong. Love you, blue-eyed B-Puss. I can still see you peeping out from behind the pink roses.
Back to the Present
Right. Back to the present. This morning we visited Escher the big brown dog, and on the way home picked up a trailer load of top-soil and compost mix. I've been working in the garden for three hours - three! Exactly as the arithmetic sequence of my current gardening life would have it. I've been collecting stones and placing them lovingly on the little stone wall, finding suitable pieces of wood for the raised beds down the driveway, and spreading that top-soil around.
Blue Autumn Asters
Some days in the garden feel good because of things not done, and today has been one of these. No deconstructing large thorny roses! No bonfiring! Such a relief - it's much nicer building things than burning them.