May long weekend

Here is a photo that was certainly not taken today, on the Queen's birthday. You can tell because the sun is freaking shining. This was last week. Gorgeous, eh? That is some fine specimen of a euphorbia. The candytuft (white flowers in shade) is still going strong even though it started blooming way back in March, and the armeria (clumps with pink flowers, in shade at the left) is just getting going. Can you spot the sphinx? Here's a closer look at the most elegant thing going in the jardin:

And here is what happens when divas get bored:

Not even Little Blue Flowers can hold her attention:

The following photo was also not taken today, but you can see that the weather has started to head toward its usual May 24th aspect. The feline ennui holds steady, though.

Stay tuned for some soggy photos documenting what's in bloom in the late spring/early summer garden. Gotta go find my galoshes.

Pruning the baby apple tree

 

There was a brief interlude of dryness and sun the other day, so I undertook a project I've been meaning to try for some time.

 This little tree has been producing more and more sweet little apples (literally) each year, despite its rough start in life. Last summer its very long branches were almost touching the ground under the weight of all that goodness. I started to worry that it would split its trunk. Anyway, high time for pruning. So I got out the gardening book I've been using since Cindy gave it to me in Vancouver about twenty years ago (!) to look again at those little diagrams with the "cut here" lines drawn on them.

"That Barbara Damrosch is really something, isn't she?"

Oz was out helping me because the sun was over the yard-arm. That meant dinner could conceivably be forthcoming at any moment, and it wouldn't do to let me get out of sight.

First I needed to clear out the dead phlox (left) and peony (right) under the baby so I could see its arms clearly.

Baby dephloxed:

 

Baby depeonyed:

The thick-looking branch toward the bottom is actually a piece of another tree that Mum tucked in there to help prop up the baby. I'd like to adjust it more and make the baby even more upright, but I am hesitant to mess with the bits of the trunk now anchored in the ground.  ? But I snipped away at some branches anyway, to help clean up the centre of the tree and also bring its weight back a little closer to its trunk. My colleague Frank says the branches should be thinned sufficiently that birds can fly between them all. I didn't quite achieve that, since doing so would not leave much baby behind! I am counting on this being an ongoing process from year to year, so I can balance healthy growth with healthy stature. Not a bad model for effecting change in life in general, come to think of it!

Finished product:

As you follow the progression, you can see that the sun was steadily disappearing. At this point, I could feel those little gusts of cooler air that run in front of the rain clouds. Sure enough, about an hour after this there was a huge downpour. We were already inside and cosy, though, because Ozzie had insisted.

"I think we're done here, don't you?

New Year's Oz

WHOOOT-WHOOOT-WHOOOT-WHOOOORRRRRLLLL

It was a beautifully clear and frosty night last night. Here are my toes in the creeping thyme to show you the crunchy fun this morning. Harriet thinks frozen catmint is just as good as any other kind:

And here is Harriet showing you who-who-who woke us up at 3am:

Her impression doesn't do the voice justice. It was so deep and resonant, I thought it had to be a four-footed creature of some sort - coyote maybe?  Especially the WHOOOOORRRRRRRLLLLLLL part. I leapt out of bed, threw on a fleecy, and rushed downstairs to go out and see what it was. And was intercepted by the geek, still awake in his study playing with his new vinyl-cutting machine, who said, "what is that animal? sounds like an owl." OK, so the geek can't tell the difference between dead mice, rats, or sparrows (he calls them all "that mouse your cat left you"), but he got the live raptor ID in one! It was in our big oak tree, and it was HUGE. It flapped from one branch to another and hooted a few more times (now that I could see it, my ear decided to believe it was an owl hooting), and then got tired of me marching around under the tree in my jammies, and took off.

Winter solstice magic!

And this morning seems sort of magical too.  Mainly because the sun is shining and I have no meetings today. The cotoneaster is doing its Christmas show:

 And the "David" viburnum is not too shabby either:

And SUCH a handsome kitty!

What you missed in September

While some of us were snoozing in the sun, the boys from Bartlett came to take back the hedges and trees.

 It was quite a day!  They arrived at 8:30am, three strong and cheerful boys, and they did not leave until 4:30 in the afternoon. Taking the laurel hedge down to the height of Faye's cedar hedge next door was one of the most impressive things. Check out the height difference before they started (above).  And here is the finished product:

Who knew Faye had a chimney?

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

They also cleaned up the cedar hedge between us and the hospital, which had sort of been butchered (from the hospital side) and then ignored.

Before:

After:

Lovely caterpillar shape!

They also cleared a path for the service wires in the plane tree on the boulevard.

Before:

After:

And they cleaned up the cedar hedge at the back, hacked back the portugese laurel, and trimmed the thujas.  !

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Ain't it grand!

"Oh la!"

Enquiring minds...

"What's up with the blog?"

Not to worry, mon petit, there's more on the way.

Harriet "slypaw" Rosenberg

The picture of innocence, you say.

Yet this fuzzy tum has wreaked havoc in the kitchen, using her clever route from the cat stand by the window to one bookcase to the wood stove (not lit!) to second bookcase and Onto the Counter! Several beautiful vases and potted plants have mysteriously ended up in pieces on the kitchen floor, after having been moved into deterrence positions on said bookshelves. Methinks slypaw doesn't always realize the extent of her girth. But by the jeez, does she love people food!

*Aside: returned to computer desk the other morning to find herself ever so delicately dipping her paw into my mug of milky coffee.  Augh! Removed cat from desk and mug to sink. Walked into kitchen minutes later to find east end of west-bound cat sticking up out of the sink, where she continued to drink my goddam coffee.*

And then the geek bought this:

It cost about five hundred bucks, it weighs around five hundred pounds ("what the hell is this?" says the UPS man), and it fills up the top of that bookshelf like no potted plant could ever dream of doing.

We're not sure yet if this is absolute deterrence (she is a very clever kitty), but the first morning after installation, we came downstairs to find my beautiful train signal lamp from Scott and Katie lying on its side (upright again in the following photo):

A strong indication, we think, of at least one foiled attempt to wrap her tummy brain around modernist cuisine!

"I disapprove."