Wednesday Workday with a Visitor

[Note:  I am officially on vacation for three days, so I think I will let Mitchell do the heavy lifting this "workday" and will share with you his new endeavor. ]

But first, you need to meet my Renaissance Man. 

A man of many talents and interests he has worked for social justice in both organized and personal ways, he has been a professional (and self-employed) artist, he has worked on the national level to encourage drug treatment as an alternative to incarceration for non-violent drug offenders, and he was one of the first website developers for Virginia's state government.  He has always been a teacher/trainer - training judges and lawyers, teaching scuba diving, teaching wood carving, and training choirs.

In retirement he has been the "plant man" in a nearby office complex and worked as a med tech/health educator, and (most importantly to me) taken over much of the day-to-day running of the house and grocery shopping.  Several years older than I, he stands nearly 6 feet tall, weighs in at 200 pounds, and plays a mean game of tennis, despite one replaced knee!  And, he's all mine!

I have left his first love until last, tho.  It's music.  Trained as a professional choral conductor, he has sung with folks whose names you would know and developed outstanding church choirs ... but not for many, many years.

About nine months ago, he bought a folk harp.  [I forgot to tell you that his photo is next to "instant gratification" in the OED.]  He was looking for something to do and thru circumstances happened on a used harp at a good price and decided to see if he could learn to play it.  Nine months later ... he's pretty good.

And, now he is the owner of the lovely new harp at the top of the page.   "Manon" is a French lever harp  - larger than his beginner harp, with more strings, and concert spacing - which is better for his large hands.   It was love at first sight!  She has a richer sound than the sample above and I hope to record her soon.

I'm going back to my vacation, while he practices.

[PS to Elizabeth and James ... he doesn't read this blog.  If you don't tell, he'll never know!]

Flowers in the House

This was a challenge.  My garden looks like Mother Nature has departed for cooler climes.  Almost nothing is blooming, so I turned on the sprinklers early Saturday morning and that nudged a few things to perk up and open.

This mini-rose has been a star for years.  The best part of my inheritance from my aunt many years ago, it's a reliable performer that starts early and blooms well into the fall.  The flowers are a bit strange.  Early in the season they are very white dark pink spots and picotee on some blooms, while others are pure white.  As the season progresses, tho, the flowers get more ivory with less vibrant splashes of pink, and many of these have a decidedly peach tinge.  Whatever the time, it's pretty and often covered with masses of blossoms.

A nest of Solomon's Seal leaves, a bit of Joe Pye Weed and a collection of bits and pieces out of the pots on the deck, and that's it:  salvia, verbena and one lone Lady's Mantle.

The rest of my treasure this morning was one zinnia, which I put close to my chair where I can enjoy it.

Be sure to stop by Jane's house (SmallButCharming) to see what's in the other houses.  I'm counting on our friends in Europe to have lots of pretty things to share.   Thanks, Jane, for organizing us!

Light - at the End of the Tunnel

Today is like the first day of summer vacation.  Or, the third Monday in May - if you're a florist.  Or, the day after the Tour de France.

After three months of running a marathon at work, I can finally take a breath and start to enjoy life again.  And, it's about time.  I love my job, but I hate May thru July - when we have a huge project that takes 14-hour days and more work than a person should need to do in six months.  Fortunately, the bosses understand that and won't mind a whit if I cut way back for the next couple of weeks to recuperate.  They will be doing the same thing.

So ... what to do with this new found time and peace of mind?

Watch the Olympics!  Did you like the opening ceremonies?  Loved the Queen's entrance!  Thought the US team's uniforms were 50/50.  The men looked great, but the women looked like they had dragged out poodle skirts and bobby sox.  I wish they had gone with pencil skirts instead.  And, I hated the shoes - seriously, what girl over the age of four wears white shoes with socks!

Release my Domestic Goddess.  Today I dived into the kitchen and produced two batches of jam and a blackberry pie.  [Then it occurred to me that I had worked nearly 10 hours in the kitchen.  Perhaps I am not quite ready to relax after all!]  It's tomato jam season, tho, so there's more coming soon.

Garden.  The drought has hit me hard.  There is almost nothing in bloom in the yard - literally.  Am hopeful that regular watering and hard deadheading with start another flush of blooms in a couple of weeks.

Taken June 16, not any time recently!

Blog.  Have been lurking in your comments, but hope to wrap my mind around actual words again now.

For better or worse .... I'm back.

A Wee Micro-burst

The winds howled.  The rain poured down.  The hail rattled the windows.

Leaves were shredded and blown away.

The trees bent until some broke ... taking out the power lines all over the neighborhood.

See the hole in the upper right of the elm?

Fortunately, there was not much serious damage and the power company quickly got crews out trimming the trees.  But two days without power is plenty long!  Happy to have it back.

That was Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday - a week ago.

[Imagine a video here - shot by a neighbor and promised, but not delivered.  He was shooting the storm when the lines touched and shorted out the street.  I had been planning to show you the , well, the show!]

Trimming the trees is always a dicey proposition for me.  Our best tree and the one most likely to cause trouble - power line-wise - is an American Elm.  It shades our deck and is a lovely tree - with no signs of having consorted with the Dutch Elms!  I love this tree.

Sadly, there were two problems:  It lost four small branches in the storm, and it had grown too close to the auxiliary lines at the back of our property.  "Gotta be trimmed," says the power company.  So, I spent the past week sucking up to, er... getting to know, the crew chief of the tree trimmers.  They moved in this morning with bucket and saws and cut the absolute least they had to cut.  Overall, I'm very pleased. 

In the process, tho, I also lost the Charlie Brown crab apple.
We bought this tree for $7.50 at the end of our first summer in this house and have nursed it and trimmed it for 12 years until it was a pretty shape and had started producing large numbers of crab apples to feed the critters.  For the past two summers, tho, I have fought the blight - cutting back more and more branches in the hope of saving it.  But it is much worse this year, so the tree men took it down, too. 

Crabapple - see the dying tips?  This is after the storm removed the

 

worst of it.

The final victim of the storm was the tomato patch.  The wind beat them down and knocked off 90% of the blossoms.  With a little luck, and strips of tee shirt, they will survive.

More storms predicted for the next five nights, but hopefully not as strong as those last week.