Cloudy and Cool

When I went downstairs after writing yesterday's post, I found the kitties hard at work. Sadie had lap-warming duty:

Smitty was...hm...keeping his kitty pole balanced? Those things tend to topple over sometimes, and so he was keeping it at a proper cant.

It was a good day for gardening yesterday, and that's what we did. Sunshine is nice, but any dry day will do. I needed to do some planting and some pruning. There will always be weeds to pull, but that wasn't on yesterday's agenda. Instead, I planted two more chive plants in the herb garden. The sage plant and the three lavender plants so took over in the herb garden, they crowded out the rather large population of chives I had a few years ago. I was actually thinking I might need to thin the chives, but then, the garden did it for me. Now, I don't have anywhere near enough to make chive blossom vinegar. The only chive blossoms are the ones you see in the foreground of the image below. I've marked the new plantings with pink arrows.

Also, I planted the cherry tomato in one of the whiskey barrels. It's a little hard to see below, because it shares its barrel with some wild strawberries and some volunteer pansies. It's right in the middle with that little bamboo stake. Look closely, and you can see its yellow flower on the right.

You might remember that last year's cherry tomato was eaten off to the ground the day after I planted it. This year, we've put fencing around the tomato cage. I don't know if we'll leave the fencing, but it will offer protection until the plant is large enough to fight for itself.

I severely pruned back a hydrangea that had grown leggy. Then, there were three little pots of black eyed susans to plant in the whiskey barrel at the front. After that, I took a little walk around to see what's blooming. 

The first fully-opened rhododendron has made an appearance. I believe we have five rhodies, but only two of them have flowers right now.

I worried that the echinacea might not return this year, but there it is. Looks like the raking fairy needs to come get rid of all those dead leaves. Patience, Grasshopper.

Mike planted the new clematis. It's a small plant, growing only to about 3-4 feet, and so we've given it a free-standing trellis. I'm excited for it to bloom.

The apple tree is the last of the fruit trees to bloom. This is our sad little apple tree, but it produced about 3 dozen apples last year.

Also, I found more buds on the poppies. The poppies always generate lots of anticipatory excitement. As you look at these pictures be sure to pause for a moment to admire my beautiful (cough) manicured fingernails. And, yes, I did cut myself while chopping onions a few evenings ago. It's always the middle finger. I'm sure there's some kind of message there. As for the poppies...here are a couple more...

There's another one over here.

The lilac is beautiful right now.

And the golden chain tree is developing flowers. This is one of my favorite trees.

The Gracie Memorial Catnip Garden is doing well. It sprang up there in that corner last year, behind one of the hydrangeas. It probably thought it was being a weed, but we let it stay and moved Gracie's stake nearby.

The red azalea is blooming away.

While I was standing there, a hummingbird came to the feeder.

It probably thought turning its back and ignoring me would make me go away.

But no...I'm still here, little guy.

Kitties were interested in something else. Squirrels would be my guess.

So I could have done some sewing then, but Mike finally commited to an ATV trip to Colorado in mid-September. We went a couple of years ago, and we had such a blast, we've talked many times of returning. There was a question in his mind whether to go to Colorado, or whether to go see a car race with our son during the same time period. The car race is still "TBC" (to be confirmed), and so he said something along the lines of "screw it," and decided to start planning for Colorado. Well. Count me in. 

The only thing better than taking a trip is planning it, and so I went to work looking through my folders for items of interest, estimating mileage, looking for campgrounds, etc. I came up with these two maps for the beginning of our trip. I can only enter nine destinations per map, which explains why there are two overlapping itineraries. Here's the first. This one is pretty well settled. It mainly gets us to Ouray, Colorado, and Silverton, Colorado, but we will probably stop for a day or two in Goblin Valley State Park for some sight-seeing.

We'll be riding ATV's in Ouray and Silverton, and then moving on to northwestern New Mexico to see a few places we've wanted to see for a long time. It's always too cold in that area when we travel in winter, and so this seems like a good opportunity to knock off another few bucket list items.

The next map is still in flux because our plans also include riding ATV's in northern Arizona. I've added in some destinations we'd like to see, but this is all subject to change between now and then. Mike still has to take a look at the Arizona OHV (off highway vehicle) book and figure out where we should ride. 

It's am ambitious journey so far, but I've already deleted about four destinations. They turned out to be so remote there was really no place to stay unless we were prepared to drive a hundred miles or more both directions to see them. Maybe if we were younger and into backpacking or tent camping, but I'm afraid those days are long gone.

So, instead of sewing, that's how I spent the rest of the afternoon. Today we're picking up Big Bertha from her spa treatment and dropping off poor Pfelicity. Pfelicity doesn't get a lot of sewing time since she's the machine I take to classes and when we travel. In the time I've owned her, she's never been in for service. It seems like a good time to pamper her a little.

When I came upstairs to write this post, I noticed Smitty has lap-warming duties today.

Poor Smitty. It's just work, work, work. The cat never gets a break. And, obviously, he doesn't get nearly enough to eat either. Please paws for a moment and say a purr for Smitty, the Brave and Overworked.