(no subject)

This morning: half my regular tea, half Lapsang Souchong. Lapsang Souchong is the Retsina of teas, but given that my regular tea for the summer has juniper berries in it, pine smoke just ups the flavor a noch. I think i have enough Lapsang souchong to make my morning pots for my tea order to ship to me.

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My deck garden is blooming furiously. Tangerine orange pompoms of marigold are under the lemon tree, which will bloom again next week. The hydrangea is a purply pink: after years of no treatments it is no longer blue. My scented geraniums (pelargoniums) are past their show of purple blooms, but the garden geraniums (pelargoniums) have their summery show of red and white pompoms. While all the white are from the same cuttings from a neighbor, the reds are from a variety of sources, and one is a coral pink. It looks like a ivy-leaf geranium may bloom again after the flush of spring blooms. It will compete with the purple chrysanthemum that shares its pot. Another pot has garden geraniums with an brown-gold chrysanthemum that is just beginning to bloom.

The window box i repotted on Memorial Day is doing brilliantly. For a few years in the worm casting soil it was simply sticks of geraniums with a few leaves and occasional blossom and the occasional volunteer nasturtium. Repotted with a mix of potting soil, the plants are thriving.

Before this experiment, i had taken the winter worm castings and filed a large planter. Most of the seeds i planted did not take off, but the sunflowers are thriving. The soil has compacted a great deal over just a few months: that must be partly the issue with worm casting compost as soil. Too much nitrogen?

The nasturtiums i seeded on Memorial Day weekend look like they are getting to a blooming size. I think the scarlet ones (with a darker leaf color) did not germinate as well as the cream. The other seedlings are sitting sheltered in seedling pots: i've not repotted them yet.

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I have to make a decision: i think i have to let my subscription lapse to Bay Nature. Fortunately it's only four issues a year, but i've a deep archive -- probably ten years worth. I'll donate a year's subscription, instead, as the magazine is non-profit and educates about environment restoration. Conscious of this decision, i pick up the last copy to arrive in the mail. I'm fascinated by and delighted to hear of the porpoises returning to the bay, interested by the stories of mesopredators. As i flop down the issue at my desk, i see it is right over an incompletely read issue from last quarter.

I can't bring more reading into the house.

Ah but i did. Yesterday i found that the books i gleaned from the office shared bookshelves (books that have been untouched for over a year or so) earned about $10 credit at BookBuyers. I tried to find TIptree Award winning authors to buy and place on the bookshelves, but had very little luck. Instead i bought a fantasy trilogy about cartography and read the first one yesterday. I'm not particularly delighted, and at the very end of the first book one of the few female characters came to a depressing end. It's possible she'll be back, but i didn't find the plot twist believable and , all in all, i'll happily not finish the trilogy. Back to Highlander as an escape.