elainegrey

Edward went to the vet yesterday for a skin issue we had been treating with skin meds left over from a previous case. The areas are tender and he reacts  in an unusual way: he starts grooming his front paw with such aggression i worry he will hurt himself.  Or he goes rigid and whips his head around to groom-bight anything he can contact with. Once this included my kneecap, which doesn't seem like i thing that would be easy to bite. We are waiting to hear if its some sort of fungal thing -- as a diabetic cat, skin issues are apparently more possible. But he's had a large swath of fur shaved off. Luigi had his belly shaved for the sonogram. They both remind me of how Greybeard, years ago, was shaved to treat a cat bite (if i recall correctly), and the fur never really grew back before he died (which was a year or so later). I hope these elder orange boyos have their coats return to dignified fullness.

Mornings are dark on the deck now. I can barely see -- civil twilight begins at 6:38 AM and i'm out before that --  and there was a dark blob on the door. If it was a big wood roach or water bug or similar i didn't want slipping into the house as i did. I tapped with our snake grabber pole near it and it lept towards me: a green tree frog. I hope my startlement shriek wasn't too widely heard.

Bu the time i should be wrapping up the sun has risen above a horizon i can't see for the trees even in the winter.  The dogwood has lost some leaves but still has red green leaves and now bright red berries. It arches towards the deck, a remnant of a time when it was in a thicket and the stretch was to the light. A Carolina wren flew to it a while ago and sat there fussing. Was Marlowe, sitting all tucked up on the rail in sleepy loaf cat pose, the target of it's fuss? No hummingbirds this morning, but the scent of overripe figs is in the very wet air. I think the hummers have fed on the ripe figs after the wasps open the ripe fruit. Oh! Maybe that's a wren in the fig tree now. Just like for the green  tree fogs i've found in the fig tree (more shrieks of startlement as hand brushes against unexpected creature), i suspect the wasps and fruitflies can be a feast for critters with different appetites than mine.

Feeling appreciative of the weather change that made for getting things done in the yard Sunday and Monday evening pleasant.  Leaves are changing in hints here and there, mostly on the early trees of elm, tulip poplar, and cherry. The black cherry and elm just drop their leaves -- the tree still seems green but underneath is brown leaf fall. Tulip poplar leaves -- which have just barely started -- do spot the tree yellow, but in exchange they are almost black under the tree. Driving through the area i can see the shift in the green, hinting at colors underneath.

Mornings are darker and darker. This morning i observed a sparkling of stars against the sky, mistook Aldebaran (+0.85) for Mars (+0.6) near shining Jupiter (–2.3). Bright Capella (+0.08) stood out as well.

Stellar brightness is on an counter-intuitive scale where a smaller (negative) number is brighter.

Saturday we observed my Mom's birthday and i ran errands. i was surprisingly exhausted at the end, but the wheeled string trimmer will now start.

My bicycle is now home, with a new tire and tube on the back that will presumably be quieter and more efficient on the trainer, and a solid foam tube replacement on the front, to minimize having to pump it up. Also new grips, as the others had degraded rubber.

I made spiced apple fig jam on Sunday, steam canned it, and all the lids took! I wiped the edges this time instead of just trusting i had kept them clean, so that helped. I actually have a nice stash of canned foods for gifts this year. Did i cook the jam too long and it's going to be a solid gummy lump? I'll open our jar before i give it all away.

Work is overwhelming with context switching and never any time to follow up. Last night i worked late to prepare for an interview for a peer role today. I'm feeling very insecure about pressures on me to carry a software engineer's knowledge -- what i was cramming last night -- but that's not where my focus has been. I don't think i need to worry about not being appreciated, but yeah, i worry about expectations from our new exec directory & director management layers. They haven't shown themselves well in some other contexts.

Luigi, one of our two older ex-Tom cats, is peeing in the bedroom bathroom very frequently, matching his drinking. He's arthritic and i suspect he knows he can make it to the shower stall. This morning he didn't quite. It's a tile floor, a hard surface. Not the bed! And he is the sweetest, most companionable soul. We'll clean up pee forever if he is otherwise willing to stay with us.He joins me on the lounge in the morning, and sits between Christine and i on the couch at lunch and in the evening. Christine says he's calling her to sit outside with him now during the day. He's getting multiple treatments for the arthritis and Christine will continue pursuit of the borderline... thyroid thingy? It's the one where the cat gets radiology and then has to stay in isolation for a few weeks. Christine is indignant that he was turned down for treatment, but i don't think she's thought through the isolation that comes with the treatment.

We have a fencing contractor who has shown up to look at the work now, and seems likely to provide an estimate - -two, in fact. One might be with cheaper galvanized wire which -- sure! As long as the mesh size is small enough, we are game. If we hate it, there's [a very limited number of latex acrylic] spray paint.

For the petechiae and bruising, I go for more blood tests today, and i think my doctor will be referring me to a hematologist or dermatologist. I'm hoping for hematology because the optometrist noticed a blood vessel that had broken (nothing to worry about, you probably lifted something) so the capillary breaking isn't just the skin. On the other hand, WTF Buttercup with the waves of petechiae and bruises? Rhetorical question that. I am minimizing non direct doctor reading about this ... ah, fiddlesticks, went and did more reading. "The clinical approach to these disorders rests upon an astute clinician considering the diagnosis and identifying the specific patterns of clinical, radiologic, laboratory, and pathologic abnormalities." Stop reading!

8( Just used our snake grabber to haul a copperhead out from the garage. Also found a use for my hyper-local bitters from my own extracts, mint extract, green walnut extract, rose extract. The alcohol convinced it to move out of it's hidey corner and then -- once i had removed it, i splashed alcohol all across the garage door entry. Snakes.  Adrenaline plus here tonight.

Christine finds snakes extremely distressing but we both held it together. I'm not excited about a copperhead in the garage at all.  I want to get cinnamon oil and suffuse the house with it.

Monday dawned bright and clear, with a whisper of frost.  Stilt grass is sprouting. The autumn olive have small leaves creating a blue green haze in the woods. I would prefer to see the yellow green glow of spice bush (Lindera benzoin) flowers. I tried some of the flowers while doing my Monday mid-work walk. Mainly bitter? Nothing to inspire the level of rhapsody that twigs, leaves, and berries earn.

Tuesday greeted me with 28°F on the thermometer, which was not in the bleeping forecast. I don't know if i could have done anything about the saucer magnolia's satiny magenta flowers (petals of which i have been dicing and scattering on my lunches, the hint of ginger not nearly as powerful as the hit of garnishing color). The blueberries, though: "Flowers distinctly separated with corollas unexpanded and closed are killed at 28 F. Fully opened flowers are damaged at 29 F." I don't think the flowers had gotten along that far, although i was worried about April when temperatures like this are just as likely.

I hope the temps lead the tulip poplars to stay from leafing out.

The weekend work in the yard exhausted me, making me feel like just five years ago i was much more nimble. I got the meadow cut back a great deal. Towering plumes and starbursts of dried flowers cut back to a foot or so -- stalks left for bees. One Chineese  mantid egg case found and destroyed as urged by the fans of pollinators and hummingbirds. Mowed areas. This exposed the spring flush of leaves from the various asters and sunflowers and bee balm. I don't know if i can go after the expanding colony of native but poisonous and thorny Solanum carolinense, but having the stalks cleared will make mechanical control possible. I saw lingering fruits on dried thorny branches entangled in  the flower stalks. More seeds. Fie.

I also mowed, trimmed and chipped: all the fresh cut wood was finally reduced by the end of Monday week 12. The old "greenhouse" site is still a tangle of spring weeds, but the rest of the foundation has been cleared.

I picked lots of onions, giving big bundles to my sister and father. I picked some big bundles of sochan for myself, and ate it for lunch multiple times. Sochan is often advocated as going well with pork, venison bacon, or other strong flavors. One meal of sauteed sochan and onion green tops i dumped in a tin of King Oscar sardines -- and that worked quite nicely. I note that as soon as the sochan started up with the onion greens, i have plenty of spring greens. Yay for robust perennial vegetables. The sorrel has survived neglect as well. No sign of any chicory, although having left fallow stilt grass and gladiola stalks tangled with the tall chicory stalks wouldn't encourage chicory getting established before the cursed stilt grass.

I say it's odd in the sense that my focus was different that it's been for a while. A day of hyperfocus, a day of GTD with the todo list guiding me, a digital decluttering in between. Some progress on postponed tasks.

I ended up staying home on Friday: Christine's brother in law was back in the ICU, and Christine needed to stay with him, so i was home with the pets. I don't really think we need to worry about leaving them alone a long time (she says, with some resignation). It turns out Carrie has figured that she should poop next to the toilet in the east bathroom if she can't get our attention. If she could just ... no, i can't see how she could actually maneuver to use the toilet. (But you know, we could leave a puppy pad out.)

I spent all Friday doing a deep dive into some topics of professional interest and it felt fabulous to focus with no interruptions. I definitely went into hyperfocus. I've since practiced some other technical skills that i just haven't felt entirely able to fiddle around with, but a long weekend poking at things has been good. I also spent a day going through digital detritus, which felt helpful. Today i've taken care of a number of household to-dos. We had run out of the small HVAC filters so i went to Lowes, and came home with four plant starts that were slightly on sale. I think i can recoup the investment

Thursday:  Sylvilagus floridanus (Eastern Cottontail) this time in the east yard (after two mornings when i sighted the rabbit out the front window). They startled when i went out for rain gauge. I'm till hearing cicada but see a lot of dead ones. Carrie found a very young rabbit in the yard and Christine rescued the mortally wounded animal.

Saturday: Another handful of mulberries harvested. So many on the ground! I think i should get a net i can mount to catch fruit. New peonies have sprouted (need to add more soil). Under the pines, Pipsissewa (as i was taught to call Chimaphila maculata) is blooming. (I wonder about trying it as a tea.) The New Jersey tea (ha, another tea plant!) is blooming. It along with the iris virginica are so prolific this year, i wonder if i missed them in my post surgery blur last year.

Christine's been bit by two ticks and we found another today (pre-bite). But none on me yet. How odd!

There's a skink in the house. Thank you Marlowe. Sigh.

Sunday: I am assuming young cardinals were playing along the orchard fence as they learned to fly. I went out to discourage them from staying inside the fence. A squirrel was picking mulberries. Sigh. Where's our predators when you need them?

household, adhd

2024-05-01 So many cicada holes and shells near the orchard N gate, some still squirming in the  heap of weeds (meant to smother the crepe myrtle stump). The violet leaves have so many cicada shells clinging to the bottoms.

2024-05-02 Lovely, mild with spiderwort (not the two fancy ones), rain lilies, Philadelphia fleabane, blackberries, sage, peonies, bearded irises, roses all blooming.

Bluebirds are fledgling, we found out as any household member outside got dive bombed by bluebirds. Carrie and Marlowe were kept in while the birds seemed on the offense in the back, just in case. I saw flutterings out the front window, watched Christine go out and get bombed, and watched the fluttering go towards the garden -- and then get caught in the fence? I went out and Christine stood near, getting all the attacks, and gently removed the fledgling from between the rabbit fence and deer fence. So happy with the story this year. I love our carnivores but i hate when they act on their nature.

2024-05-03 Dry - with [a trace of rain]  in evening, hoping for a rainy weekend. Stilt grass is a lush yellow green. The Star of Bethlehem seems to have stopped -- the heat? I suspect  Aunt Rachel's peony to loose its white petals today. No bloom on the Malykin's pink peony this year (again).  The bearded iris ('Jurassic Park'  or 'Edith Wolford') seem to be flying through the buds, blooming in the orchard border with Johnson's Keeper and in the old herb bed (there with the blooming sage in matching purple). White phlox (Phlox [contested] 'Miss Lingard') is blooming off the deck, providing white dapples  along with the two masses of Philadelphia fleabane (Erigeron philadelphicus), one under the orchard mulberry tree, the older group in the mossy glade. The red and yellow native columbines dot the south berm.

The Robin's plantain and lyreleaf sage are going to seed. The best grass ever is in seed well.

2024-05-05 Spigelia marilandica 'Little Redhead'  Indian pink is blooming on the south berm.

Also blooming: * Amsonia x 'Blue Ice' (OCoffDeck, 75) * Heuchera 'Northern Exposure Red' (GHpot, 248) * miniature and full size roses * Itea Virginia (Sweetspire) (Rain, 257) - or has bloomed... * a i think native onion?  in the HK and OCoffDeck -- pink-purple delicate globes * chives

Plenty of strawberry harvests.

notes, weather, household

Busy, i presume with focus on the eclipse road trip planning after a weekend with family. I am also learning substack, as a place to share longform posts under my public name, and instagram, to weasel my way into my niblings' lives. Eldest nibling is not found on Instagram yet. So it goes.

Sports: great LSU vs Iowa women's basketball game. Have enjoyed watching the NCSU men's team as well. So tickled NCSU  women's and men's teams are going to final four. The women's championship is while i am driving to Indiana and the men's while i am in Indiana. I have figured out the radio stations that might carry the men's game at the campground.

Learned how to use instagram's editor and posted this there, as well, with words on it. No music, no hyping over-speaking.

Sunday my raingage thermometer hit 93°. Raleigh had its record pollen count on Monday, no fooling, 1.48 times the count of the next highest record pollen count.  I've been watching the high flying fireflies the past three nights (not as unusual as that seems). The wall of green is going up, but i can still see some sky. Today's high is 74°, low 44° and some nights ahead with lows in the mid 30s, which means i should cover the blueberries.

Eclipse weather changes EVERY TIME i look. Damp probably, but not so much to turn me off. I am going to see how comfortable the jeep's seats are when reclined and check on running a tarp from the roof. We'll be getting tents from my sister, but....

Getting the deck stained because the wood is suffering from the elements. Power washed yesterday - top step had a pretty rotten spot (due to me having planters on the wood, i wager. Kinda worried how it will look with all the weathered wood siding, but taking care of one of the many things that needs to be done is good. Way expensive job, but we really like this tradesperson. Christine spent time talking radio and X-files with him, so i think she's happy coordinating this work. notes, weather, household

The week started with a view of the lipstick pink buds of the saucer magnolia through the kitchen window. The yellow daffodils are blooming in the orchard now. I think i bought three different types of large yellow daffodils to spread out the bloom time but i'm not sure i succeeded. By Thursday the white, feral hyacinth joined the apricot colored one in blooming.  None of the Crocus vernus have bloomed yet. The nursery bread creeping phlox -- the candy stripe one -- has a single bud in the east yard and another flower under the twins. No sign of Robin's plantain.

Monday i mowed some of the places where the grass is growing lush -- in other places it's still not started back up.

I planted some very stressed herbs bought at 75% off a few weeks ago, and the cala lily corms i dug up in the fall. Darkness was falling quickly, so i didn't investigate closely: i think a cala lily overwintered just fine, sending up a green shoot hiding in the pine straw mulch. I won't dig them up this fall.

Bradford pears are blooming elsewhere.

Early in the week i found the tiny crab apple had all new green leaves -- i missed it budding out. No sign on the mayhaws or the witchhazel or two of the three plums. The Guthrie plum has leaves open, though, which seems odd. Last year there was at least one flower. I don't know if it's suffering in its cage, but it needs to get a trunk that can survive the deer before i will let it outl.

The pecans and hazelnuts seem still asleep, the chestnuts still have fall leaves. The buckeyes (still straight sticks) i bought from Dutch buffalo farm have a topknot of leaves, while the older buckeye has three fat buds.

Sunday morning - curse Dumb Senator Time - was at least rewarded with clear skies and starry view when i let out the cats. And after many grey days, the sunlight landed on a redbud and i could see that the flowers are just starting. The lilac -- yes, Tamena, one that has lovely scented flowers, although not nearly as big as lilacs i remember in Philly -- has flower buds. Two trout lilies (Erythronium) in the mossy glade sent up leaves (no sign in the HK).

Onions are going great: i tried some of the bulb parts and they were still mild. I'll try more with lunch today. Sochan is becoming bountiful, i've had salads with violets and violet greens, some fat chickweed tips, sorrel.  There are various brassicas sending up buds in the warm weather .

Ponderings:

I think if i buy any more crocus it will be more Crocus tommasinianus, possibly 'Lilac beauty'  for the more blue color,  and the 'Ruby giant' is a bargain.  More 'Roseus'  is tempting, but i think i could just transplant. ('Pictus' and  'Albus" are more expensive.) They all bloomed before i was interested in cutting grass, so i think i could stick them out in the grassy stretch between the south berm and "The Twins" - a multi trunk tulip poplar, which i gaze at from the bedroom window.

I would very much like to find some more  Erythronium   bulbs for native species. (Hmm https://midatlanticnatives.com/product/erythronium-americanum-trout-lily/ ) Camassia scilloides is native, but i an happy to get more  Camassia quamash from the flower trade.

Kinda long, with images  ( Read more... )

(Looking back to N°4: the warm week was filled with frog calls, but by Sunday evening on the 28th, they quieted)

Thursday morning dawn was clear.  Arcturus directly overhead, the big dipper standing out in the sky above the house. Moonlight spilling through the pines from the waning moon low to the south and Venus glimmering in the trees above the horizon to the east. A bright satellite, as bright as Arcturus, glided close to the star in its orbital route to the east.

We have had a coyote visit, after i scattered some stale bread. I am both excited to catch the visitor and perhaps a little cautioned that, indeed, they are this close to our house. I had been counting on the hawks to keep the rabbits in balance, but seeing the coyote where the rabbit has been out previous evenings makes a strong link. (And while the fence around the orchard is pretty impressive, i am aware of the threat to the cats.) No more bread scattered there!

The coyote visited the next night, but not the third. The second night, it startles a few times: i'm glad it's not comfortable. We finally got some shots of wildlife on the solar powered wildlife camera pointed out over the "meadow".  We think this was taken about the same time Christine was letting Carrie in from "last call," which probably triggered the white flag warning.

I'm delighting in all the hellebore. The Crocus/**/tommasinianus is blooming, and surprised me in one location i did not recall planting it. Daffodils and other crocus have sprouted, as well as thick clumps of Ornithogalum umbellatum leaves.

In January we generated less than 3% of our power needs. I remain impressed looking at how quickly the solar power generation stopped in the autumn, between a generally less favorable angle and the shade of the pines. I wonder when the power generation will make a dent again. I'm guessing February will be over double January's production. Our usage will depend on the temperatures. And i do wonder if air frying is more power consumptive than the frying pan.