Bloody Garden Tools

The good news is that today's Garden Adventure did not cost me as much money or elbow grease as I had anticipated. The bad news is that it also did not consume as much of my time as I'd hoped.

The bad news is that I was unable to find columbines at either Komeri or Kahma. The good news is, when I started weeding the garden, I found some already there!

Why, you ask, was I so bent on having columbines in my garden, enough to travel to two stores on opposite sides of the hill to look for them? Besides the fact that I really like them, it's because columbines come back. They are perennials. I wanted something that I could look forward to next year, in the event that I stay. It would give me more of a sense of home here, some semblance of roots (no pun intended).

At any rate, I'll have columbines, granted they're not my columbines, but they're there. Who knows, maybe some of the other flowers I put in will stick around. I wouldn't know, I can't read the instructions! I just hope they're all in a good spot.

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for:

There she is, in all her glory.


Doesn't she make my little house look more cheerful now?

Ok, I know it's not much, it looks a little contrived right now, but those impatiens are going to take off, I tell you! Soon you won't know where Abbey's handiwork ends and Mother Nature's begins!

So, after my gardening there wasn't much left to do today. I tried the "sitting in the sun studying" bit for a little while, on my ghetto cardboard mat (I don't know why I didn't think of that before - it's super comfortable!), but I was tired and the sun was making me sleepier, so I headed inside for some Cien anos de soledad and some eye-resting.

Eventually the wind picked up and I had to shut the windows completely. You see, this morning I found yet a third centipede in the house, in the vicinity of where I found the first. This was not cool. So I grabbed the bottle of insecticide powder and headed outdoors to redo the windowsills, just as my predecessors had done. Looking more closely at the bottle, I noticed an artist's rendering of a house with a big white ring around it, presumably a ring of insecticide powder. Which lead me to believe that that is the true recommended use of the powder, contrary to my sill-filling technique. However, I am going to trust that the previous folks new from experience what they were doing. The downside is that with a little wind the stuff comes flying inside with a scent reminiscent of that plant spray I had several years ago, that you were supposed to stay upwind of. Yeah, I shut the windows. Let that noise calm down a bit. Maybe it will rain tomorrow and settle things.

Anyhoo, no plans for tomorrow. According to my weather report is in fact going to rain all day. A good day for cleaning. No laundry. We'll see about running. Maybe someone will be home tomorrow to play with me.

PS: Thanks Mom and Dad! Your generous contribution to the Get Abbey Started Fund sponsored today's endeavor. Including a new trowel and whatever that 3-pronged scrapey-thing is called. And some workin' towels.