Geography Lesson, with Squirrels

My little pal the curious robin was back yesterday as I worked in the garden. I got a lot done, trimming the neighbor's gigantic rose that overhangs our patio (aka "the monster"), putting away some of the dahlias in the shed, and raking leaves. That's what got the robin most excited -- lots of bugs and worms are revealed by leaf-raking, I suspect.

I also pulled the zinnias, which were done, and do you remember the mystery plant I repotted last weekend -- the one I eventually identified as a crassula? Well, I've been thinking about that plant all week. I decided that I put it in the wrong soil by planting it in garden compost. From what I've read it prefers rockier, grittier, less nutritious soil. So I unpotted it and repotted it again, using dirt from the rock garden (where it was growing before) mixed with grit and cactus compost. And this time I removed the cyclamen so it really is alone in its own pot. I may have demolished the cyclamen in the process, but we'll see.

I was going to water the indoor plants as I usually do on Sundays, but they don't really seem to need it. I think everything goes a bit dormant during these dark days of almost-winter. I'll wait a few extra days until they dry out a bit more.

Isn't this exciting?

Oh, some of you said you wanted to see a map of where I'm walking on the Green Chain (which I wrote about yesterday). So I made this using Google Maps:

It should enlarge if you click it. The purple point (upper left) is where I live. The red point (middle right) is Thamesmead, where I began walking last weekend. See what I mean about how it's diagonally across the city from me? Now you can understand how it takes me a while to get out there via tube and train. You can see Erith, where I walked on Saturday, even further downriver at the very edge of the map.

Finally, I took Olga for a long walk on Hampstead Heath. She was funny -- I intended to go to the main Heath but she kept pulling me toward the West Heath, so that's where we wound up. (Because Olga RULES.) I have no idea why she wanted to go in that direction.

I took some video because the Heath is so beautiful right now. My footage includes a couple of squirrel-chasing sequences. You can tell that Olga's ardor for squirrels is somewhat diminished these days -- she lets a few of them venture pretty close without being challenged, and she can't run as fast as she used to! At the very end, when she's sniffing around the base of that tree, she's looking for water -- the tree's roots form a small pool where she sometimes drinks, but the water was too low this time around.