More About the Shed

Look at this beautiful creature that I found in the garden yesterday. It's a rose chafer beetle. I was repotting some plants when I noticed it among the detritus from one of the pots, as shiny as a piece of jewelry. It was completely motionless, with all its legs tucked up, and I thought it was dead. I brought it inside to rinse off so I could take a picture of it, and soon after I doused it with cool water it came to life in my hand. A miracle!

I took my photos and put it back in the garden beneath one of the rose bushes. Sorry, Mr. Beetle. Go back to sleep.

This is what we woke to yesterday morning. That's the garden shed I've been talking about, and as you can see, the asphalt roof roll slid off entirely at some point during the previous night. Dave and I did hear a weird thump and wondered what it was, and this must have been it.

We managed to hoist it back onto the roof of the shed -- and let me tell you, that thing is heavy. It's also very scratchy and I have some skin wounds to prove it. We nailed it into place rather haphazardly just as a temporary fix.

We reported the situation to the landlords and to the management company, and we're hoping they'll send someone around to fix it properly. If not, we'll need a handyman to come and help me get it into place. Dave really can't be maneuvering a sheet of asphalt shingle, having recently had hernia surgery, and I can't do it myself.

Can you see that dark strip on the wall above the shed roof? That's where we used to have a piece of wood or flashing or something, which is now gone. I'm beginning to think it's been gone for years. Amazingly, considering how many pictures I take, I have almost none of the shed -- but I did find one here from 2016. It's hard to tell, but the flashing may have been missing even then, and the asphalt roof was already loose around the edges. Clearly this situation has been developing for ages.

OK, I'll stop talking about the shed now -- I promise!

As I said, I repotted some plants yesterday -- a hydrangea, a masterwort, a foxglove. We have a couple more foxgloves I'd like to get in the ground sometime this week, and a few more pot plants that need work. The pot above, for example, contains some thistles that need rejuvenation -- but I want to continue enjoying that tulip first.

Dave and I also took Olga to the cemetery for a walk. She gamely chased her ball and barked and carried on. I found a bright pink football that had come over the cemetery wall from the adjacent athletic fields. I threw it back because it was pristine, and if Olga had gotten hold of it, she'd have demolished it. She looked briefly betrayed but fortunately dogs have extremely short memories for things like that.