Pigments

The honesty plants are changing color for autumn, their chlorophyll fading to reveal the same inner pigments that give them such bright purple flowers in spring. I love these plants. We have a couple of them that re-seeded in one of the lily pots (above) as well as a few that sprouted in the flower beds, which is a minor miracle. Despite the fact that we don't weed much, plants seldom seem to re-seed well in our garden. Foxgloves, for example, never carry over from one season to the next the way they do for other people. About the only plants that reliably sprout are green alkanet, of which we have waaaaaay too much, and forget-me-nots.

Here's a status report on our Thanksgiving cacti. We now have five plants -- the salmon-colored one in front, two white ones behind that, and two pink ones in the back. The pink ones are by far the most robust. I think one of my white ones has a bit of root rot, and as you can see there's also some kind of weed growing in the pot -- I think it's a forget-me-not. (They re-seed so well they're growing INDOORS!)

All the cacti have buds so it looks like we'll get lots of flowers this season. I'm trying to back off my watering a bit. I usually water them weekly, and try not to let them sit in watery saucers, but with root rot showing up I guess even that is too much.

My mind is swirling a bit these days with all the potential changes in our lives. The contract for my buyout next spring is in the final stages of preparation, and I've been dealing with a lawyer to get that done. And there's still this mysterious "opportunity" hanging off our bow like an iceberg (an image that illustrates pretty well how I feel about it) -- though I still can't get into the details. I probably won't be able to write about it, in fact, for at least another month or two. Just know that it's out there, and I will reveal all at some point.

All this makes it very hard for me to focus. I spent yesterday writing to some kids and their parents and/or teachers about overdue summer books, so I'm still trying to mop those up. When I print out our library's overdue report it comes to 13 pages -- all students with books that were due on Sept. 1 or before. Some of them were due last spring! It seems like it's getting harder and harder to motivate these kids to get things back to us.

There is the occasional screw-up on our end. Yesterday a boy came into the library and said he thought he'd returned his book, but he agreed to bring money the next day to pay for it. After he left, I thought, "Let me check the shelf, just in case." And there it was. Why it was never scanned so it came off his account I don't know. Sometimes kids put books back themselves, sometimes the scanner doesn't work right, sometimes it's human error, blah blah blah. Anyway, I e-mailed him and said, "Good news! You're off the hook!" But I pointed out that the next time he receives an overdue notice for a book he believes he returned, he needs to SAY something -- not ignore the situation until I write his teacher.