Geraniums and Garden Updates

This is a type of geranium that we have growing around our back steps, from the patio up to the garden. When I cleared the steps last summer, I trimmed it and put some cuttings in a pot on the patio, and now they're blooming up a storm. That's the lattice back of one of the patio chairs behind it.

Our pink geranium is blooming as well, but the plant looks terrible -- very lanky and straggly. This should teach me a lesson about pruning. I knew I needed to cut it back early this spring but I avoided that task and now it's too late and we just have to live with it. The flowers still look nice, at least.

I just spent about half an hour cleaning up the kitchen before sitting down to blog. To my way of thinking there is nothing worse than waking up to a dirty kitchen, but Dave made stuffed shells last night and I couldn't fit all the bowls, pots, pans and colander into the dishwasher. So I ran what I could and left the rest until this morning. Ugh. And then I wound up hand-washing the big baking dish anyway, because that darn thing -- with lid -- takes practically the whole bottom rack of our modest-sized European dishwasher.

Anyway, it's done now. Mr. Clean could eat off our cabinets.

Dave and I spent all day yesterday at home. I repotted two gigantic hydrangeas that we have growing in containers. They'd been in their pots for years and the soil had gradually broken down and become compacted, so much so that the pots were only about half-full. I pulled the bushes out (easier said than done!), added new dirt and replanted them in the same pots, now full to the brim. We considered putting them in the ground but the only space we have is in the far back of the garden beneath those gnarled old elder trees and our Japanese maple, and I just couldn't face digging through all those roots.

It feels good to settle the question of what to do with those hydrangeas. We've been debating it for ages and finally I thought, "I'm solving this problem."

I've almost finished going through my latest batch of old slides, culling the useless ones and setting aside the good ones. I texted the slide dealer again about acquiring the rest of his stock but haven't heard back. He seems reluctant to sell them all to me, but he won't just tell me that, which is perhaps a cultural thing. I am probably being very American, brashly breezing in and wanting the whole shebang and metaphorically waving my dollars around, and perhaps he's concerned about being left empty-handed, with no slides for his customers to browse. Maybe he likes selling them piecemeal. Maybe he's suspicious of why I want them. I can only guess.

I could ultimately give him back the ones I don't want, which would solve my problem of what to do with them all. But obviously I don't want to do that until I've been through the rest of his, so he doesn't mix them all together. I don't want to keep re-buying the same old slides!

I think I have to assume his silence is his message and I'll talk to him about it the next time I'm at his shop. Meanwhile, there are plenty of old slides and photos out there, and I'll just keep my eyes open. This is a long-term project, whatever it is.

Here's the latest download from the garden cam. The best part, I think, comes right at the beginning, when I had the camera mounted on our maple tree, looking toward the back corner of the garden. In daylight -- so we can see his or her beautiful coloring -- Sharpie climbs up our log pile, jumps to the top of the wall and goes over the fence into our neighbor's yard.

After that:
-- At 0:20 you'll see the tree (and camera) swaying on a very windy day. I had about a thousand clips that looked like that because the movement kept setting off the camera. You can hear our wind gong chiming.
-- At 0:36, a quick shot of a curious starling. I've moved the camera back to a position on the ground.
-- Beginning at 0:43, various vulpine comings-and-goings, Sharpie at first and then Crooked Tail.
-- At 1:19, we get a glimpse of a fox (Q-Tip?) with something stick-like in its mouth. I see this fairly often but I can never work out what they're carrying around.
-- At 1:25, I put down some scraps from a steak dinner. About three hours later, Crooked Tail comes around, sniffs at it cautiously and carries some of it off. 
-- At 2:29, just a few minutes later, Q-Tip comes and eats the rest, again surprisingly cautiously. I thought they'd wolf down those scraps.
-- At 3:16 the fox runs toward the camera and I'm pretty sure tries to "mark" it, but fortunately we don't see evidence of that.
-- And finally, some random sniffing around by, I believe, Crooked Tail. (All my fox identifications are tenuous because I have such a hard time telling them apart!)