Adventure Fly

This little blue-green fly was very focused on one of the ragwort plants in the garden. It buzzed from flower to flower, probing each blossom. I didn't realize houseflies paid any attention to flowers or drank their nectar, but that's what it seemed to be doing.

Not much to report from yesterday. I read, I watered plants, I stripped aphids off the lupines. Ho-hum.

Blog pal Beth made this digital scrapbook page for Olga, which she called "Olga's Adventure." I don't know a thing about digital scrapbooking, but I guess it's basically embellishing or collaging photos using graphic elements from online kits. You'll recognize the photo as one taken by dog-walker Francisco a couple of weeks ago. The page is very cute, but as I told Beth, I think Olga might eat many of those small animals if she came across them in real life. (Maybe not the deer.)

Anyway, Beth, Olga and I both thank you for your kindness.

I read an interesting lockdown-inspired article in The New York Times yesterday about how challenging it can be to spend all day with your partner and still communicate well. When your every waking moment is spent together, at the end of the day, it can be hard to find things to talk about -- after all, you've shared all that day's experiences and there are no tales to tell. I haven't felt that way with Dave, but I have noticed that we spend a lot of time with our faces planted in our respective computer screens. Dave often uses noise-cancelling headphones, too, which gives him an added layer of isolation. (It can be very frustrating when I'm trying to get his attention, waving my arms frantically from across the room.)

The article recommends intentionally creating new experiences together, and fortunately we get that with the garden and with the shows we watch in the evenings -- and of course I have my dog walks with Olga and my little forays to run errands in the outside world. They do give me some stories of my own. Probably not very exciting ones, but hey -- beggars can't be choosers.

Borage and a Bush Cricket

You're thinking, "Didn't he just post a picture of a butterfly on a hydrangea two days ago?" Well, yes, I did. But it was a different butterfly and a different hydrangea, so I'm calling it justifiable.

Dave and I have both marveled at the number of peacock butterflies, like the one above, that we've seen this year. There were two of them in our garden yesterday at the same time, even. Maybe our dry spring was good for them?

Dave is considering a couple of gardening ideas, including digging out the area around the bird bath to expand the flower bed.  "I need a project," he proclaimed yesterday. I think he's feeling a little stir-crazy. I told him to go for it. He's also wanted to install a water feature for ages, and I'm cool with that as long as it's a small one -- like a basin with a little solar-powered fountain, or something like that. I don't want to have to haul some concrete installation if and when we eventually move.

Here was my own project yesterday:

Remember the gigantic borage plant that appeared in the pot with our passionflower vine? Well, of course it set seed, and now we have seedlings coming up in the same pot and in surrounding pots. We can't really have that because they'll take over, so I removed some seedlings and potted them up on their own. When they get slightly larger I'll move them to the wildflower area in the back of the garden, where they can run rampant. (We have a lot of what we call borage back there already, but it's really green alkanet, which is related but not the same plant.)

Here's a cool insect I found on Saturday while walking back from the Heath with Olga. It's a speckled bush cricket. It clearly didn't get the memo that its natural camouflage only works if it's sitting on a green plant.

Yesterday was my mom's 83rd birthday. The staff at the retirement center where she lives set up a Zoom call so my brother and I, and our families, could sing her "Happy Birthday" and chat with her a bit. Singing over Zoom never works very well, and the call was a bit chaotic -- my nieces were making balloon animals at the same time -- so I'm not sure my mom could really follow what was going on. But she smiled and laughed and seemed happy with her cake.

I'm continuing on with Mark Doty's book about Walt Whitman. I was struck yesterday by these very germane words, quoted in the book, from Whitman's preface to "Leaves of Grass" (1856):

This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem...

Another Muddy Puddle

I was up this morning at 4:30. I have no idea why. Normally I'd blame sitting around the house and not getting enough exercise, but I took the dog on a long walk to the Heath yesterday so I should have been tired.

I could also blame rage at Trump's commutation of Roger Stone's prison sentence, but honestly, I'm more perplexed than enraged. It seems awfully risky to let your political crony out of prison just before an election. Drain the swamp, indeed! I suspect Roger Stone knows where all the skeletons are buried and Trump set him free to keep them that way.

Anyhow, back to walking the dog...

Olga tried out a new pond on the Heath, which you know made her day and of course necessitated a bath when we got home. She drank that mucky water, too. I don't know how dogs do it. They drink the grossest stuff and it never seems to bother them. (Then again, they also eat dirt.)

Have I mentioned that Francisco, her dog walker, calls her "Olgiña"? I think that's pretty cute. I've taken to calling her that too.

I found a little jay feather -- this picture is about life-sized. I hope it's a small feather from a big jay and not the other way around.

Up by Golders Green, Olga had a chance to lie in a field and contentedly chew her tennis ball. There were plenty of people out and the playground at Golders Hill Park, which has officially reopened, was packed. The net barriers have been removed from the playground equipment, the swings were back in place, and the kids were swarming like termites. I am doubtful of the wisdom of that reopening, but who knows.

In the morning I gardened a bit. The red admiral butterfly that visited us on Friday was back again, and once again, it fluttered up to me and landed on my shirt! I told Dave I felt like Snow White, with birds and small animals gathering around me. (Never mind that "small animals," in our urban environment, could possibly mean rats.) I wonder if the butterfly is attracted because my shirt is bright white, and thus stands out visually, or if it smells the laundry soap we use?

I can't believe I forgot to mention this in yesterday's post, but on Friday, Dave and I had our first restaurant meal since lockdown! We went to lunch at a little cafe on Mill Lane near our flat, and we sat outside. No one else was sitting near us, and although I had to go in to order and pay, it seemed no more risky than popping into a grocery store. (In fact, probably less -- there were far fewer people.) I had poached eggs and avocado on toast. It wasn't Jacques Pepin or Michel Roux, but it seemed special just the same.

Red Admiral and Blue Teapot

We had a visit from a red admiral butterfly yesterday -- the first one this season that's stuck around long enough for me to photograph it. I love how its rear wings, when folded, blend in so well with the buddleia. Animals are masters of disguise. (The red stripe gives it away, though!)

Here's the same butterfly on one of our white hydrangeas. As I stood on the patio photographing it, it fluttered right up to me and landed on my shirt! That's got to be good luck or something, right?

I spent yesterday cleaning up our potted plants. I pulled all the spent field poppies from the pot containing our passionflower vine, and emptied another pot that only had a handful of old poppies in it. I repotted our horseradish to give it more room to grow and hopefully return to its former glory. (It's a sad shadow of itself at the moment.) And I trimmed our scabious.

Isn't that exciting?

Here's something that is kind of exciting -- my daily trash find. This blue teapot was in a plastic bag on top of a neighbor's trash pile, which I came across while walking Olga. The rubbish men were about ten feet behind me and would have smashed it up in their truck within a few minutes, but I grabbed it and brought it home. It's in perfect condition, except for some minor staining on the inside. Why would someone throw such a thing away?

(I literally never drink tea, but that's beside the point. Dave does occasionally.)

And finally, just so I don't get chastised for leaving Olga out of my post again, here she is lying next to me at this moment, perusing The New Yorker while I type. The weather looks promising this morning so I'm hoping she and I will get out for a long walk today.

Mission for Marigolds

Before I get started on today's post, several of you mentioned the lack of masks on the people in yesterday's photo. Believe me, this is not unusual! Especially outdoors. I've seen recent articles about the percentage of people wearing masks in the UK, and it's significantly lower than in many other countries, including the USA -- something like 21 percent to the USA's 60-something percent, if I remember right. There's been an argument that the UK government needs to issue clearer recommendations on masks -- although as some of you mentioned a few days ago, Scotland is now requiring them in shops. (According to The Guardian, some men find masks un-masculine.)

But anyway, that's just an aside, because what I really wanted to write about today is...plants. Big change there!

Yesterday I took a walk to Homebase to buy some marigolds for our hanging baskets. Our violas were sagging and leggy, and badly needed replacing. (One wayward blossom found its way into the tiny puddle created by Olga's paw print in our garden stepping stones, above.)

Mission accomplished, although not without minor drama. As I stood in line at Homebase waiting to check out, the woman behind me -- yakking on her cell phone -- kept bumping the back of my legs with her shopping cart. Social distancing, people! I finally turned around a glared at her and to her credit, she apologized and backed up. I'm such a crab.

As you can see, we've had a lot of rain. Our first stargazer lily has opened -- we have a few more on the way, too, despite the best efforts of the slugs and lily beetles.

Our nicotiana, new this year, has put out its first flowers. Dave has named the plant Nicole.

Our purple lupine is at its peak, or maybe just a bit past. Those are hydrangeas behind it.

Also at Homebase, I found this plant -- a curcuma, which I'd never heard of, but I bought it anyway. Turns out it's the same type of plant that turmeric comes from -- a member of the ginger family. Pretty, isn't it?

Aside from my outing to Homebase and some minor gardening, yesterday was pretty uneventful. The mail once again failed to bring several items I ordered weeks ago from the States -- some graphic t-shirts and a mask. It's ridiculous how long international packages take to arrive. Dave's parents mailed him a birthday present in May -- you may recall his birthday was June 22 -- and that still hasn't shown up. We've basically given up on it. I'm wondering if it somehow got returned to their winter home in Florida, and maybe they just don't know because they're in Michigan now.

Dave also asked me to mention that he made a fabulous cauliflower gratin for dinner two nights ago. And it was indeed fabulous. Duly noted!

The Cookware Scare

Late yesterday morning, Dave came into the living room and proposed taking a little walk.

I said to him, "Who are you and what have you done with my husband?!"

This is a guy who's barely left the house or garden since lockdown began in March, and a guy who doesn't like "going for a walk" under even the best of circumstances. But yesterday he said, "I have to get out of here!"

So we walked up to the post office so I could mail a birthday card to my mother, and then we visited a local cookware shop. I'd bought Dave a £100 gift card from there last Christmas, and he'd barely used it. When the place closed in March and the future of retail in general looked very precarious, I was afraid we'd never get our money out of it. But the shop reopened last week. Whew!

Dave picked out some Le Creuset gratin dishes, a metal pie plate and a pie/cake server. But then the woman at the checkout counter said she couldn't read the gift card -- the store had changed computer systems (!). Fortunately Dave had a receipt in his ridiculously overstuffed wallet that showed our last purchase, and included the card balance -- about £89. And that's exactly what our stuff cost. So we called it even and left, mission accomplished.

That was a close call!

Meanwhile, my brother has given me the unwelcome news that two employees at my mom's retirement center in Florida, including one who works in her building, have tested positive for Covid-19. So they have everyone isolating, and I can't imagine how they're managing that in a memory care unit where routine is so important. I've been unable to reach my mom on the phone, and as I've written before, she has trouble communicating verbally anyway, but I think they'd tell us if any of the residents came down with anything. What a nightmare! I suppose it was inevitable, though, given the density of infections in Florida.

I'm reading poet Mark Doty's new book about Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass." I must say I've always found Whitman difficult, if not impenetrable, so I'm hoping Doty can shed some light on him. I'm particularly interested in what he has to say about perceptions that Whitman was gay and wrote on gay themes (before they were even understood as such). I'm not far into the book yet but we'll see how it goes.

(Photo: From my walk on Portobello Road a couple of weeks ago.)

Of Lilies and Koi

Our first day lily bloomed yesterday. Our poor day lilies face challenging circumstances -- they're sun-loving plants, but they grow in a part of the garden that has become heavily shaded by blackberry, climbing roses and a few other things. In the early spring they get plenty of sun but by midsummer, when they're supposed to bloom, they're practically buried in foliage. Last year, Dave transplanted some of them to a sunnier spot, and this bloom came from the transplants. The originals -- which were here when we moved in -- haven't bloomed yet. And I don't want to clear out the blackberries because I eat them!

Speaking of lilies, on June 23 I ordered a second canna lily, a variegated type with purple-and-yellow streaked leaves. It was on sale for £4.99 from a gardening website I'd never used. I waited, and waited, and finally, yesterday, it arrived:

Now, isn't that just the saddest plant you've ever seen? Here it is from another angle, after I repotted it:

Here's hoping it bounces back. I'm not impressed with the quality of the merchandise.

Some people mentioned in comments on yesterday's post that they've never been able to see the "koi pond" widget on my blog, in the sidebar on the right. Just to give you a sense of what it's supposed to look like, as well as to preserve it in my own memory -- in case it does stop working because of the abandonment of Flash technology -- I made a little video, complete with pseudo-Asian music courtesy of iMovie.

Of course this deprives you of the interactive element -- "feeding" the fish -- but you get the idea. I love how the koi hungrily follow the cursor! To give credit where credit is due, this widget was developed by a guy named Adam Bowman.

And this is one reason I love blogging -- I taught myself how to make a screencast video in Quicktime in order to make this recording. I learn so much indulging my stupid little blogging whims!

Dave and I have been watching a German show on Netflix called "Dark," half sci-fi time-travel and half murder mystery. Have any of you seen it? It's really good, but it has a cast of thousands and I have a terrible time keeping track of all the characters and their relationships. I need a flowchart! I'm also still watching "Snowpiercer," but Dave abandoned that one -- he decided he didn't like it, and I must admit the idea of a monstrous train running endlessly around a depopulated, frozen planet is a little bizarre. I mean, London trains stop running when we get a light dusting of snow, not to mention myriad other routine mechanical failures!