Jackhammer Summer

Another day in the garden. This hoverfly landed to rest on some crocosmia buds...

...and one of our gazanias offered up a big, beautiful blossom.

It was kind of noisy around here yesterday. There's some utility work going on (again) on the streets surrounding our flat -- something about installing fiber-optic broadband -- so there are jackhammers and all manner of groaning equipment rumbling around.

Dave and I always joke that whenever we try to have a quiet moment in the garden, something disrupts it -- Mrs. Kravitz's gardeners begin mowing her lawn, or the gardeners for the neighbor on the other side bring out the hedge trimmers, or a police helicopter starts circling overhead, or someone fixing up a nearby apartment starts running a power saw. (All of this has happened within the last few days.) Evidence that although we have a fairly bucolic back garden, we do in fact live in a big city.

I was telling Dave yesterday that I haven't seen many butterflies this summer -- only cabbage whites and, as I recall, one peacock and one common blue. I wondered if the dramatic weather about ten days ago, when I was in Florida but there was flash flooding in London, affected them. Not long after I said it, we saw a red admiral flutter past, so maybe they're around after all. (We're supposed to have more dramatic rain this weekend. Fortunately, Dave and I live on a hill.)

When I walked Olga yesterday morning we came across this guy, who owns a garage up the street. Evidently he's trying to remove the "No Parking" sign from the pavement, and rather than paint over it, he's trying to hammer it off. That seems like a lot of work, not to mention potentially damaging to the pavement. Does this mean he's going to let people park there now?

The NHS only called me once yesterday!

Cornflower and Inula

Holy cow, did I sleep well. I just got up about half an hour ago and I'm still kind of dazed. I must be catching up after all my traveling and jet lag. Despite the fact that we have no air conditioning and the daytime temperatures have been pretty warm, at night they're almost perfect, especially when accompanied by the soft white noise of the whirring fan.

More flowers today, because that's basically my ENTIRE LIFE at the moment. Our first cornflower opened (above)....

...as did our first inula.

Our upstairs neighbors, the Russians, have been wrestling with getting a small leak in the roof repaired. You may remember that they hired one team of roofers who did some shoddy work and abandoned a ladder. Well, yesterday another couple of guys came, and they tried to use the abandoned ladder to reach the roof -- and finding that it was too short, they simply left again. They were here for ten minutes, tops.

No word on whether they're returning or whether they have their own ladder (one would think), but we're told they may need to erect another scaffold. Argh!

Dave, meanwhile, is preparing for a journey of his own. He's leaving Monday for a teaching conference in Texas, a visit with his family in Michigan and Drum Corps finals in Indianapolis. He'll be gone three weeks, right up until the start of the new school year in mid-August. I think he has mixed feelings about traveling now, given the high Covid infection rates both here and in the USA, but as I've told him, we have to live our lives. And he is vaccinated, so even if he catches Covid, God forbid, he shouldn't be severely affected.

It makes me nervous even to say that, but we can't hide out forever. Right?

Day Lilies and White Privilege

I finally caught one of our day lilies in bloom. They're buried so deep in the underbrush of our garden that they're almost impossible to see. This clump by the bird bath gets the most light and I believe it's the only one that has a flower. One of the many tasks on my someday-I'll-get-to-it list is to liberate our day lilies from the twilight darkness in which most of them live, either by moving them or pruning the plants around them.

I showed you the bud of our pink dahlia a few days ago -- here it is in full flower.

I had a relatively low-key day yesterday. I got two calls from the NHS wanting to know the results of my Day 2 post-travel Covid test. Unfortunately those results didn't come until 1:30 this morning (negative), so no doubt they'll be calling again today to follow up. I honestly don't mean to complain about this NHS contact, because I understand the need for it, but I wonder why they call me so often. Wouldn't once a day, or once every two days, be sufficient?

Then again, the NHS is the only excitement I get at the moment.

I'm reading an interesting book called "Life of a Klansman: A Family History in White Supremacy," by Edward Ball. It traces the life of the author's ancestors -- one in particular -- in 19th century Louisiana, bringing to life the racism and violence of the Civil War and Reconstruction eras. I've found it quite illuminating, and also painful -- I come mostly from Southern ancestors myself, and it's not difficult to imagine them holding similar attitudes to Ball's. I have never heard, though, that my relatives joined the Ku Klux Klan, as Ball's did -- and I'm still unclear on the extent to which my family owned slaves. They were farmers, and somewhat prosperous, but they weren't wealthy.

One thing I like about the book, though, is its insistence that we consider the effects of our racist past on the structure of our current society. While I was in Florida I had a discussion/argument with my brother-in-law about white privilege, and how I understand that although I personally try to hold racially progressive views, I have benefitted from wealth and opportunities accrued by my ancestors through the labor and oppression of black workers. And I recognize that while I can link no specific incidents to my family, anti-black violence is part of my heritage.

For example, Ball relates the story of a brutal attack by white supremacists, including his great-great grandfather Constant, on a political gathering at Mechanics Hall in New Orleans in 1866:

It is not a distortion to say that Constant’s rampage 150 years ago helps, in some impossible-to-measure way, to clear space for the authority and comfort of whites living now — not just for me and for his fifty or sixty descendants, but for whites in general. I feel shame about it. That is not a distortion, either. I am an heir to Constant’s acts of terror. I do not deny it, and the bitter truth makes me sick at the stomach.

Whites are my people, my tribe. They were Constant’s people, his tribe. In that way he belongs to us, and to hundreds of millions. I know the honest way to regard race violence is this: American history is full of it. It is pandemic. The United States was founded upon racial violence. It is within the core of our national identity.

Here is a way not to see these events: The marauders like Constant are immoral, abject and bad people. They are not like us, they belong to someone else. 

It is truer to say this: the marauders are our people, and they fight for us.

I think that pretty succinctly summarizes the concept of white privilege. I would add -- not to deny but to more broadly acknowledge that privilege -- that while the American South elevated racial violence to extreme levels, we are hardly the only country or society to oppress, or benefit from that oppression.

It's also interesting how little I know about some of these events. I know Reconstruction was a violent period, but I don't ever remember hearing about the Mechanics Hall riots, in which hundreds of people were killed, wounded and arrested (mostly black, many of them attacked simply because they happened to be on the street at that time). It makes me realize the blind spots in my own knowledge. Was I just not paying attention in history class, or did we not talk in detail about episodes like this?

Anyway, it's a thought-provoking book.

Here's one more garden picture. Our wildflower seedlings, which I planted several weeks ago, have finally grown to a respectable size, and some of them are about to bloom. It looks like a few blue cornflowers made it after all!

Lilies, Foxgloves and Datura

We have a couple of blooming stargazer lilies in the flower bed near the back door. Getting a photo of them is always tricky because they point downward, and they're in a relatively inaccessible place, being surrounded by densely planted foliage. But they're having a good year.

I spent quite a bit of time in the garden yesterday -- not surprising since I can't leave the property. I finally repotted and planted out some of our foxglove seedlings:

I put seven of them straight into the ground, and another six into bigger pots. I have several trays still to deal with. I hope I can give some of them away at work. Foxglove overload!

The teasels should be blooming very soon. Those spiky seed heads will be surrounded by a ring of purple (or white) flowers.

And here's our jimsonweed, blooming away. It has several more buds and already there's a spiny seed head in the middle of the plant (jimsonweed or datura is also known as "thorn apple," apparently).

I got called by the NHS twice yesterday. I missed their first call while digging in the garden but picked up on the second, and a guy ran through essentially the same script the other three had used the day before: Am I isolating at home, did I take my Day 2 test, etc. Am I going to get multiple calls per day?!

Keeping to Myself

On my walk back from the tube on Friday morning, I noticed that the former Nam's Heel Bar now features some new street art, courtesy of artist Nathan Bowen. I wanted to go back and shoot it in full sun, but since I'm isolating, this will have to do.

Yesterday I got called three times by people from the NHS following up on my after-flight procedures -- making sure I isolate and take my Day 2 test, for example. They all followed the same script. Why I got three calls is anyone's guess. I suppose being thorough is better than being lackadaisical.

I was under the impression that my isolation might end early because, as of today, British residents traveling from amber-list countries (like the United States) don't have to isolate at all. But no! The NHS folks tell me that because I entered the country before the new rules took effect this morning, I have to isolate the full ten days. I asked them how that could possibly be true, what scientific justification might exist for such a policy, and they couldn't tell me. We are not amused.

Nonetheless, I took my Day 2 test yesterday like a good little peasant, and Dave will mail it off for me today.

I suppose I shouldn't be too resentful -- England has good reason to be cautious, given that case numbers are exploding here and I was traveling through Florida, which is having a Covid burst of its own. And yet, the UK is opening up more as of today. Inconsistent, you say?

OK, I'll stop being grumpy.

This is how I spent yesterday, lying in the garden and reading next to Olga. Temperatures were projected to hit almost 90º F (32º C) but although it felt warm, it didn't feel oppressively hot like Florida did. I could stand to be outside without suffering.

I got some little tasks done in the garden -- there's always more to do -- and I put out our old, rusty barbecue grill and old vacuum cleaners for collection by the council, as arranged before I left. They're still sitting in front of the house, last I checked, but they should vanish any time.

Oh, and I almost neglected to recognize a major anniversary for me and Dave. Ten years ago on July 14, we first arrived in London, lugging five large suitcases and intent on making new lives. Who could have foreseen all that would follow? My library job, Olga, walks on Hampstead Heath, our garden, travel to places as diverse as China and the Seychelles, Covid -- ten years ago seems like a long time.

Dahlias

Our dahlias are hitting their stride. The Bishop's Children variety is blooming like crazy, and the plants are bushy and healthy with their coppery leaves. A hoverfly is lingering on this particular blossom.

Our red dahlia, a variety known as Gallery Valentin, is also looking good.

Our pink one, though, is getting off to a slow start. The plant, which I bought just last year, was small for most of the spring and it's finally put out a few buds, but it's not exactly vigorous. Maybe some dahlias come through winter storage better than others?

Not much happened yesterday. I am, of course, still in quarantine, so it was mostly a matter of pottering around the garden and doing housework. I cleaned out the refrigerator at lunchtime -- Dave had several science experiments going in my absence.

I realized I have to take my Day 2 Covid test today -- the day I arrived is day zero, according to the testing company -- and I was concerned yesterday morning because I didn't have it yet! The company hadn't mailed me a test. I checked their communication and they said it would be dispatched for arrival on Day 2, which seemed to me to be cutting it close. So I e-mailed them just to be sure, and they said it was in fact out for delivery -- and sure enough it showed up at the door a couple of hours later. Even though it's a PCR, it's a nose-and-throat swab just like the rapid antigen tests I usually take. So I'll get that done today and mailed off tomorrow.

I had a terrible time sleeping last night. I couldn't go to sleep until 1:30 a.m. (which is 8:30 p.m. Florida time) and the dog had me up at 5:30 this morning. I am going to be like the walking dead until this jet lag passes.

Semi-Famous

This is the scene that greeted me when I returned home yesterday and looked out the back door. Crazy, right? A wall of green! I don't remember the garden ever looking so dense and lush. We can barely even see the buildings around us.

The teasels, in the center of the frame just behind the barely-visible birdbath, are huge. They must be ten feet high and they have at least a dozen flower heads apiece. Allowing those to grow -- they appeared on their own, from seed -- has really created a showstopper.

Here's the scene from another angle -- the back of the garden looking toward the house, along what is normally a narrow path between two flower beds. As you can see, the plants have encroached on the path to such a degree that Dave didn't even try to mow it the last time he mowed the lawn. There's red persicaria to the left, a large burdock to the right and beyond that, another teasel.

Olga is so happy to lie in the sun. I love how she's perfectly using the leaves to shield her eyes.

I've been calling this lamb's ear (above) but apparently it's actually a species of Verbascum, commonly known as great mullein or Aaron's rod. It grew wild, with no encouragement from us, and sent up a big flower spike. Now it's blooming yellow. 

Our jimsonweed, or datura, is blooming too. Even though it's in a pot and sitting up on a table, something's eating the leaves -- but it's a tough plant so it will be fine. Out of that entire packet of jimsonweed seeds I bought, we got only one plant. The others never sprouted.

On the front porch, the snapdragons are doing their thing.

As long as we're talking about the garden, I have some exciting news. I've mentioned the weekly BBC show "Gardener's World" here on the blog many times. Dave and I love it and have been loyal viewers for years. Last year -- in order to develop content during the lockdown -- the producers invited viewers to make videos of their own gardens and submit them to the show, and this year they've continued that feature. Each episode normally features two or three viewer videos.

Well, just before I left for Florida, Dave and I pulled together a video of our garden and sent it in, talking about how we've allowed many so-called "weeds" to grow and had some luck creating wildlife and insect habitat. The BBC asked for additional footage, which Dave shot while I was away, and now they've slated us to appear on a future "Gardener's World" episode -- number 19, to be specific. Woo hoo!

Nothing is final yet -- I get the sense that this could all change at any minute -- but apparently they've re-edited our video which is a good sign.

Dave is going to be in the states when that show airs in a couple of weeks, so I hope he'll have access there. We'll let our friends know closer to the date -- you're getting the news before anyone else. And yes, Olga is in the video too.

Can you believe it -- our garden, on television?!