Written in bed, COVID shot, flowers

By Wednesday evening the COVID booster was hitting and I had to lie down before I fell down, so tired.  This blogpost is being written in bed.

Where I was Wednesday morning.

Home again I did a bit of plant moving, set up an appointment with the hand surgeon, took a walk, took more pictures of the mystery plant.

One shows buds, one blossoms 

Read, fell asleep, woke to make meals, spent time online with friends, mourned Jane Goodall, and could not go on. Energy fled. I did wave my arm about as prescribed after COVID shot.

Happy day everyone, rest when there's no choice.

All this, sez Ted and Big Ursy.

Plants, and pesky fingers, also brown rabbits

A routine doctor's appointment Tuesday afternoon wiped out my knitting group and Textiles and Tea, though it did show the value of visualizing practice.

As usual my BP was high, then on second try, sitting, a bit lower, but after lying alone a few minutes, when I took the chance to relax and visualize, it dropped clear into healthy numbers. That was a first.

Great health reports all round, and I plan to get my pesky trigger finger fixed at last. It doesn't hurt, just locks then suddenly releases, very awkward for any kind of fiber work. So I'm setting up a hand surgeon visit to see what's what.

Wednesday COVID shot, could have even got in Tuesday evening, but I wasn't up for going out again. 

Then, Gary home again, he showed me a mystery plant that took off in his front yard in his absence.

It has heart shaped leaves and a vining habit like a morning glory, but has groups of small white flowers instead of single blossoms. Does anyone know?

Then neighbor K hauled me across the street to see her marble spider in her web, huge and beautiful. There's another bigger one which doesn't come out in the daytime. She can't clear up her garden for fear of breaking the web! At least that's her story.

Then, home again, I took down the coleus which is looking a bit ragged hanging in the kitchen. It's going on the floor in the living room because it looks much better seen from above.

It needs a bit of pruning but this is better than hanging in the window. So I tried out other ideas for a hanging plant there, most of them too big, get too tangled in the hanging chains. No rush, I expect I'll end up with another philodendron.

And here's some art material drying out.  

Coffeegrounds, to be incorporated into flour and white glue modeling clay. I got this idea from Magpie's Mumblings, Mary Ann's blog and the source of tons of cool art and craft ideas. Go there!

I have to see how this handles,  then decide what to model with it. It might make beads to add to embroidery, or something, we'll see. It will probably be a rich dark color and I wonder if it will smell of coffee. Maybe I can model brown rabbits, instead of the first of the month white ones. 

I like upcycling my breakfast coffee grounds, but there's only so much ground coffee and tea leaves my small area can take. They're good for plants that like acid, but I have very few of them.  Anything's better than the landfill, though, which is quite full enough.

Happy day everyone, watch this space for hats, clay thingies, socks and whatever else happens. It's all good.  Speaking of socks, the convent community where I send the socks and gloves, has acquired a new puppy, Peach! The previous dog died, very old, a few months ago, and the sisters mourned her then urgently needed a new pup.

Here she is, a rescued and upcycled Puerto Rican street dog, who clearly made it big in the world, with an entire community to play with. 

Name this flower

 Is this flax? About 18" tall, narrow leaves, five petals in clusters.

This is what happens when you strew wildflower mixed seeds and get results you like and can't identify.

I spent a quiet afternoon on the deck, reading and trying to identify little blue flowers and watching a cardinal and a house finch bobbing about the butterfly bushes. There were silver spot butterflies and those tiny brown ones, blue dragonflies and bees of all nations, right overhead. 

If you sit quietly a while, you get to see a lot of wildlife, who seem to think this unmoving human is maybe like patio furniture, not threatening.

One time a wild rabbit came and sat close for about an hour. Female solidarity.

I recently experienced the equal and opposite of postponing a job forever then it takes two minutes. I was reading my Barbara Pym, when I suddenly thought I'm going to mop out the cabinet where the garbage and recycle goes. 

It's under the knife drawer, never gets noticed, nor thought about. About five minutes later I was back in my book, cabinet mopped, dried, even the insides of the doors, and wondering how that happened, what suddenly overcame me? I hadn't even thought about cleaning it.  It looks light years better now.

Thursday's supper was diced yellow potatoes, microwaved then roasted with cheddar cheese, chili oil generously sprinkled. No pictures, not photogenic, but whoa Nelly, was that good. Hot but great flavor, cheese  all crackly, definitely going to do that again. That long red pepper flavor in the chili oil is just the best. Chili oil is really worth the trouble of making it. 

I made it to Friday knitting group, and we were pretty colorful 

Chat ranged over destination weddings, bridezillas, crocheting large sweaters for large fiances, sense of direction, scanners, medical websites, HOAs, weather, Chinese husbands, comp time, eyeglasses for Haiti and more.

Happy Friday everyone, enjoy the weekend

 

Why Going to Seed is Not Always a Bad Thing at all

I've never understood the hysteria about not letting plants go to seed.  Aside from seed savers, who love it, there's a great emphasis on keeping plants picked, pruned, and generally nagged, so to avoid the dreaded going to seed.  But if you take your harvest and let the rest of your herbs go to seed, you get some lovely sights.

Here's the buds on a ruby lettuce, ready to open and show me what color the flower is.  

And the oregano makes an interesting flower.  

And the peppermint.  

And then this little flower suddenly appeared this week among the blanketflower, and if any blogista can identify her, I'd be pleased.   It's a delicate pink which washed out to white in the pic.