Flower Report

Spring is such a lovely time of year.  I love daffodils, tulips, and hyacinths.   The tulips don't last very long (in terms of years) even when planted in wire cages to keep the voles away from the bulbs.  But they vary in lifetime.  I have some 10 yer old red tulips.  The fancy ones die young.

And once, I planted some yellow tulips among the yellow daffodils.  What was I thinking?  They showed up like ice cubes on snow.  LOL!

The hyacinths live longer, but they need cages from the voles too.  Tulips and hyacinths are vole-candy!  But the daffs are slightly toxic and seem to live forever.  I recall driving past a Washington DC hillside where Lady Bird Johnson had them planted in the 60s.  40 yers later, they were still growing and blooming wild.

So I love daffodils...

I planted a front yard box of a mix of early and late varieties 30 years ago.  They are still growing great!  Here are the late ones (and they are fragrant, which is unusual for a daffodil).

Some of the surviving red tulips...

In the daffodil bed, I planted a few caged tulips, 9 each cage.  Some still last.

But what happened here?  I don't recall planting any mixed colors in a cage.  And I'm pretty sure they don't change colors!  

My guess is squirrels.  I've read that sometimes squirrels dig up bulbs (thinking they are nuts they buried) and replant them elsewhere.  That doesn't really explain why "all in the same spot", but who knows how a squirrel thinks?  I do know that there are crocuses in my lawn where I never planted them.

But I enjoy whatever Spring flowers I get...

And speaking of flowers...  The pansies I planted last Fall had a hard time of it over Winter.  I thought none would ever bloom!  But about half of them are perking up now, so I will enjoy what I can of them before Summer heat kills them off.  

Years ago, I put in a flowerbed edging of "species" (old simple ones) daffodils and purple&yellow crocuses.  The voles ate the crocus bulbs (mostly), but the daffodis remain.

They looked like this, back then...

This last is the cat memorial garden.  I took the boxes off (don't worry, I know where each one goes) and covered the area in cardboard last Fall.  By Summer, all the weeds should be dead.  

And then I'll put down weed-blocker fabric so the kitty-angels won't be insulted with weeds.  OK, OK, I know they don't actually care.  But it matters to me.  I look at the spot often enough.  And they were my daily companions...

Pet Loss

 What do you do when a pet dies?  I bury them 2' deep and build a box to mark the spot.  I get brass letters to screw on and a cat statue to attach to the top.  The area behind a 5' pond is the cat memorial place.

When I started that, I did not really think of the future.  I didn't think much beyond Skeeter and LC.  But then there was Iza by surprize.  And then Laz and Ayla.  I can build boxes to put the names on, but I can't find the same kind of brown 12" statues anymore.  I guess they went out of style.

I may have to buy a dozen ceramic ones all of a similar kind and put the brown resin ones on a bookshelf.  Why?  Because I want them to all feel equal.  I know that may sound silly, but it bothers me to picture the memorial boxes seeming to show some preference among them.  They were all cherished.

I wish I could find more of these...

Stuff

 Random and varied...

1.  I would like to go to bed, but I don't feel like I can sleep.  Yet I have to get up in 6 hours to call the vet about one of my cats (Lori) who is having bouts of diarrhea.

The 2 new ones I adopted in late November (Loki and Binq) came with some difficulties.  Loki had a head infection, eye goop, and lack of appetite.  That's all cured.  Binq was very claw-grabby and finger-bitey but with some steady and gentle discouragement (and me wearing heavy jeans), she is getting over that.

2.  I finally buried Laz last week.  He was bagged in the basement freezer for 45 days.  I just kept putting it off.  I have a dedicated Memorial Garden for past cats.  But the soil is very hard 6" deep and I go for 2'.  Took 2 days, and I have bad knees, which makes pounding on a shovel and jamming a breaker bar miserable.  But he is part of "The Remembered" now.  I miss his good days as BFF with Lori so much.  But that ended as he slowly went crazy.

I still have to build the aboveground marker boxes for Laz and pre-deceased Ayla now.  Like these...

Angled fronts for brass letters of the names and a brown resin statue on the top.  Those simple brown resin statues are getting harder to find.  Best I could find for Ayla and Laz are...

Not what I really wanted, but they will have to do.  

3.  I feel like visiting some obnoxious discussion forum (that I disagree with entirely) but I won't.  I don't live to annoy others.  

4.  Turned off the Holiday lights last nights.  This year, I may actually remove them.  I have some ideas of different ways of using lights in the yard next year.  The lights have been up since 2020, (only lit for the holidays of course).  Time to change things next holiday.  I'm thinking an artificial tree on the lawn with blue lights.

5.  With all the rain lately (so soft soil), I decided to pull the birdfeeder pole more upright (it was leaning slightly).  So I tied ropes around the feeder pole and 2 trees.  By Spring, it should be fairly well set in place.  There is a lot of clay at the bottom, and that 2' deep, it tends to keep things in place.

6.  Need to do the same with the post the hose reel sits on.  When I first set it up 10 years ago, it was upright.  But pulling on the reel pulled it forward a bit.  It still works, but the angled post annoys me.  If I rope it straight up over Winter and Spring, it may lock in place horizontally.  

If not, I will wiggle it around until I can pull it out and than enlarge the hole to set in in concrete with some rebars pounded in at angles to really hold it in place.

7.  Replanting all the lettuce trays.  When a hard frost threatened back in early December, I brought them all in.  But didn't put them under lights.  Most died.  I have to start again.  

8.  But that means a lot of cleaning in the basement.  So that is the primary task tomorrow.

9.  So many things I need to do around the house.  And most of them I can't do myself.  So I have a list of contractor projects.  Windows, doors, linoleum flooring in the computer and cat rooms, new appliances, new water heater, get the emergency electric generator hooked up, change the decrepit asphalt driveway replaced with concrete.  Well that's what money is for.

10.  Get the computer cleaned up.  Get the laser color printer printing in color again.  Get the laptop working.  Learn to use my smartphone.

That's enough problems for a year.

The Mews Picture List And Memories

I keep a list of pictures to use (and "usually" cross them off so I on't use them again soon).  My 1st column lists the cats involved. Sometimes, it is "all".  Sometimes it is just a few specific ones.  

Today I realized I was still writing L-L-M (Lori, Laz, Marley) as if Ayla was still here.  I changed L-L-M to "all".  Habits are hard to break sometimes and painful.  

Ayla is in a plastic bag in the basement freezer.  I need to build a new box for her.  I delayed because I could find a resin cat-figurine to match Skeeter, LC, and Iza's.  I had to choose a wood one.  I'll soak it in marine varnish, I suppose, to make it last outdoors.  

I was ready to make a new box for her burial site, but it was raining.  I need to remove weeds from the site and my little electric tiller doesn't deal with wet soil well.  And I need to move stuff around in the basement to build a new box.

So it will be a few days before she gets buried around the Memorial Pond with Skeeter/LC/Iza.  Well, at least this time, the soil won't be frozen.   Iza is between them now, but I can't find the picture...

Found it..

I need to take a box inside to copy it.  It will be a sad construction to build, but a good remembrance for all my remaining years.  Maybe I should make 4 and set the others aside so I don't have to do it again.  It hurts to make these Memorial Boxes...  Or maybe not.  Maybe that's the point of making them each time.  Each one is a specific object of love and missing one.

*sigh*